On Getting Lost and Then Found

Day 9

Lori fell today. That was neither the high nor the low point, but it was a particularly memorable part.

We had caught the morning train to Perugia, the capital city of Umbria, a half-hour or so away. It is, by local standards, a big city with a large Cathedral, a spectacular art museum, a university, and all the hubbub one can expect in an urban center. Plus, it’s famous for chocolate, so of course we went.

The day started out with challenges. The ticket machine at the Spello station wasn’t working, so the conductor calmed us by selling them to us onboard. We almost got off the train at the wrong stop, but were saved from travel purgatory by a benevolent stranger who simply asserted, “next one.” Once emptied into the correct train station, we caught the bus to the central piazza, tracked down an ATM to refuel our wallets, but kept getting error messages. We walked, mostly around wrong turns, but ultimately visited the essentials we had intended.

Those, after a delightful pastry and coffee at a sidewalk cafe, which preceded by several hours a perfect lunch at a perfect osteria on which we had all but given up, located as it was at the center of a maze of tiny streets that confused even Google maps. But it was worth our persistence. And we hated to leave. But we still had chocolate on our mind — oh, and yes the master works in the National Gallery; oh, and cash.

And so it went. We were most successful in our gastronomic pursuits — breakfast, lunch and dessert. We were, with no small measure of relief, ultimately successful at a Bancomat, and we navigated our way to the central piazza to buy a bus ticket back to the train station. Handing over our 3-euros, we asked which bus to watch for and the attendant pointed across the way and said, “That one.”

Yes, the one getting ready to leave.

We hurried, we boarded, we grabbed the poles in the absence of seats and braced for the ride down the winding streets. And let me here just abbreviate a saga we came to fear would have no end. We missed our stop. In our defense I’ll just insert that wherever that stop might have been it bore no resemblance to where we had boarded the bus several hours earlier. The next thing we know we are passing signs that pointed the opposite way to Perugia. I think we crossed the Alps and were well on our way to Russia, for all we knew, before Lori asked the driver about the fading hopes of ever seeing the train station again. He replied with a time, almost an hour away, when there might possibly be a train sighting. At least there was hope.

Eventually, near the predicted hour, the bus came to a stop, the doors opened, and the driver gave us — who by this time were huddling near the front of the bus readying for any escape — a nod. We spilled through the door, the bus pulled away, we looked around and still saw nothing that looked familiar. We started hurrying, urgent to catch the next train, but in the wrong direction. We studied our environs, found a suggestive sign and started hurtling in that direction.

And that’s when it happened. Lori’s foot caught an uneven brick, and in our weary, frazzled and disoriented state, she clattered to the ground scattering jacket, guide book, papers and miscellany. I reached for her and the scattered debris simultaneously, but faster than me — and virtually out of nowhere — two Italian women appeared in voluble sympathy. One on either side helped Lori to her feet and helped reconnoiter any possible damages. We were all relieved that nothing was broken, never mind a few bruises, scratches and strains. But a wail went up from our Good Samaritans when they saw the tear in the knee of Lori’s pants. They were almost inconsolable.

But we had a train to catch. We thanked them profusely, confirmed with them our course, and hurried away. And made our train. And safely and without further incident reached our apartment and called it a day — one of lostness, and ultimately one of foundness thanks to the kind ministrations of strangers.

As good as the food was, it will get digested. But I suspect we will never quite finish chewing on the grace of those two strangers, their spontaneous willingness to respond, and their sincere concern.

I wouldn’t be surprised if they are still there on that sidewalk, lamenting the tear in those pants. They simply cared that much.

That, when all the dust is settled, will be our memory of Perugia.