The 13:53 Frecciarossa (back) to Venice 

   Call it hitchhiking at 30,000 feet. Thanks to a perk Delta Airlines extended me after Carolyn’s passing, I am able to fly free on a standby status to wherever Delta flies. And I’m able to add a companion with the same status. Since I hitchhiked in Europe in the 1970s, it’s a familiar feeling to go from showing up on an Autobahn with a thumb out, to showing up at an airport gate with an “awaiting seat assignment” boarding pass in your hand. In both cases there are no guarantees. But in both cases things usually worked out, and you’d be on your way on the road or in the sky free of charge. (There is a small departure fee for international flights, which I compare to offering to share gas expenses for rides back in the 70s.)

“When I announced myself at the desk to register, the kindly gentleman responded, “Oh no, we only have prosecco here.” When I pointed out his error, the poor man collapsed in heartfelt apologies and remorse.”

   But in Rome we hit a wall, as impenetrable as anything the emperor Hadrian might have built. There were two flights out of Rome that were possible the day we’d planned to depart. Both filled up with paying passengers, the cheeky monkees. What made things even less hopeful for the next day was that there’d been a gaggle  of active employees (and who outrank retirees on the priority listings for standby passengers) who’d been trying to get home for two days already. It was like showing up at the autobahn with a crowd of backpackers who’d already been stuck there for a couple of days. The prospects for getting out of Rome were about as good as Spartacus’s or Ben Hur’s.

   But Carol and I weren’t stuck. We had Eurail passes with travel days remaining. (Even the passes had been a freebie, a payment-in-kind for an article I had written for their magazine. We were true vagabonds on this trip. Or hobos, if you take Carol’s side on my traveling wardrobe.) There was a flight out of Venice where we’d just come from days earlier with plenty of seats available. Since this was a train-is-the-destination trip anyway, a pleasant four-hour trip on high speed rail back to a place we’d already come from didn’t figure into our thinking at all. A couple of hours later, we were aboard the 13:53 Frecciarossa to Venice (Mestre). It was just as pleasant with a bottle and a sandwich, as it was riding down.

   There was an added bonus. The hotel closest to the airport was a converted farmhouse, resplendent in old oak beams and stone. When I announced myself at the desk to register, the kindly gentleman responded, “Oh no, we only have prosecco here.” When I pointed out his error, the poor man collapsed in heartfelt apologies and remorse. As further compensation, perhaps, he then launched into a detailed history of how only the Champagne region of France can call its bubbly champagne, while Italy must call theirs prosecco. I was happy to see my name elicit a brief lesson in cultural history, rather than the depredations it suffered throughout elementary school.*

   We got out of Venice as expected, but It was still two more days before we slept in our own bed again, but those are the rules of this road. 

* “Hey, look. It’s Reid the book and drink the Champagne.”