july 07

good cateress newsletter, aug 07

We spent a good part of the 60’s, my early childhood years, in Germany. Dad was a Military man. From 1963 - 66 we lived in Berlin, those years we would drive down to Riccione on the Adriatic coast of Italy for our summer holidays. Usually we left right after my birthday in late July, after all I had to have a birthday party with my friends.

Mum and dad would get us up in the dark, for an early start. The car a German Ford Taurus station wagon, would have been packed the night before. It is hard to imagine living in New York that we could do such a thing, but after all it was not theft that we were worried about. Dad wanted us through the various checkpoints; Allied, East German and Russian before first light to avoid the queues and searches of that time. I do remember how quiet and desolate the Berlin Corridor was at that time. You did not stop or get off that road. Once we were through East Germany into the West how different it was. There was a British outpost immediately after the Border where we stopped for the necessary bathroom stop and breakfast.

From here the drive was long and hot on the autobahns; no air conditioning in cars then. The windows were all open, a breeze blew in from the motion of the car. Mum had her Triptik of the trip, as each year passed more notes were added. I learnt early on from these long journeys to pack things to do; books, crayons and paper, one doll. No chocolate it melted but chewy sweets. Mum made cool thermos’s filled with icy lime squash a prerequisite for every picnic. (in England and other European countries we have flavoured syrups and squash’s that we add to water, it is where Roses Lime Juice came from). We sang, ‘Ten green bottles’, ‘One man went to Mow’; ‘Twinkle Twinkle little star’; ‘I’m a little teapot’. Played I spy and other games.

Looked for trains. In the early years we were excited to see an electric train rather than steam; slowly that changed in the final years the electric far outnumbered steam. Simon and I got peevish and quarrelsome.

A couple of years ago I read Caramba by Nina Marie Martinez, in which she describes her family’s drive from Chicago to Mexico in the summers of the 60’s. As I read I had a huge flashback of our travels to Riccione. The heat, the laughter, the grumblings.

Our first night’s stop would be in a hotel down in Bavaria just outside Munich. It was always fascinating to Simon and I they had framed photos on the wall of Berlin before the wall went up, which amazed us as we had never seen it without the wall. We loved to stay here, they knew us after many years. I always had Steak and Pommes Frites, the frites were incredible, long and thin, brown and crispy. Our beds all had old fashioned feather duvets, that were huge and you shook them all out.

The next day we would play, who would be the first to see Mountains. Suddenly there they would be purple in the light rising high into the blue sky. The drive through the alps ws the day of the trip we loved most; the air was cooler, for a start. Each year we had watched one of the huge bridges, maybe the one over the Brenner pass, be built. It was scary to think of men being brave enough to build towers that high in a valley. Our favourite part of this drive was that night we camped on the side of a small road, beside a mountain stream. Dad would get up the next morning and bring us ice cold water from the river to drink, as he put the kettel on the camping gaz stove to make delicious tea.

One year at dusk, as we came down through the Italian Alps, we could see people climbing the mountains with lanterns. Lots of people swinging lanterns all across the valley. It was mystical and beautiful to see the mountains outlined with swinging lights; something out of a movie. I believe it was a saints festival.

And so from the cool of the mountains to the heat of the Italian plains. Italy looked totally different from Germany. Scruffier somehow. It had huge billboards along the roads with a scary dragon breathing fire. Noisier too.

By late afternoon we had arrived at the Hotel Jeuness in Riccione. The hotel was a mid sized family owned Hotel where three generations of the family worked here. The son Manueli was slightly older than me, my one great memory is of constantly hearing his mother or grandmother calling for him from the back door. Manueli taught Simon and I to play a card game, Scallacaranta, that all the grown ups played on the balcony surrounding the hotel. Manueli was really good at this game and often beat the grown ups.

Now here is the sad part for me as an adult. I now know that the food was incredible, mum and dad loved it, for mum it was why we went. Lunch every day was a different pasta, followed by a fish or meat and vegetable. I remember the smells; occasionally I go into an Italian restaurant and I am taken back to Riccione. I feel sure that I have mentioned before that I was a dreadful eater, fussy would be a mild description. Sometimes I ate plain pasta, sometimes some sauce, rarely the two together; Fish, there might be a bone. Salad and bread and butter were good! I do remember the zucchini fries, thin, juicy, crispy on the outside, nothing at all to do with the fried zucchini I once ordered here in the states. Dessert was mostly incredible fruit, peaches, apricots, cherries served in a clear bowl of iced water.

Our first morning Simon was up early eager to be at the beach and see his friend Tonino. We rented space on the beach under a long sunshade from Tonino, he was also a fisherman, who occasionally took Simon out in his boat to help him take the fish from his nets, he let Simon kill the crabs in the nets with a mallet.

The beach by late morning was packed with people, a lot of Germans. We would swim, play on the beach, walk with our baby nets and catch little shrimp and fish to look at, oh yes and sea horses. I have never seen a sea horses since then, but we would catch one or two, such amazing creatures. Small planes would fly over trailing advertisements, dropping samples and leaflets. There were boat trips to the Island Catolica.

People walked up and down the beach selling things; cold drinks, ice creams, fruit and the like. We were allowed one thing in the morning and one in the afternoon. My morning item was a banana ice cream, shaped like a banana, it came from the cafe a little further up the beach on the promenade with the beach huts. It was full of load people and a juke box, I remember “Volare” being played; I wanted to be older and part of this group!

In the afternoon a man came along with a case strapped around his neck; the case was filled with jewel-like fruit and nuts. The fruits were on skewers and had been dipped in a light caramel that then set around the fruit and was crunchy. When you bit through the crunch there was the soft chilled fruit, it was divine. Like nothing I have had since.

The days passed. Melding into each other. The walk down the road to the beach, sun, sea and sand. Chat before meals on the balcony. There seemed to be fireworks every other night for a different Saints holiday. One night there was a huge storm, the sea was really churned up the next day, with big waves and really warm sea.

Before we knew it was time to leave. Lots of Ciao’s, see you next year.

The return journey always seemed to go faster. There was a place on a road where mum and dad had spotted walnut trees, we stopped for lunch nearby and scrumped ‘wet’ walnuts to take home, dad’s favourite. Was it this roadside restaurant or another where we stopped and I ate the most delicious meat, wanted more, such a surprise to everyone. I kept asking what it was, as I also went out to pet the calf tied out back. One trip we stopped at a truck stop, where I had a salad of some sort. There was a red thing I didn’t recognize, everyone waited with trepidation as I tried it. I loved it, peppers and asked for more.

We moved back to England, our holidays were to France and Spain. For me the Hotel Jeunesse and Riccione remain a favourite.


Stay cool in the sizzling dog days of summer