Nate and Alyssa Wedding in Italy, 2024.  John Mark, Carol Reckamp.

Our Story (Pictures Below!)

Carol and John go to Italy August 2024

 1^st Day

Our friend Nate Maruso met the women of his dreams and has been dating her for more than 8 years.  Their wedding was to be in Italy and I have been wanting to visit Italy for decades – so we knew this trip was meant to be.  Then I quit working, which allowed us to plan for 12 days!  We wanted to go to 11 cities (Rome, Venice, Florence, Milan, Pompeii, Verona, Naples, Tuscany, Como, Genoa, Turin, and Catania) and it would have taken three months – so we had to whittle down and our plan was 3 days in Milan, 3 days in Sirmione (the wedding destination and similar to Como), 2 days in Verona, and 1 day in Parma.  Each town was between 1 to 2 hours away – so driving would be limited. 

Now that I am retired I often forget about the sort of work that should be going on.  On the day we were to leave I realized I had made no plans and bought the “Italy Travel Book” at the airport.  This resulted in a more “go with the flow” sort of vacation than a detailed itinerary of relentless sightseeing.  I like the flow thing better in my old age – but a little research here and there would have helped as you will see throughout our travel story. 

Our travel style is thrifty and less expensive.  Our hotels were never impressive – but they were all clean, had air conditioning that worked, and most served breakfast.  They were also off the beat and path and we usually had to spend some time driving around the block (which is really 3 to 5 blocks with all one-way roads) to find them.  We selected the least expensive rental car as well. 

Our flight departed at 7:00PM and we were hoping to sleep though most of the trip there.  We had Premier Economy (no irony there).  We had a little extra leg room – but not a good place for an 8-hour flight.  Of course, there was a baby on the flight.  He cried 1 minute every 15 minutes – which was just enough to make sure there was no sleeping even if one could get comfortable enough to maybe squeeze out an hour or two.  We had a little layover in England – and neither of us can remember much about it due to the exhaustion of mind and aches of the body. 

We got to Milan in the morning.  The car rental place took about half an hour to process our car and then she handed us the “electric charging card”.  John didn’t like that because he never drove an electric car before and I didn’t like it because I had no idea were charging stations were.  The car rental said if we had an electric car we could drive anywhere in big cities including area’s where gas cars are restricted.  She said the charging card was for the most popular company and the car would go about 200 Kilometers per charge.  John asked if we could change to a gas car – but I said driving would be easy let’s “just try” the electric car.  HA HA HA!

We are old enough to know better in regards to trying new things on vacation as our story will tell.

We had to look hard for our hotel.  It was truly the smallest hotel room I ever saw with two beds and one foot between.  No other furniture. The bathroom provided the tiniest shower where no person could wash their toes!  But it was clean, the staff was helpful, and the free breakfast decent. 

It was around 4:00PM, and we had been up for more than 24 hours but we decided we had to mussel though the night to get on Europe time.  It was in the 90’s and we were sweating bad as well as tired and decided to stop at a café for some cooling and rest.  We learned there are no cafés with air-conditioning.  That was a sad thing.  But the good thing we learned is that all afternoon drinks are served with Aperitivos – meaning a small tray of snacks!  So, one could order a $4 glass of wine (the standard house wine price) and also get two or three small munchie things with 200 to 300 calories.  I must admit that was/is one of my favorite parts of the trip.  We visited a few other places – went through the Italy travel book and started making plans.  We went to bed around nine and fell asleep in our little tiny air-conditioned room dreaming of Italy ahead of us. 

Day 2

The next morning, we were able to get a 3-hour guided tour of the city ending in the Leonardo Di Vinci Last Supper painting.  We were delighted because we had been told we would have no way of doing this without two weeks advanced booking.  We snagged a morning cancellation and we are still young enough to walk at a fast clip.  We started off seeing the Castello Sforzesco (Milanese: Castell Sforzesch), also known in English as Sforza Castle with a medieval fortification.  We had an older artist guy for a guide and he talked about how Michelangelo and DaVinci as well as other artists planned and built the castles, parks and made painting always looking to surprise or shock a new viewer into a new way of thinking.  I very much enjoyed his presentation as he said many things I had not thought about before – such as:  paths in the park are meant to wind to build your suspense of what you will find. 

