Some of my favorite memories of travel were the unexpected moments. The things that aren't in any guidebook, you can't plan, and just happen to you. I remember these as vividly as I remember the first site of a major monument.

In Ravello, walking on a cobblestone pedestrian path that leads away from the main square of town. Stone walls on both sides. A man comes around the corner up ahead of me and gestures quickly for me to move to the farthest corner of the path. He is rather roughish looking and is quite insistent. I have no idea what is going on but I comply and move to the side near the corner. As soon as I do this, another man comes round the corner leading a donkey who was traveling down hill in my direction at a pretty good clip. The donkey had two large satchels strapped over its back filled with construction debris. They were remodeling a house up the hill and this was the way to transport the materials. On the way back, the donkey was loaded up with terra cotta tiles. And the man did me a favor because it was clear that the donkey definitely had the right of way. Certainly made an impression and confirmed I was a long way from Chicago at that moment.

Also in Ravello, we were sitting at cafe in the main square having our afternoon limoncello. In the early evening, the residents of the town would gather here for a few hours and talk. Kids would ride bikes around the square, tourists mill about. One evening we heard one kid say to another. "Anthony, voi stupido.." and we didnt feel too far from home and the kids in our own family.

This cafe became our daily haunt. One morning we stopped for coffee here before heading out. We noticed a lot of people in the square with the crowd getting larger. People were actual walking in a procession from down the hill into the square. It was a lot of people of all ages. They would eventually get to the square and gather outside the church. We just watched for a while until it became evident we were witnessing a funeral. The last part of the procession were the men carrying the casket. Right in front of the casket was a elderly man who was distraught and being held up by two younger men on each side. It seemed like the entire town and environs had come out for this funeral. At some point my interest/fascination turned to sadness and I felt like we were intruding even though it was a public place. So there I sat with my limoncello and tears running down my face.

The next day we noticed one of the restaurants was closed due to the death of the owner's wife. This was her funeral.

And on our last day, we witnessed another procession similiar to the first. Only this one turned out to be a wedding. As much as I loved Ravello for the sheer beauty of the landscape, these are the memories that touched my heart and are burned on my brain forever.

Thanks for sharing your moments with us, times like those are what makes trips special.

ttt

chicagolori,
Thanks for sharing your moments of wonderful surprise, which brought a great smile to my face, and a precious memory to my mind! On my last trip to that area I was in Ravello for market day and afterwards spent some hiking up in the hills around there, and I think I might have met your friend with the donkey a few times, or maybe his brother..

Here is one of mine to share with you...
I was at an outdoor picnic with a local family in the hills above Sorrento. It was in a wooded area of lemon trees next to the fields on their farm I had never met them before, some mutual friends had brought me with them to the feast. Some of the men were cutting wood and making a fire, the women were setting am amazing variety of foods on the huge long table-which was put together with some wooden planks set on tree stumps. The grandfather took me on a brief walk to see the field where he was growing artichokes, and 2 brothers and one of their wives disappeared up a hill beyond the trees. When the old gentleman and I arrived back at the table-it was fairly creaking under a spread of home made sausages, olives, cheese, bread, fish, roasted vegetables, wine and half a dozen homemade cakes and pastries. So I was already awestruck...
when the two brothers and the young wife returned laughing down the hill with an enormous armful of yellow flowers, which they then placed on my lap and on the table in front of me!
Today that memory continues to bring me to tears every time, in fact at Easter, wherever I am I always try to have a big vase of yellow flowers on my table.

Always, always about kindness....after taking a wrong turn, we found ourselves VERY lost in the port area of Genoa driving on our way into France...we stopped at a parking lot to study our map, dismayed at the warren of streets to navigate...we looked up to see a gorgeous, beautifully dressed young man approaching the lot....we asked him for direction and he said.."Follow me..I am going that way and will signal when you must take your exit"...we were so grateful and got back into our small rental car while he got into his sleek, black Ferrari..of course, what else!! The only Ferraris we saw in Italy were either parked or a blur on the road, but this one drove very slowly, very patiently making sure never to lose us as we navigated the maze of downtown streets...as we got to the turn off, he slowed again and signaled, waved goodbye and before we could put on our blinker, we heard a huge roar and saw a cloud of dust...only the tail lights were visible for a second....we were sure he was in Monte Carlo before we even got to the main road...where ever he is...Thank you!!

