Without Reservations (40 page)

Across the room I saw Jack and Mrs. Spenser standing before a large painting, engaged in animated conversation. They seemed to have forgotten me. Which was fine. I liked wandering about on my own.

I was about to take a stroll outside when I came across an out-of-the-way alcove. Looking in, I saw it was empty except for a trompe l’oeil of an elegant room as seen through a glass door. I stepped in and walked over to the painted door, which this time turned out to be the real thing: a real door leading into a real room.
Reverting to my reporter’s habits, I tried to open the door. It was locked.

I peered through the glass. Inside was an elegant, comfortable room, furnished with large, soft chairs and antique rugs. Glass vases filled with flowers and silver-framed photographs sat on top of gleaming wooden tables. A soft light fell from tall floor lamps, revealing an upturned book left behind on the arm of a chair. Beyond the room was a hallway; I could see umbrellas protruding from a stand carved in the shape of an exotic bird.

I decided I liked the people who lived here. The Bolpe-Vuschetti or Volpe-Buschetti—or whoever they were—seemed to have made a home out of what easily could have become a museum. Signs of real life were everywhere: in the books and flowers and pictures and umbrellas and lamps that someone forgot to turn off.

As I was thinking this, a woman appeared in the hallway beyond the glass door. She seemed to see me. Embarrassed, I turned and quickly retreated to one of the public rooms. Then, after checking to see that Jack and Mrs. Spenser hadn’t left, I turned in my felt scuffs and went outside to take a walk.

I stood on the front veranda and looked down the long formal walkway and across the Veneto plains that ran off into the distance.
How beautiful this is
, I thought.
This view, this house, the ravishing frescoes inside.

But a part of me already knew that my most vivid memory of Villa Barbaro would not be the vanishing perspective of the Veneto plains or the trompe l’oeil or any other “trick of the eye.” No, what I would remember most would be the sight of that one private room so redolent with real life.

The rain started to fall just as we began the drive back to Asolo. Jack and Mrs. Spenser were eager to exchange views of the villa.

“Well, I’ve not seen its likes before,” Mrs. Spenser said. “It certainly was a treat, wasn’t it?”

“You really have to return again and again to a place like this to fully appreciate it,” Jack said. “What did you think of the Veronese?”

“Splendid, simply splendid,” Mrs. Spenser said.

It seemed to be my turn, so I said, “I was surprised to see how witty Veronese was. His work seemed more contemporary than I expected.”

“Well, yes, in a way, I suppose you could say that,” Jack said. I could see that Jack didn’t agree but was too gallant to say so.

I changed the subject, asking them where they were off to next.

“To Montreux. To a spa near there to rest and relax,” Mrs. Spenser said. “And you? Are you off to someplace interesting?”

“Yes. I’m going home.”

When I arrived at the Venice airport the next day I learned my flight was delayed by two hours. It annoyed me, this glitch in the schedule. But it annoyed me more that such a minor event had the ability to annoy me. Where was all that laid-back mellow outlook I thought I’d cultivated during my travels?

I bought a newspaper, thinking it would take my mind off the delayed plane. Instead I found myself wondering what was going to happen when I returned to my job at the newspaper. Did I still have the skills to report a story or write a column? Or had I lost my edge, maybe even my drive, when it came to newspaper work?

Don’t do this to yourself
, I thought.
Don’t spend your last minutes in Italy worrying about the future.

So I did what I’d done so many times while traveling: I spent a few minutes with Freya. I leafed to a passage that had to do with reaching one’s destination. She wrote it from Persia:

“This is a great moment, when you see, however distant, the goal of your wandering. The thing which has been living in your imagination suddenly becomes a part of the tangible world. It matters not how many ranges, rivers or parching dusty ways may lie between you; it is yours now for ever.”

It occurred to me that nowadays there was no such place as Persia; it had become a country named Iran. But whatever its name, Freya at least had a moment in which she reached a tangible destination and made it hers. Forever.

I had no such tangible destination. There was no goal to my wandering and nothing that I could claim as mine forever. But Freya’s words still spoke to me.

There was an hour left before departure. I stepped outside, onto the pier where travelers to and from Venice catch water taxis to the city. I walked to the spot where Naohiro and I had last stood together. As I watched the boats arrive and depart with their cargo of passengers and luggage, rain began to fall. The raindrops bounced lightly off the water between the boats.