He also talked of the people’s way of belonging, with each person first thinking they were Milanese then Lombard and finally Italian.  He explained the insignias of the Sforzesco people (a dragon (snake) eating a man. We learned the fountain outside the castle is called the Wedding Cake – and it looks like it should be called the Wedding Cake.  They way he talked of belonging to the city, then province, then county made me think it is the opposite of how American/migrants think.  I hardly know any American families that all reside in the same state.  Here generations go back 1000’s of years – family is one’s true identity. 

There was one statue from Michelangelo in the castle. Michelangelo stopped working on it at his death, at age 89. At first the roughness seemed a disappointment, but the guide spent a lot of time explaining how the artist went about making and deciding how to chip the surprise work from God out of the stone.  I ended up loving that too. 

Next, we went to one of the great Cathedrals that had been around more nearly 2000 years.  He said there are only three countries in Europe that had these artistic marvels including France, Spain, and Italy.  The art is breathtaking and architecture styles of the centuries visible because it is a spot where artist have come to show Gods art over a 2000-year period.  Many churches have at least 1000 years of artist work in the church.  That also made me think a little differently about the church’s that have all started to seem like the same thing over and over to me. 

We went to several small gardens where we learned the significance of simplicity, especially if the garden is around a cathedral or a castle.  Finally, we went to The Last Supper fresco.  The Last Supper occupies the whole north wall of the refectory of the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie. This was the chamber where the friars met to eat, pray and meditate during their meals.  Apparently, Da Vince tried a new method of fresco painting that would allow a little more latitude with shading – but it didn’t work and the painting started to fade within 5 years.  However, Da Vinci was a very famous painter and updates restoration were constant.  During WWII the church was bombed.  However, the people anticipated this and had sandbagged the front of the painting allowing some safeguarding.  This did not stop some silly fool from deciding the refectory wall needed one of the huge grand doors that would require cutting into the part of the painting Jesus feet had been.

Our guide explained every hand gesture, the coloring of the people, the groups of three everywhere and most importantly that this was one of first painting that put real feelings and emotions on people faces.  The more the guide talked the more beautiful and meaningful I saw the painting. 

We were only allowed 15 minutes in the room – only God knows what I could have learned if I had been allowed to stay a few hours to hear more of the details.

He took us by the high fashion district and told us to come back for extensive people watching and some nice dressed people.  While neither John or me are very fashion oriented and suffer badly from America’s idea of comfort over form, we could not miss the incredibly fashionable people of Milan.  We did see many high-end designer things – but the emphasis on bling and sexualization was small.  Instead the focus seemed to be on making people look better and allowance for sensualness of our being.  We did see a lot of skin, especially on women – but so many things made people look comfortable, beautiful, and confident.  There was also little make-up or extensive hairdos.  Just plain beautiful living. 

We had a few more Aperitivos and took a train to our cooking class.  We wanted to learn how to make true Italian pizza and gelato.  It wasn’t quite as hands on as other cooking classes we took – but it was a smaller class, and about a third were children – and there was a bottomless wine bottle – so overall, I thought it was great.  It seems the true secret of good pizza is good crust.  He taught us how to make a good crust in 45 minutes – but the GREAT pizza crust is a 6-hour long thing. 

The class in in a huge train station, sort of like the Ogilvie train station in Chicago – except 10 times bigger with 100 times more food and fun.  They had signs up everywhere that said “Drink better – not more”.  I thought this was a good way to think of our fun.

