This is the view I should never have seen, but because I got lost I had a chance to see it.
When you are on a strict timeline, getting lost can be a disaster. In late December of 2005 I was on a bus tour of Italy with my family. We were adamant that we were not “Bus Tour” people. We were use to doing things on our own. But we didn’t speak any Italian so we decided to utilize a bus tour “but only for the transportation logistics”.  So we set out to plan down our moves in each “stop” of the tour, researching the cities we could be visiting so we would know what we wanted to see.
But since we were on a bus tour, we were constrained by the amount of time they would give us. In Assisi, Italy, we only had an hour to explore after our tour of the Basilica of San Francesco d’Assisi. In our own research we knew there was another Basilica , that of Saint Clare that was supposed to be beautiful, but we knew we wouldn’t have time to see it…or so we thought.
We strolled through the streets of Assisi, taking in the Christmas decorations and creches and eat some wonderful Italian pizza. I kept looking for the turn off to take us down the street back to the bus loading area, but never saw it. I urged my parents to turn around, but they insisted we were going the right direction. After about 55 minutes of walking later, we spot the Basilica of Saint Clare, and realized we were way off from where we needed to be. I snapped a few photos of the view, and then we frantically tried to figure out what to do.
This is another church we should never have seen, but we were lost and went the wrong way. I love the roman columns.
Right before we had exited the bus in Assisi our tour guide had explained that Italy has strict transportation laws, and that each commercial vehicle actually records all information of the vehicle including how much time the driver drives. There are set amounts a driver can drive, and if he goes over the driver can loose his license and the tour company can be massive fined. With that information we were warned, should you be late the bus can and will leave without you, as we had a long drive to Venice and would be just on the edge of the driving limit.
So there we were, at the very top of a hill town on New Years Eve, with no one about, no cars, no taxis and we were probably going to be left behind for being lost and late. We find a police officer in a small smart car. We explain our predicament and he radio downs to the bus area letting them know where we were and asked if they would wait for us. While he radio down to the bus area, my mother, a shrewd woman looked into the police officer’s smart car. She starts to organize us since the smart car is small “Okay dad will go down first, then the officer can come back and we’ll go again and so.”  The police officer overhearing my mom suddenly says “Uh…no English” and rolls up his window and drives away.  Guess he didn’t like my mom volunteering his smart car for our use.
At this point the plan is to run around looking for a taxi, even though there is now literally no one about since it is New Years Eve. My sister and I get separated from our parents. I get a bit upset with my sister, and mentally make a plan to just attempt to run down to the bus area (even though I’m slow and suck at running.) Suddenly my sister shouts “There, behind us is a taxi!” I turn around and see there are people within the taxi, and in my frustration call my sister stupid. But before I can continue running down the street, the door opens up and my mother yells at us to get inside.
We then race in the taxi down to the bus area, and arrive just 10 minutes late, but are able to get back on the bus. I was very apologetic about being late, but my mother was proud she was able to see the other church. Regardless, we made sure not to get lost or be late to the bus again for the rest of the trip.
Travel Missteps is an every-other week series on how sometimes part of the journey is making mistakes and getting lost.
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