The Hashish Trail - Chapter 8 - A Bottle of Wine and Thou

Italy brings vivid memories of ancient monuments, intricate fountains, roads that wind along above the beautiful blue Mediterranean, “bottom pinchers” and galato. We toured Milan, Venice, Florence, and were awed once more by the beauty and history of this country. When we decided it was time to head for Rome we bought a huge bottle of wine and hit the road. Late in the afternoon we decided it was time to open the bottle, and by the time we rolled into our campground at around 10:00 p.m., we were all rather more than tipsy. Now came the task of setting up our tents and making supper. We built a fire and while Ladonia, who was chief cook that night, prepared supper, the rest of us set up our tents. We were tipsy and apparently were being loud as nearby campers kept shushing us. Suddenly Ladonia somehow lost her balance and sat right in the pot of stew. She jumped up, peeled her jeans off, and miraculously had only a small burn! We simply couldn’t stop laughing at the sight she made sitting in our supper! We polished off the wine and finally crawled into bed. While there had been tents all around us the night before, in the morning every tent had moved far away from us and we were virtually alone in our little corner of the campground. How to make friends and influence people!
We spent the most time in Rome and chose a campground right on the ocean. It was called Ostia de Lido. Many hippie travelers were in Rome to see the sights and enjoy some time off the road. Ladonia left us in Rome and flew back to Vancouver as she had some business to take care of. She later met us in Dubrovnik and thankfully brought extra funds for our journey. One day Gidonia and I were walking back from the showers to our tent when we heard loud coughing and guffaws of laughter coming from a pup tent out of which billowed clouds of smoke. We knew the people in that tent just had to be fun! We did manage to “bump into” them the next day and became friends with Danny and Jerry, who were U.S. military men on leave from their base in Munich. Little did we know that one day Ladonia would marry Danny and they would spend the rest of their lives together. Danny and Jerry came to our campsite on a regular basis after that and Gidonia and Jerry fell in love. Many happy hours and days were spend in the company of these two pot smoking soldiers! Our friends whom we had met in the campground in Monaco also showed up in our campground in Rome “for more of our cooking.” They were so much fun, but we never saw them again during our travels.
I will never forget St. Peter’s Basilica or the Sistine Chapel where Michelangelo painted the entire dome. It is fantastic! In St. Peter’s there is a statue of the Apostle Peter, whose robe, although carved in marble, appears to be slightly transparent revealing the muscle of his thigh, and seems to suggest the movement of his leg as it steps forward. Really, it is the most amazing sculpture I have ever seen. But the treasury, which is in a separate room inside the cathedral, made me angry, as there was enough wealth just in a display box of huge (baseball-size) jewels to feed all the poor people who faithfully gave their money to this lavishly wealthy organization! It seems the poor always carry a very heavy burden along with their poverty, and that is guilt played upon by (some) churches and assuaged by paying their tithes and offerings. Not to mention that in those days Catholics weren’t allowed to use birth control so most people had more children than they could afford. The contrast between the riches of St. Peter’s Basilica and the poor of Italy was blatant and it made me sad that so-called Christianity would stoop to this level.
Driving in Rome was memorable to say the least! While we were used to travelling in lanes and being careful to switch lanes safely, in Rome it seemed that everyone just looked straight ahead and made a dash for it, never looking behind or to right or left. It was terrifying, but it’s miraculous how chaos can sort itself out when it’s not considered out of the ordinary! The Romans took it all in stride, and if we got lost, some handsome youth would volunteer to show us across the city for a ride in the car with us. Rome is huge and bustling, with statues and fountains everywhere, and so much history that one would need years to truly grasp it all. We did enjoy Rome and the friendly people there. Of course we saw the Roman Forum, the Coliseum, some of the San Sebastian Catacombs (there are 800 miles of catacombs altogether), the tombs of Peter and Paul, and all of the other famous sights to see in Rome. We stayed in our campground at the beach for about three weeks and then decided to head toward Greece.
Before leaving Italy we decided to look up some relatives of friends Vosharnia had met in Montreal. These people lived in a mountain village named Montefiorino. We just happened to arrive there on the weekend when they were celebrating Easter. I’m sure it’s common practice in Catholic areas, but the whole town turned out to join in a procession, singing as a large wooden cross was carried from the church and through the various Stations of the Cross which were established throughout the village. It was all in Italian and Latin and we understood not a word, but were moved by the devotion and gratitude these people demonstrated. Or perhaps it was meaningless ritual, but in any case it was fascinating. The Christ was white, as opposed to the black Christ and Virgin Mary we had been surprised and pleased to see in Spain.
The folks who were our hosts later prepared a most lovely meal; we drank wine and conversed, we in our limited Italian and they in their limited English. It was so good to be in an authentic Italian home, and to experience this homespun culture first-hand.
Our route would take us through a small portion of Austria going from Italy to Yugoslavia, and at this border crossing I had my first experience of true suppression. We were interrogated at length about why we were travelling through Austria, but we had visas for Yugoslavia, and were finally permitted to go on. I felt the heartsick feeling of not being valued as a human being, and ached for all the people who lived their lives under constant threat and were not valued. We hurried through that small part of Austria and entered Yugoslavia unchallenged.
We drove through Yugoslavia, now Croatia, Bosnia & Serbia which was then a Communist country under the leadership of Josef Bros Tito. Yugoslavia was unique among Communist countries in its relatively open and free society and its international role as a leader of nonaligned nations during the Cold War.[3] En-route to Dubrovnik, where we planned to spend a few days, we drove over a rather high and isolated pass, and began to notice that the brakes on our car were pretty spongy. With much prayer and positive thinking we managed to get the car to a village, but there was nothing open as it was not a business day. We did manage to speak with a young man who happened to be a mechanic, and offered to fix our car in exchange for a ride to the next town, I believe it was Sofia. His family then invited us into their home where they offered us goat cheese. We tasted it to be polite but were not too impressed. They were cordial and served us tea. Soon the young man came in and said we were ready to go. He had his travel gear with him and we happily drove him to Sofia.
We camped in Dubrovnik for a couple of days. The original walled city is rich in history with a somewhat medieval ambience. Dubrovnik is known as the Pearl of the Adriatic and sits on the Adriatic Seacoast in the extreme south of Croatia. We explored the old city at length. It was easy to imagine knights in shining armour mounted on magnificent steeds clattering over those cobbled streets in the long distant past.
We didn’t meet anyone in Dubrovnik except for the caretakers of the campground where we were staying, who were Hungarian and invited us to go to their village on a day trip. The lady of the house cooked Holubtsi (cabbage rolls only made with some kind of tree leaf rather than cabbage and a tastier, spicier sauce). For dessert a delicious Hungarian pastry was served. They had 3 adorable children; their home was poor and small, but the atmosphere was very warm and hospitable. The mountain roads in this area were little more than trails, but the scenery was breathtaking. The citizens of Dubrovnik were friendly, quite Russian looking. We immediately noticed the leathery skin and sinewy bodies of the women, evidencing a life of hard work. There were no hippies in Dubrovnik as far as I recall, and we didn’t smoke any marijuana while there. Although Yugoslavia was one of the more liberal Communist countries, it was still fairly uptight and rigidly controlled. I hated to see the effects of suppression – distrust and fear – in these lovely people.
We had for some time been looking forward with great anticipation to Greece. So many travellers we had met along the way had assured us we must visit not only Greece but some of the Greek islands as well. And so we once more packed up “Our Everything,” consulted our maps and hit the road.

[1] http://www.idealspain.com/pages/places/AlmeriaProvince.htm.
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Carlo_Casino[2]

[3] Encarta Encyclopedia