After class we went downtown and checked out the Milan Cathedral, or Metropolitan Cathedral-Basilica of the Nativity of Saint Mary, is the cathedral church of Milan, Lombardy, Italy. Dedicated to the Nativity of St. Mary, it is the seat of the Archbishop of Milan.  One of the most impressive Cathedrals of my life.  It has more than 1000 statutes of people for the government or church deserving of some worship.  At the very tip top of the Cathedral is a gilded virgin Mary watching over the entire town.  After Mary’s crowning there could be no building higher than her statue on the Church.  Eventually, each time a taller building is built they are required to have a Virgin Mary on top so she can still hold her loving arms above all people in the city of Milan.  Milan had many more stores of medium or high level around the church than what I remember in Madrid or Paris – but there were still plenty of restaurants and cafés that people could sit, enjoy, and linger in the grandeurs. 

We ended the night walking down the fashion district and seeing all the high high end stores with 8 pieces of clothing and 5 handbags per floor.  We also saw some fun more modern businesses that were clearing making money to be able to afford the real estate , but had not become big enough for John and I to know their name.  One of the stores had designer camping gear with high heal hiking boots!!  There were a few fun art installations.  I liked the one with hundreds of shoes hanging from the ceiling and filling the washers.  We ended our night in the Armani Hotel.  I told John not to ask if we were allowed to go in – so that is the second questions he asked after do you have a restaurant.  Of course, we were allowed in.  And they had the best Aperitivos yet with four sides including a tiny sushi!

We went to bed in our tiny room one last time knowing we were heading to a big wedding for the next few days. 

Day 3

We stopped in Brixia and had a small lunch at an authentic freshly made paste café.  It didn’t taste like American pasta to John’s dismay and my interest. 

Brixia is known as Roman Brescia Archaeological Area in the heart of the town’s historic center where the well-preserved remains of some of Roman Brixia’s principal monuments still survive. This is one of the most spectacular and extensive archaeological zones in the north of Italy, where we could enter a series of buildings dating from the 1st century BC to the 3rd AD and experience architecture and lavish decoration: mosaics, marble flooring, wall paintings and relief carvings. 

It was also different to see modern homes sharing walls with ancient ruins.  The ruins were discovered in the early 1800’s by a person with private land and the place has been under excavation since that time.  We learned that Italians do not own the land under their homes.  Its ruins are found – the government has the right to take control of the space with little or no compensation to the people.  Can you imagine how many ruins are undisclosed due to this financially ruinous law. 

It was amazing beyond words – John and I kept asking:  How? How did this all happen and last so long?  I have determined I need to do more research into these historical building.  I also thought of people or more to the point families living here for thousands of years from the time this was built.  We didn’t have time to do the tour, but I am determined to learn as much if not more than I would have on the tour in the next few weeks.

We were about an hour away from our wedding destination.  The wedding was held at the Villa Cortine, which stands on the most extreme tip of the renowned Sirmione peninsula. Before you reach the hotel, you pass the Scaligero Castle which was a fortress from the Scaliger era, access point to the historical center of Sirmione, on Lake Garda. Rooms for the hotel run between $500 and $1200 per night.  However, wedding guest got a huge discount on the rooms two days prior to the wedding.  So, we stayed in another cute 2-star hotel in town the first night.  However, there was a welcome dinner planned in town and drove up to see our hotel, say hi to the marrying couple and have our dinner.  We couldn’t imagine how one was to drive through the crowd to get to the hotel – but it was affirmed that you “just do it”.  Also – this was only allowed if one had a tiny electric car. 

There is a massive village of artesian and food shops and restaurants along the way.  Literally hundreds of people crowd the road.  Views from every single spot were breathtaking and history just rolled over every brick, bridge, stair case, and statue.  It was amazing.

We sat with one of Nates oldest friends and his wife.  They were so so delightful – I found it quite easy to carry on conversation all night.  Dinner had 7 courses.  John and I immediately offered to share plates (the bride party was paying) which didn’t go over well – as they wanted everyone to eat, eat, eat.  We couldn’t even eat the one dinner we shared and waiters continued to come to our table insisting we eat more and telling us how to put things together so eating would be more delightful. 

We met the Bride’s father who has had a long and successful career in film and has worked on several very population TV shows.  We met most of the extended family and each person was more interesting than the other.  We went back to our little charming hotel around midnight as others went to the grand hotel to party a little more.

