Yes, as it happens, to port—the cruise port of Ravenna (topic du jour), located some dozen or so miles from our five-days' rental in town. Yes, Maggie's Place (which look up on AirBnB; it really is that artsy), seemed so comfy after we had adjusted to where things were and how to navigate the kitchen and where we might find extra towels. Not to mention mastering the close-tolerances lockset guarding our tourist selves from nonexistent Italian interlopers. You had to quickly tug the door towards yourself while turning the key decisively and quickly counterclockwise, being rewarded for your game-mastery acumen by a sharp click and an opening door. An additional factoid was remembering that the key had to be in its horizontal orientation to remove it. Any attempt to extract the computer-machined gadget in the vertical orientation (like virtually every other lockset in the civilized western hemisphere) would be met by silent but hearty mirth from the entryway; And a refusal to let you into the living room.
But now, darn it, we needed to leave this cozy place and arrive at where our floating hotel, Celebrity's Constellation surely awaited. I had reserved two places on the cruise line's official shuttle from Ravenna's stazione to Porto Corsini (a clean and efficient mode, but you had to find yourself there to get on that bus). Walk or ride? Coming the other direction, we had chosen to walk—trudge, struggle, keep on keeping on—because, well, steering/herding our spinner luggage over furlongs of cobblestones and deliberately roughened sidewalk paving... dampened my own enthusiasm for a repeat performance. Needed a taxi.
But Ravenna seems to be blessed by an exclusive bunch of cabbies. None could be found. Calling their number produced a machine-gun rapid fire recorded explanation of what to do. At best my Italian is miserably halting, childish communication. Grrr, sigh, shrug, worry.
The afternoon before this, though, on our return from time at Michele's parrucchiere (about which more anon) we noticed a Toyota Prius cab parked---as though the owner lived right there among our own row-houses neighborhood. If we could only find and convince him that we were worthy customers, maybe we could arrive safe and un-frazzled and with intact tendons, where we needed to be in order to clamber gratefully into that reserved bus seat.
But wait, there's a young guy standing in our roadway right next to that spiffy taxi. Eric racing along bumpy cobbles to inquire. Broken Italian attempt to communicate, to no avail. He was a neighbor, not a cabbie. But then his girlfriend came out, maybe having observed the earnest question I was asking. She was an architect, and her Papa was a retired builder who, as it happened, had built that entire satring of condos. Whom she said she would call and instruct: he would drive us where we needed to, in her auto, if we'd just wait 10 minutes for him to arrive. When he rolled up (a smallish Mercedes), he scooted the front passenger seat forward to make room behind for our stuff. Michele rode in that snug "shotgun" position, while I sat behind the driver and tried to keep from getting squished by the topmost bag that seemed not to want to cooperate.
But no (ma non), Papa seemed to be enjoying his daughter's mission of mercy, and didn't want to pause at the shuttle-bus parking area. Nothing would do but he must cart us clear the heck up to the side of the ship. So there we were, refreshed as we emerged, smiling after our tiny-vocabulary chat as we covered those uncounted miles, still amazed at the serendipity/blessing/grace/surprise of it. Almost certainly we will never see him or his comely figlia again.
But the recording angel knows.
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