It is about the kindnesses, isn't it?

On our last trip to the UK, we flew into London and took the train up to Leeds. At that point, we picked up our rental car -- which had zero gas in it. The rental car company directed us to the nearest gas station, which was closing by the time we got there. The gentleman opened back up for us (since we could pay cash rather than card; his machine was shut down), and then, when we asked for directions to our hotel, he said he was going that way, to follow him. We were rather jet lagged, but followed him and he led us right to it -- nice man!!

Another in Tuscany. We stayed at Villa Vignamaggio near Greve. This place is surrounded by vineyards, olive groves, gardens, lawns, etc. Its paradise. They offer dinner to guests several nights a week. We werent quite sure what to expect since it wasnt really a public restaurant. Just as we got to the dining area, a chef came out of the stone house where they serve meals. She was dressed in full chef gear including the poofy chef hat. She walked over to the garden and snipped some herbs and some flowers and went back inside the house. My husband says, "What is she doing?" I said, selecting the garnishes for our meal from gardens of the villa. Coupled with drinking the Chianti produced by Vignamaggio, it was another perfect moment.

Oh, there are so many. I mostly travel alone, which really opens you up for serendipity! But my favorite has to be an impromptu tango with a mime in the Piazza Navona. He was a good dancer and had the most beautiful dark eyes you ever saw. It was my first visit to Rome, and the smiling, tangoing mime pretty much summed it all up.

I was in the huge food market in Florence, obviously a tourist. I approached a butcher cutting up tripe, something I'd never seen before. I asked him , "Pour favor?" (I was jet lagged too, hence the language confusion) . He nodded and then brought me inside the booth so I could get a picture without the glass barrier. When I said, "Mochas gracias" (still wrong but getting closer!) he smiled and reached out his huge hand and lightly cupped my cheek in the most tender, grand-fatherly way. It brought tears to my eyes!

Here is an unexpected moment we will always remember:

Two flat tires from hitting road debris on the main motorway in Western France in a pouring rain after dark with no cell phone ... and waiting hours for a police car to stop and then even longer for tow truck from Hertz. Not a pleasant memory per se but surely one we will never forget!

One of my favorite memories is from our London trip in 1992. DH and I went to Knightbridge area ( I think) to see Miss Saigon (the musical of the moment). We stopped in a bar for a drink before the play and started chatting with the bartender. After a while he disclosed to us that we were sitting in the director of Miss Saigon's regular chair and that, in fact, they were having a cast party at the bar after the show, why not drop by and see the cast. Well, couldn't pass that up. So, after drying my very tear spattered face from the finale of the musical, we went back to the bar. We beat the cast so got some good seats at the bar. The cast slowly drifted in and started the party. Turned out it was the lead's last night and they were throwing her a going away party and we were in the middle of it. Finally, you guessed it, she walked in. They were fine with us being there, all part of the bar fun. We had a wonderful time and I will always remember that special night.

In April two years ago, my family and I spent spring break in London. My Dear Husband parked our then-three-year-old's stroller at the edge of the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens without putting on the brakes. Before I knew it, the stroller was rolling fast into the water. Luckily the child was not in the stroller, nor was the tote-bag containing our passports, airplane tickets, and camera. While the Round Pond is a man-made, concrete pond, no ledge surrounds it and the pavement around it slopes right into the water. DH thought he could retrieve the stroller by the handle that was sticking out of the water if he put just one foot into the water while keeping the other on the pavement surounding the pond. He took off one sock and one shoe. The next moment, he was sitting waist-deep in the pond!
How could we have known how slippery the pond floor was, covered with a filthy slime of swan poop, duck poop, and algae?

I would have snapped a picture of DH in the water, but DH was screaming at me to "put the camera down and give me a hand!"

In retrospect, we know we should have asked Kensington Palace to have the groundskeeper retrieve the stroller.