That night I got some kind of bug bite that was mean angry red and about two inches wide.  John also started coughing and sneezing.  We did offerings to the Goddes of good health that the sickness be chased away.

Day 4-6 – The Wedding

We drove back to the Wedding Hotel to check in.  We went through the gate and took about 45 minutes to drive one mile due to the huge crowd of people we had to navigate though.  We had not noticed there were also stop lights – but they looked silly with so few cars and so many people.  We stopped at red but after waiting about 6 minutes we thought maybe we were giving the light to much significance and should drive thought.  Right then a man with a flag come forward, the light turned green and we were to go.  We finally got to the hotel and checked into the lap of luxury we rarely get to be a part of. 

We went back into town and asked for sample gelato’s everywhere we went.  That night was the rehearsal dinner – on the massive huge patio in back of the hotel over the lake.  There was one table for 90 people.  The dishes and glassware sparkled at every spot.  Appetizers were endless only to be followed by endless meat choices from chicken to lamb and everything in between. 

Again, I sat with some of the most interesting people.  Most were in the entertainment business, a huge amount from California and all of these seemed to see the world though the same lenses I did.  We talked about 100 things that we all thought did or would make the world a better place. 

The best men speeches were a roast instead of a toast and I didn’t like that much as no one said good things about Nate – but I asked Alyssa if I could speak for Nate and she asked me not too – she had her plans and it wasn’t my place and of course I could tell Nate if there was something I needed to say.  She was direct and polite so I didn’t say anything else about it. 

After a long dinner we were invited to continue the party on the outdoor patio or the bar which we did until the bar closed. 

My spider bite was even larger and John was still sniffling so we went to bed and slept in very late hoping to wake up refreshed and it WORKED.

The next day was the wedding!  It wasn’t until 5:00 PM but it was still more than 90 degrees.  We were all given pretty pastel fans and there was plenty of aggressive fanning going on during the 20-minute ceremony.  Nate had the second most beautiful vows I ever heard (after John’s).  I realized no one needed to hear a good toast about Nate the night before because one couldn’t hear his vows and not know that he knew about love and that he was a very good man. 

It was fun to watch everyone taking pictures around and during the wedding as there were so many actors, directors, and film people – the poses were professional and the pictures highly staged for the Beautiful people/place pictures. 

Endless appetizers again – in the huge lawn surrounded by history, nature, beauty and love.  We really started meeting lots of his friends – and everyone wanted to hear about the Peace Corp, which we never get tired of talking about.

Then a sit down dinner, speeches, toasts, bride/dad dance mom/groom dance.  Bride and groom dance with fireworks.  The assembled the Italian wedding cake in front of the crowd.  There was no cake smashing! 

Finally, dancing moved to the dance floor.  John had brought a song Nates band had recorded.  Several of the band members were there and it was a nice moment. 

More dancing, eating, drinking and talking until 4:00 in the morning.  Nate was getting slightly out of control taking off his dress shirt and his wife beater and eventually he got called down and back to the night with his bride. 

It was awesome.  

I want to say that when I met Nate he was about 25, sort of breaking up from a relationship that had been on course for marriage.  His father had died leaving him a little directionless and his family in a far lesser place.  Still he had confidence, bravado, talent, and was incredibly insightful and kind.  In the big picture he was scattered not knowing what to do with his gifts and I think he was afraid maybe he didn’t deserve them.

It has been wonderful to watch him slowly and methodically put his life in order.  Make a good career while still constantly working on his music, putting out albums, and enjoying his creatively in life.  He met Alissa and that put a really sound foundation under everything he was doing.  They both changed careers a few times and have come to count on each other to continue to bring out their artistic talents as a way to communicate.  She is strong and smart and has good family behind her. 

I loved that the first vow he made was that every day I wake up I am going to try and find a way to make Alissa life better – and it went on much the same. 

After I heard his vows I realized the roast from the night before were only a part of his life that is also fun and worth celebrating.  His wedding vows were a testament to what a good and caring man he is now.  I was so very very happy they found each other.

