I am happy to report that the tricks and trades of the budget traveler still work out there, and I have discovered one more: the panini check. Like a coat check. But involving a left-over sandwich.

Our story begins on day two. Sophie and I are safely arrived in Padua, Ellie’s university town. We’re jet lagged but we’re on our feet. Ellie has Tuesday mornings free (class at 12:30), so we enjoyed our first night together in the little apartment and now we’re up and out early. For Ellie it’s just another busy 8 a.m. day. For us it is four in the morning. We have a timed ticket to the Scrovengi Chapel–a private Medieval chapel turned UNESCO world heritage site with its 1000-year old frescoes by Giotto. One of Sophie’s must-sees, scored within the first 24 hours of touching down in this country. Bellisima!

After the tour it makes sense to eat on site. Cute little courtyard with café tables tastefully arranged among stone ruins and architectural “debris.” This would not be a budget move, but Ellie is on limited time, and walking in the direction of her university (40 minutes away) would cost us valuable time hunting for a cheap lunch. We’d had one the day before, our first taste of Italy at a little café teeming with students, rows of bikes lined up under the gingko trees and table groups of people all in matching cohort and mostly matching clothes. I could practically hear Sophie taking notes. Today, I am aware the time is shrinking, and I don’t want to send our grad student off to class for the rest of the day with no food. Rule #352: Budget must give way to practical concerns or you will end up at best laughable and at worst, totally annoying to travel with. The family annals are merciless. Museum lunch it is.

It was lovely, if overpriced, and with it the three doll-sized coffees. What does one do with the Italian espresso that comes to you in a thimble? It is so teenie. Do you slug it like a shot (it is strong!) or sip it daintily, feeling like some oversized interloper at a child’s tea party? Definitely an Alice in Wonderland moment for me, where the “tonic” this hour calls for (now about 10:00 their time after rousting at 3:00 our time to see those frescoes) would be a five-gallon drum of jet fuel. A teaspoon a coffee ain’t going to cut it here, folks, I don’t care how strong it is. I decide to go rogue by ordering a café au lait, which comes in a glass in an appreciable serving size and is delicious. And because I’m enjoying my food at the little table in the new sun (lots of rain and chill spring temps this week) and because Ellie’s time is quickly shrinking, I wrap the second half of my panino ai funghi e formaggio (it even sounds smelly!) in a napkin and tuck it in my purse. Andiamo! (my new favorite phrase – let’s go!) Apparently “carry-out” and “doggie bag” are as non-entity as “venti,” so I fail on all counts, but hey. You no travel with Jenny if you going to be throwing out food.

People travel differently. Let’s just put that out there. So while the FB posts show all smiles and paired travel buddies on their next well-publicized and eminently successful adventure, we all know there’s a behind-the-scenes reality to travelling. Sometimes it’s friends, finding they are ill-suited to the stressors of being away from home together, and they swear off travelling and go back to in-town only. Sometimes it’s family, when you might (often, actually) ponder the strange and ill-fitting juxtaposition of the term “vacation” with the term “family.” Tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about. Oxymoron, that!

In my case, it is young adults. Daughters. This is a mother-daughter glory tour, making up for Sophie’s lost trip of 2020 and putting Padua on our map where Ellie has essentially defected. “I will not take this for granted” needs to be stamped on my forehead or silk screened on the Ts for this trip, because I. will. not. It is rare time, precious time, hard-won time, and I will not squander or wreck a minute of it. How do you squander it? Stress about the itinerary or money. How do you wreck it? Stress about the itinerary or money. NO stress, we all agree.

But travelling does bring it out, to be sure. Especially budget travel, where money is not used to pad, puff, or insulate. This is why you will find us kicking around JFK for eight and half hours before our flight to Venice. That particular layover combo was the cheapest airfare. And the date, March 9th, the absolute cheapest day to fly our pair of airports this season. This is why you will find us in random seats on the plane. Whoever heard of purchasing a seat? Most things I buy I consume heartily or cart home with me, and I’m hardly in need of an airplane seat. Check a bag for real money??! Not on your life. No sir, no thank you–just me and an ample selection of my weightiest possessions crammed into this loose understanding of a “carry on” (as in, you can roll it onto the plane but you sure as sh*t aren’t going to lift that thing into an overhead compartment without causing bodily harm.) Carry it? Yeah sure, and a boulder for the other arm. When you’re buckling in and they tell you they have to ‘rebalance’ the plane? Look around for a suitcase with my name on it.

This is why you will find us eating picnic lunch, or dinner, or going hungry between now and the next “free” meal–aka the Playskool dinner served up in flight while they attempt to “invent” an evening, a night, and a morning all on a single eight-hour flight. Remember Bill and his leftover “mushroom compote” in the airport in Rome? The dinner at 9:00 p.m. once you’ve settled in and are perusing in-flight movie choices isn’t near so jarring as the “breakfast” they wheel down the aisle at 3 a.m. Window shades up, lights on, curtains whisked open and…”GOOOOD morning! Buongiorno! Rise and shine! We have begun our decent into Venice and will be landing just as your jet lag comes alive to this pitiful inch and a half of coffee in your now-compostable cup. Va bene!”

In budget travel, comfort and convenience are waived in favor of the real deal. So we do not bus or public transport anywhere that our feet can take us. From the airport on day one and back to the airport a week later and that’s about it. Everything we see and do is from the one-step-at-a-time level, which is a pretty engaged level at that. Ellie walks 45 minutes (each way) to class for this reason. I walked a million years ago, up a hill (no, not backward in the snow and barefoot, but we talk of it as a badge of honor anyway) to get to the université in France. Five miles one way from the little stone house on the rue Pajot, and we, my roommate and I, too broke to take the bus and too scared to hitch. Other students were regularly hopping in strangers’ cars at the top of the mountain and getting carried down into the village of Mt. St. Aignan, but we were American and woefully suburban and way too chicken for that. So we walked. I have never really left that way of travel.

Now, on day two of “Mommy’s mid-life gets a walking revival,” Sophie and I spend the day wandering all over Padua (Pa-doh-vah for the Italians). A sunny park, the main drag, narrow alleyways and public squares (piazzas), popping in shops, treating ourselves to gelato, and eventually–much later–visiting the botanic garden. Had a trick finding that, the oldest university botanic garden in the world. Saw a tree planted there in 1680. Basically, we crossed the city north to south and back again, with multiple stops along the way. In retrospect, our apartment ended up being in superb location for viewing several historic sites, though it was a 35-minute hoof for Ellie who stayed over only that one night and all the rest came for dinner and then had to walk home late at night in the rain.

In retrospect on that particular day, at that particular point in our day, now evening, I realize my bag is unusually light. Something is missing. We have made many stops by this point. I’m still a bit lagged and the brain fog is real. Suddenly I realize what is no longer there. The little wrapped panino–my lunch–from way earlier has departed this train and is, I can only assume, back at the bookshop where we stopped to buy postcards. Mentally I retrace my 24,768 steps and yep, that’s what I come up with. I left it in the museum shop. Now there’s a bummer. Paid-for food going begging. Gone, actually. Instinctively I know I cannot go back. (Can I?) These travelling companions would have my head. (Wouldn’t they?) It’s been hours. