Having recently purchased a well-loved Subaru in Italy, Dalia planned a surprise Saturday jaunt into the countryside. In the era of driving exclusively by google map directions, the surprise wasn’t the easiest to keep but I had no idea until we were only a few kilometres away from Castel Gondolfo, a quaint hillside town some 30mins outside of Rome where the Pope has a summer palace with surrounding gardens.
Still relatively quiet in terms of tourists, we casually strolled the sprawling and beautiful outdoor gardens, snapping pics and soaking up the serenity.
With appetites whetted by the walking and sunshine, we sat down for an outdoor meal before heading into the Papal Palace and again marvelled at the beauty, simplicity, views and peacefulness of the grounds.
We chalked up our first quick weekend drive as a success and considered how many other fun and not too far away adventures might be in our future. Perhaps even a return to Gondolfo. Definitely a site worth seeing and an afternoon well-spent.
This weekend marks our fourth wedding anniversary and notably the first as parents. In celebration, we had booked three nights at an agriturismo (hotel/farm) castle, with swimming pool, outside of Florence and then one night in the heart of Firenze. A nod to the four years ago visit we enjoyed during our monthlong honeymoon it Italy. I envisioned a relaxing day spent splashing around the pool, picking up my pen while Aleksander napped and reflecting on life as a married couple after a first child arrives. It’s a topic that Dalia and I have been discussing and dissecting quite a bit in the weeks leading up to our anniversary. And one that we both felt had not been shared with us by almost anyone, as first time parents, neither by personal acquaintances nor public figures.
Alas, after finishing work on Friday, we loaded up our recently purchased and serviced Subaru Outback and headed onto the A1 highway for a couple hundred beautiful Tuscan kilometres to Florence. If the foreshadowing hasn’t yet become apparent, our fairytale weekend didn’t get very far down the road. Little more than 30 minutes outside of Rome, the dashboard temperature indicator turned red, soon followed by a mysterious liquid explosion under the hood, then the three of us on the side of the 100 degree hot highway waiting for a two.
Two very friendly, helpful and modestly bilingual Italian service people showed up within half-an-hour and took us through the charming town of Orte, letting us know that our weekend plans would be heading in reverse, back to Rome via the train station. Update about the car to follow next week.
It was one of the most clear and salient ‘dad in the world’ moments I’ve had since being in Italy and somehow fit perfectly into the theme we had been reflecting on: living the unexpected hour to hour, day to day – every hour, every day.
Since about 24 hours before Aleksander was born, Dalia and I started the race of keeping him well, fed, thriving, comfortable, dry, clean, happy, rested, safe, loved, dressed, calm and secure. We didn’t exactly know we were starting such a race as first time parents but now, almost nine months later, there haven’t proven to be many breaks from it. Add in work for me, plus a pandemic, plus a move to a foreign country and it can, at times, feel like a triathlon that you were dropped into when you were just casually on the way for your morning coffee.
In comparison, our courtship and three some years of marriage were a stroll. Not always along the beach, but at least in the woods, or alongside a canal, or in the worst case, a partially shovelled sidewalk. We were fortunate in that way. People talked about the challenges of marriage, especially in the first year, and we’d usually share a glance and really not understand what they mean.
Well that stroll into triathlon nano-moment-transition has often left us out of breath, occasionally out of sync and rarely, out of it all. Nothing is as it was. And we’re constantly trying to navigate the new hyphenated reality of married couple-parents.
Weekends like this one we had planned allow us to momentarily take our feet off the gas, assumer a more leisurely pace and re-connect as a trio. Hence, the extra sourness of possibly having bought a silver Subaru lemon.
Just this past week, I began twice weekly Italian classes (nice thing), continued to study French grammar after Aleksander falls asleep (necessary for work thing), got an Italian text message saying that neither our cable or internet bills had been paid (baffling thing), tried unsuccessfully for hours to contact someone at my online-only European bank (infuriating thing) and kept the marriage-baby-work train on the rails (triathlon thing).
Then the newly purchased and recently serviced car goes bust. The dad-in-the-world highs are absolutely phenomenal but it’s not always only gelato, castles and sunsets on aquamarine seas.
After almost three months in Italy and more than three years since a proper beach-bum vacation, we organized ourselves for a one-week stay on the beautiful and nearby island of Sardinia.
It had been so long since we took a vacation and with the pandemic still ongoing and now a baby in tow, our planning skills had become quite rusty. Based on a few recommendations from locals and after reviewing a handful of blogs, we decided to stick to the south coast of Sardinia, an island with over 2000 kms of coastline and seemingly endless options for beautiful silky beaches and turquoise waves.
We started our 8 night trip flying into Cagliari, the largest city on the south coast of Sardinia. The flight was less than an hour from Rome and again, thankfully, Aleksander managed the metro, train and plane ride with little fuss.
Our first accommodation was modest but located just steps away from the 6km long Poetto beach in Cagliari, a perfect jumping off spot to get our tans from zero to light lobster level.
We spent a glorious first day at the Lido Beach Club in Cagliari, alternating Aleksander between the cool sea water and shady umbrella and beach chairs. The heat was intense and much more than anything we had experienced since visiting Greece in 2018 so our complexions paid a bit of a price but there’s nothing like just going for it!
Our second day in Cagliari we spent walking around the city. Most people had undersold it as a destination in and of itself but we found it very charming, historic and peacefully empty. We happened upon an amazing lunch just below the famous 13th century Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta e Santa Cecilia and casually strolled the city streets, gelato in hand.
From Cagliari, we really engaged the full beachness of a Sardinian escape by heading to Villasimius, a typical vacation town on the south-east corner of the island. Here we found an abundance of beaches to choose from, the early signs of other European travellers returning and the kind of seafood you write home about. If we did another trip to Sardinia, I think I’d be keen on making Villasimius our headquarters for longer than just a few days. It’s the perfect place from which to comfortably explore the many amazing things this part of Sardinia has to offer.
Our final two days were spent back on the other side of Cagliari, in a fancier hotel near the town of Santa Margherita di Pula. The roasting weather finally let up, giving us some time to relax from dedicated beaching but still enjoy the fabulous infinity pool at the Hotel Costa dei Fiori and wonderful breakfasts and dinners.
We strolled the grounds, took loads of pictures of bushes in full beautiful bloom and took advantage of our comfortable room and bed for some final rest before returning to the outside world.
Overall, our trip to Sardinia was as much as we could have hoped for. Restful, beautiful, satisfying. We didn’t really know how much we needed a vacation (says everyone on Earth these days…) but we flew back to Rome grateful, re-energized and excited for our first summer in the Italian capital, with an eye already towards our next vacation – Sicily in September!
Dad In The World 