Day 7-9 – Verona

We left the wedding on our way to Verona.  I had picked Verona because it was close by, had Roman ruins and is the setting for the Romeo and Giulietta (Juliet) story.  However, the handy guidebook said there much ado about nothing in regards to the Romeo and Giulietta story – since Shakespeare was never there and frankly it can’t be proven that a Romeo or Guilietta ever lived there.   It has been documented the theme of the story was written about 100 years by another author – loosely based on real events.  The town has named the castle they believe Giulietta lived in, and build a romantic tourist spot around it that actually drew one in.    We did find time to stop by there. Everyone is told to rub her breast for a better chance at love.  Yes – I said that correctly.  And yes – every Y chromozoned person from 3 to 90 took a turn doing so. 

The guidebook said Verona was one of the oldest towns with some of the best work from the original Roman people and we should focus on that.  My goddess – that was an understatement! 

The historic city of Verona was founded in the 1st century B.C. It particularly flourished under the rule of the Scaliger family in the 13th and 14th centuries and as part of the Republic of Venice from the 15th to 18th centuries. Verona has preserved a remarkable number of monuments from antiquity, the medieval and Renaissance periods, and represents an outstanding example of a military stronghold.

The palazzi were not quite as square as the Spanish ones – and sometimes looked interesting, touristy or just plain centuries old places of commerce. 

We saw a Coliseum that was first built in 800 – it went to near total disarray with the community stealing marble to build other structures when renovations started in the 1200s and are still ongoing.  The building is use for 12 opera shows a year – but not either of the nights we were there.  It is spectacular and made me constantly want to look up how the Romans could build these types of things.  It took up nearly two city blocks and I could not get a full picture of the whole thing. 

The city also had one of the first Roman arched bridges.  The first two arches are the original arches – but the last two have been updated with current materials.  There is also a huge castle, cathedrals, rivers, and neighborhood houses everyone.  I could see this being a nice place to live and most certainly a nice place to spend and October or November.

We also found the only English garden in Verona – which we were told is very precious to the locals.  It wasn’t nearly as lush as regular English gardens, but it had  a lot more antiquity to it and called back to a time when the gardens were meant to impress the guests to shocks of art or culture more than to relax with a picnic and smell the flowers.  One of my favorite parts of this garden was the grotesque mask made by Bartolomeo Ridolfi. The mask was designed to belch flames and smoke from its mouth, causing consternation among visitors and guests.  There is a grotto under the mask where the fire was made to create the smoke.  But people could not see this fire pit until it they got quite close. Everything else in the garden was quite beautiful. 

We found a super cool restaurant with a painting we want to commission (yes I plan on commissioning) a local artist to create in Panama.  It is as follows.

The longer you look at this the more interesting it becomes.  My favorite part is the money playing on an iPad.  The picture is a little warped because we had to use panoramic view to capture the whole wall. 

We could have found a few more great things to do – but I always think one should leave a city wishing you had one more day to stay and that is how we left Verona.

Up to this point nearly everything on our vacation was awesome.  But this is when the troubles started.

We were to spend one more day in Parma (a food capital of the world) where I could see how real parmesan cheese is made and real Parma ham is cured.  Parma was a little more than two hours from Verona – we were to get up early head out and enjoy the day.  We knew we also had to recharge the car which had been taking about an hour.

Day 10-12 Parma

Up until now the car charging had been a little challenging due to our utter ignorance of the system as in not knowing how to use our own hose.  Not knowing how to turn the system on, or how to make sure it was firmly attached, and not knowing if our card from the rental place would work, and not knowing where the stations are.  Also, we were at a 30% charge and some of those batteries say you can’t go below 30%, while others say you can go to zero and we didn’t know which battery or car we had.  We had been learning along the way and were getting overconfident in our abilities, especially as old people who have trouble learning new things.

Also – John had started telling people at work he wouldn’t be home until a day after we got home to give himself a little more acclimation time after missing two weeks of work.  Of course, you know that didn’t affect me, because I am retired.  Somewhere along the way John started to think we really did have one more day in Parma.

