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Finding Arno
Finding Arno
Finding Arno
By Scot Harris
He stared at her a moment, took off his cap, tilted his head and
said, “Come?” This was approximately the fifth time for this exchange.
My wife asks the question, the old guy removes his cap, scratches his
head and says the Italian equivalent of “Huh?” I read somewhere that
you know a person is insane when he keeps doing the exact same
thing over and over, and yet expects a different outcome each time.
This definitely put a question mark on the sanity of my wife and the old
man, but I wondered what it said about me, the idiot sitting in the car
“Arno?”
“Si, Arno,” and my wife made a waving sign with her hand like a
The lightbulb went off. “Ah, il Arno, si, si, si. Il fiume!”
waiting in the car. “It must be fiume in Italian. Its rio is Spanish.” She
then turned back to the man, “Il fiume Arno?” she said shrugging her
cluelessness.
The old man beamed back and, not to be outdone, gave an even
bigger shrug. He scrunched his face as if contemplating quantum
across the street. My wife and I being alert, intelligent people realized
that the building was probably not the Arno River. Next he waved his
hands to erase his last directions and he used a broad arching point
over the building, the kind of point that indicated we were a long way,
My wife gave a deep sigh, thanked him and trudged back to the
car.
Florence. The answer that most fully addresses that perfectly rational
pensionnes and were ill equipped for the task; lousy map, no Italian,
buildings. We had come up with a plan ten minutes earlier. Since, the
one of us spoke Italian, but my wife speaks Spanish and we hoped that
to go.
My wife climbed back into the car and reopened the map.
thinking we were in New York or Dallas or some city that was founded
within the last two millennia. The streets in Florence are not laid out in
look like they were created when someone dropped an enormous ball
of cats into the center of the city, and then built roads based on the
wandering path that each cat took. Oh, and if the cat was a male, then
five streets for that matter. Instead of getting closer to our desired
were running out of gas? And that it was Sunday? And that gas
we are now, as opposed to looking for the one on the Arno,” I said.
“We could stop for the night and then get gas tomorrow.”
“But Mom and Dad loved this little pensione, they said it was the
most charming place they stayed at in all of Europe. Let’s just ask
someone else.”
Our next prospect after the old man was a little old lady. We
cliché, dressed in all black with a thick nest of gray hair piled onto her
small, fragile body. My wife saddled over to her while I stayed in the
The old woman slowly lifted her head toward my wife. Her face
broke into a broad smile. “Ah, belle,” she said, “Vi sono belle.”
knew enough to realize the lady was saying she was beautiful. “Uh, Il
fiume? Il Arno?”
finger at her.
having their little conversation, I was trying to determine just how hard
“Ah, Vi sono belle!” she said again. “Italiana?” she asked with a
twinkle.
“No, Americana,” my wife replied sharply. Then she held out her
lady was looking at my wife’s olive skin and black hair and thinking she
The old woman shrugged and motioned for my wife to follow her.
She took us down a narrow alley and across two side streets and
neatly deposited us in front of the Ponte Vecchio bridge. My wife
thanked her profusely while I contemplating getting out and kissing her
feet.
for a good night’s rest. The sign on the door, however, had a different
idea.
stayed at ten years ago was now a charming little dentist’s office. We
turned towards each other in disbelief. Our mission had failed, and
now in utter defeat, we trudged back to the car to consult with Mr.
Frommer.