A lesson DH learned is to make sure to pack a second pair of trousers. He usually travels with two pairs of trousers: the one he has on, and the one in his carry-on. The problem was that when I was packing for this trip and asked DH which pair of trousers he wished me to pack, he blew me off with "I'll take care of it later."

Today, it's actually a great memory from the trip, and we all laugh over it. Someone will say, "Please don't feed the swans," and we''ll all be ROTFL.

I have a huge smile from reading these - even the flat tire story. The ugly does turn charming with time - usually!

One from my wife's point of view: We were in a trattoria in Florence having a leisurely lunch with my in-laws who were traveling with us along with our 11-month old daughter. My wife went to use the bathroom, which was through the kitchen and down some stairs. Upon returning, she commented that the kitchen staff were holding a beautiful baby and passing her around and pinching her cheeks, and that she looked a little bit like our daughter. Then she looked around the table and said, "Where's (our daughter)?". . .

Our waitress brought her back shortly thereafter, but the laughing didn't stop until much later.

I love those odd, unexpected moments! I have one from my trip to Paris last fall: I was standing outside a lovely old gothic cathedral (can't remember the name offhand) with a very modern, large-scale sculpture of a head and hand in the courtyard in front of it. As I was admiring the juxtaposition of the old architecture and new art, and older (60+) French gentleman came up to me, smiled, said "Vous etes tres jolie" (or something to that effect), smiled as I stammered "merci," and then went on his way. Just a few seconds, but it was a really sweet moment that I'll remember for quite a while. I have to say--I do like those French men!

g33..it's St. Eustache. One of my favorites. Similar experience. A very handsome man on the Metro told my TC the same thing about me (or something close). My TC agreed and I turned bright red!

As a result of an ill-informed decision on my part, we (my wife, our son, another couple and me) ended up having rented a Fiat Ducato in Italy in 2003. This is a VERY large nine-passenger van, probably the most impractical vehicle one could imagine for navigating the narrow streets you find in Umbrian hilltowns, which is where we spent the bulk of our 2 week vacation.

Each day, I began sweating profusely as we approached another new town ... Spoleto, Assisi, Todi, Spello, etc ... wondering how I was going to maneuver that monstrosity through the tiny alley-like roads. The day we visited Perugia, I met my match when I reached a tangled intersection of ancient streets in the old town. I had one option ... make a hard right turn onto a ridiculously tight cobblestone "street", on a very steep downgrade, leading to an old stone arch and eventually, supposedly, a parking area. After 3 or 4 attempts to make this turn, I became hopelessly wedged-in between the stone wall of a house behind me and a signpost in front of me, with no more than a couple of inches to spare, and on what seemed like a 90' grade. As the cars began to back up and the horns started sounding behind me, I squeezed out of the driver's side of the "bus" and threw up my arms in total frustration ... I had no idea what to do. My travelling mates were equally useless.

Out of a car that had been 2 or 3 vehicles behind us emerged a young man of about 19 or 20, who asked in very good English if he could be of help. Of course, I had little choice but to accept his offer. With a smile, he climbed in behind the wheel, and within a few seconds, had worked the Fiat free, and positioned it so that it was aimed straight ahead, down the steep slope. He then asked us to wait in the vehicle while he somehow guided his car around us, and signalled me to follow him ... still a big, happy smile on his face the entire time. He escorted us through the arch, made a few more turns, and saw us safely to the parking garage we had been looking for. Without giving me any other opportunity to thank him, or show my appreciation in a material way, he waved and disappeared down a side street.

Whenever I think about what is special about Italy, this smiling young man is one of the first things that comes to mind.

Gomiki--That's the one! I really liked it. Unfortunately, when I was there, most of the front was covered by scaffolding, undergoing restoration. I hope it is uncovered when I'm there again in May so I can get a picture.

Excuse my not speaking French, but what did the cute little old man say to you?

Stepping outside in Oia on Santorini just as the full moon rose over Fira, biggest full moon I've ever seen, backlighting Fira and casting sparkling reflections into the water of the caldera below. Amazing!

Also, walking around shopping in Bodrum, Turkey, and coming across the best advertisement I've seen, a sign for a jewelery shop saying, "Genuine Fake Watches."

Heavens--the sweet old Frenchman complimented me, saying I was very pretty. quot;>