So, we get on the road to look for the first gas charging station – which we can’t make work.  I tell him I am going to walk around and find one, because I am afraid the car will fail at 30% and we don’t know how or where to get tows or how to “fill our tank” if it goes empty. 

After a while John locates what he is fairly sure is a good spot with several hooks up and he drives there and lets me know where to walk. 

Our electric card will not work – and we are afraid to drive anywhere else.  So, we try to download the app for this electric card – but it won’t work either.  John spent about an hour on the phone with the company to determine all their fast fuel pumps here are down, but we could use our new app for the slow pumps.  Ugg – another hour to get half a tank and hit the road to find a fast charge.

Well that half tank only last about an hour.  We did find the huge/fast fueling station – which we couldn’t make work either, but after 10 minutes and me starting to look like a corned bull in a China shop some guy showed us.  We set everything up and went into the dinning place to wait the hour for fill up.  When we went back out we saw we didn’t connect tight enough and it had turned off after about 10 minutes.  Another hour at the gas station. 

Now I am getting very frustrated knowing we are spending our last day simply trying to charge the car and that we will get no time in Parma.  But John erroneously says – we have two days in Parma – so I am determined to put this set back behind us.  We found another station outside of Parma and filled up so we wouldn’t have to mess with this on our tight schedule to the airport.  Overall, we spent about 7 hours in transit or electric stations. 

We got there and found a few nice places to eat and saw a few castles we made plans for food tours the next day. 

But on our way out the door, we stopped to tell the maid she didn’t need to clean our room, but she told us she did, because we were to check out.  John checked his records and saw that we only had one night – and while he was contemplating how he could have made such an error with our hotel room, I asked him to check our flight – and we then realized our flight was leaving in one hour – while we were two hours away assuming there is no car issue. 

UGGGGG – now John start to go into panic mode where no one can talk to him or touch him and he must have very high air conditioning while he prepares for the hours we both know we will need to get a new flight. 

But we have both been very good people lately and the goddess looked down on us with mercy.  We were able to change our flight to 6:00PM and transfer in Madrid at 12:00 the next day!  He got this done in less than 30 minutes and there were no additional charges!!!!!  That is along the lines of a miracle. 

We cancelled everything we had planned that day (which took another 3 hours to fix once we returned to America), and slowly headed to Milan. We got on the plane and had first class with little sleeping cabins and pretty decent food.  We landed in Madrid around 10:30PM.

I can’t believe we got send to one of the few European towns that is still awake after 11:00PM.  We visited a few old haunts we remembered and they were quite the same.  We had my very favorite dish called Boquerones (anchovies in vinegar) and revisited the oldest functioning restaurant in Europe – which first opened in the late 1400’s.  We walked around and enjoyed the atmosphere until a little after  1:00PM.

Since we had first class tickets we thought we would be able to sleep in the lounge – but no.  The lounge closes at midnight and does not re-open until 6:00AM the next day.  So, it was the conveyer belt for us.  Shoes were used as pillows.  The picture below did have both of us but I looked so horrible I cropped myself out and am letting John represent for both of us. 

The worst night of sleep I have every had – and John agreed too.  There were many people sleeping on the marble floors – but our 60 something year old body couldn’t do it. 

At 5:00 AM airport staff wakes everyone up and we did make it to the lounge, where we meant to sleep some more – but sleep still didn’t come.  We ate, worked on pictures, emails, and work. We finally left at noon and come home to the two most beautiful doggies on the face of the earth. 

Top Take Aways:

• Italy is very hot in August and half the stores are closed due to the heat.  One good part of that was diminished cars and crowds. 
• John has decided he should improve his travel wardrobe.
• Art is about presenting a surprise.
• Italians speak very good English at all levels of society. 
• One third of the art work in the Louver (in Paris) was done by Italians and many Italians think that is incomprehensibly wrong. 

This was the last picture I saw before going back to sleep and waking to the end of the most fantastic, beautiful Wedding and wonderful Trip To Italy:

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