Steinbeck traveled with a dog named Charley.
I travel with grandchildren named Elsie and Tristan. And their mother Katie. And their grandmother Joelle, to whom I have been married more than fifty-four years.
Gentle Reader, if you’re exhausted by the mere mention of such treks, welcome to the club.
. . . The sixth age shifts
—William Shakespeare, “the Seven Ages of Man”
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. . . .
The Native Hue of Resolution
In all innocence, we decided to celebrate our Golden Wedding Anniversary in 2020 by going to Italy. We would take Katie and her kids along to help us celebrate. It would be fun, we thought.
Also, it would be educational—broadening, don’t you know?—for the children. Katie had traveled widely in Europe but had never experienced the grandeur of Italy. Elsie and Tristan, ages ten and seven, had never been abroad at all.
Young men from Britain or the Americas used to take long European sojourns as way of capping their formal education. This practice, known as “the Grand Tour,” had roots in the burgeoning world of the mid-17th century. It continued through the complacent era just before the outbreak of the First World War—a time now remembered as “La Belle Époque.”
“The primary value of the Grand Tour lay in its exposure to the cultural legacy of classical antiquity and the Renaissance, and to the aristocratic and fashionably polite society of the European continent. It also provided the only opportunity to view specific works of art, and possibly the only chance to hear certain music. A Grand Tour could last anywhere from several months to several years. It was commonly undertaken in the company of a cicerone, a knowledgeable guide or tutor,”
says Wikipedia.
Being the Astute Reader that you are, I’m sure you already know the Grand Tour was experienced only by scions of wealthy families. Who else could afford such a long ramble and the expensive company of a personal tutor? Moreover, it was only the sons, not the daughters.
Democracy in Action
But, this is America! This is the Twenty-first Century! Travel has been democratized. Even if we can’t go in high style, at least we can travel. Ignore the fact that we swelter in giant sardine cans hurtling through bumpy skies while we watch epic films on seven-inch screens, with prefabricated salads in our laps; at least we are going.
We will get there. We will be there. We will come back. Millions of us.
We hoped to expose Elsie and Tristan “to the cultural legacy of classical antiquity and the Renaissance, and to the aristocratic and fashionably polite society of the European continent.” We, ourselves, would be the cicerones.
What happened next, Dear Reader? Can you guess? . . . That’s right:
COVID.
Starting on March 13, 2020, all transglobal sardines’ wings were clipped. No Grand Tour could be scheduled.
But Resourceful is our middle name. We pivoted.
For the benefit of readers from afar: Door County is an idyllic peninsula in northern Wisconsin—a sort of stretched-out Martha’s Vineyard—that hosts thousands of visitors every summer. In late spring of 2020, Door County had not yet become alarmed about covid; it had hardly touched their peninsula. Business—that is, tourism—went on, with just minor precautions.
We took the kids to Door County. We swam and dined and shopped and campfired to our hearts’ content. Tristan, now 8, and Elsie, still 10, enjoyed themselves immensely. We came home, illness-free, just as the pandemic was getting worse everywhere.
One year later, we tried again. But we still couldn’t schedule Italy, which by then was melting down with covid. So we went to Alaska instead. Alaska has plenty of fresh air. The grizzlies and moose at Denali National Park posed no threat at all, from a public health perspective. Local precautions were bearable. The good folks of Alaska were touchingly glad to see us. With all cruise ships lying idle in their home ports, we had America’s Last Frontier almost to ourselves. The kids—now 9 and 11-turning-12—really, really had a great time.
Liberation
Early in 2022, Joelle started her third attempt to plan our Italian anniversary vacation. Covid by now was in retreat everywhere—even Italy. At last, two years late, we celebrated our fiftieth anniversary by taking our grandchildren to Italy. We added Croatia and Slovenia to the itinerary. We had to mask up on public transports in Italy, but otherwise it was all clear. Despite Europe’s hottest summer in living memory, Elsie and Tristan—who by now were 10 and 12-turning-13, loved every minute of their democratized 21st-century Grand Tour.
We were greatly satisfied by the whole, long-delayed, itinerary.
Britannic Majesty
However, since we as a family, unlike wealthy young men of old, could not stay in Europe for months on end, some bits were left uncovered. The British Isles, for example.
So this year, after a one-year hiatus, we took Katie, Elsie, and Tristan to Ireland, Scotland, and England—with a clever little layover in Reykjavik to see Iceland’s Golden Circle. It was wonderful. We saw Geysir (the original geyser), Gulfoss the rampaging waterfall, Thingvellir where the European and American plates come together.
In Ireland, one or more of us went to Blarney Castle, the Guinness Brewery, the Titanic Museum in Belfast, and the Giant’s Causeway. In Scotland, it was lovely old Edinburgh with its mighty castle, followed by a visit to Oban and the exciting islands of the Inner Hebrides. Then on to jolly old England: Derby in the Midlands, followed by several days in London—Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Westminster Abbey, the Harry Potter studios, the Tower of London, HMS Belfast, the Churchill War Rooms. On our last day, we went to see Wicked on the stage of the Apollo Theatre.
The kids loved the whole trip—so far as we could tell. We had no way to know, since they were always two hundred yards ahead of us. Did I mention that now they’re 12 and almost 15?
“It’s hard traveling with old people,” they confided to their mother. We were slowing them down, you see. Katie reminded them they would not be traveling at all if not for the old people.
In former times, I would have added, “Put that in your pipe and smoke it!” But I’m reformed. No more promotion of tobacco products.
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Neither Joelle nor I gained any weight while on vacation—a first! We ate copiously, but the travel was just so strenuous. We huffed and puffed along in the wake of individuals who had not even bothered to arrive on Earth until after we retired.
Suddenly, it’s fifteen years later. Our age has begun to dawn on us.
Nevertheless, we’ll probably do the whole thing again. There are still places to go, and tempus does indeed fugit.
I’ll let you know how that works out.
Blessings,
Larry F. Sommers
Your New Favorite Writer