In the distance a mist was gathering. Slowly the white vapor moved like a ghostly presence toward the pier, enveloping everything but the tethered boats bobbing up and down. I stood at the pier and watched a departing vaporetto penetrate the misty curtain and then disappear.

This is mine
, I thought suddenly.
This is what I will have forever. The memory of this moment, of rain falling on Venice.

I began to imagine other rains that would be mine forever. I saw
the rain streaming down the Spanish Steps. Blowing beneath the awning of a café in Paris. Sweeping through the piazza in Siena. Splashing against the shop windows along Sloane Street.

I glanced at my watch. It was time to go. I took one last look in the direction of fog-shrouded Venice and then hurried inside to catch my plane.

The photographs in the book are reproduced courtesy of those listed below.

Would you describe your book as a travel book or a memoir? Or both?

I would describe
Without Reservations
as a combination of both, a sort of travel memoir, if you will. But I really think of it this way: It’s the true story of a woman who decides to take a break from the routines of her daily life in order to see more clearly who she is when separated from all the labels—mother, journalist, ex-wife, single woman—that have come to define her. And she decides to do it by traveling alone in foreign countries, where, operating as an independent woman, she might learn something about who she has become over the last thirty years. That woman, of course, is me.

What were you hoping to learn from such an undertaking?

I think it was more that I was hoping to relearn certain things that were a part of me when I was younger. I wanted to relearn how to be spontaneous, to have more fun, to live in the moment, and to take chances. It’s easy to lose this sense of yourself as you become more obligated to family, work, and the demands of routines and responsibilities.

And were you successful in achieving these goals?

Yes, I was. Traveling—particularly traveling alone—forces you to be spontaneous and take chances. If you don’t, you’ll be lonely and
bored. But I think the most valuable lesson I learned during my travels was this: Once all the old baggage and labels were discarded, I was able to respond more honestly to the world around me. It’s a rare person, I think, who knows what really pleases her in life and what does not. But traveling alone—if you’re willing to be open—can teach you what is essential to your true nature. Sometimes, you are surprised to find out what interests you. Who would have guessed, for instance, that I should find the architectural history of the Paris métro stops so fascinating? It’s become an ongoing interest of mine.

Did you ever get homesick or lonely?

Absolutely. Once, while walking alone on a cold, foggy night along a narrow street in Oxford, England, the sight of a woman’s ginger-colored cat greeting her at the front door—I’m a cat lover and had two of my own at the time—made me dissolve into tears. But I felt many things during my travels: challenged, homesick, exhilarated, lonely, happy, uncertain, self-confident. And I learned it’s quite natural to feel all those things; I just gave myself permission to have a bad day now and then, knowing it would pass. Not a bad lesson to bring home from such a trip!

Do you have any strategies for combating loneliness? How did you handle eating alone in restaurants, for instance?

Eating alone in restaurants, particularly at dinnertime, is one of the universal problems for the solo traveler. Breakfast and lunch are no problem. I usually take breakfast at the hotel where I’m staying—I hate starting the day by searching for a place to eat—and find it relaxing to have a leisurely breakfast at the hotel. It’s also a good time to meet other hotel guests, who are often more relaxed at that time
of day. Unless I have plans to meet someone for dinner, I usually make lunch my main meal of the day. This is the time to try the restaurant you’ve heard about but don’t feel comfortable going to in the evening and asking for a “table for one.” Lunch at a fine restaurant is cheaper, for one thing; the same dinner at the same restaurant would cost twice as much. Often, after such a lunch I don’t really need to eat a large meal at dinnertime. A salad and yogurt from the market—eaten in my room—is quite enough.

But there are also places where a woman alone can feel comfortable for lunch or dinner. Museums frequently have cafés or full-service restaurants; many are open at night. One of the most important decisions for me when planning a trip is to pick my hotel carefully. I try to find one located in a lively, friendly neighborhood, one that has cafés and food markets, sandwich shops and small family-run restaurants. I’m willing to spend a little more on such a hotel; it can make all the difference in the world to a solo traveler to feel at home in the neighborhood. In Paris, for instance, there are several small hotels on the Left Bank near St. Germain-des-Prés that have become my home-away-from-home.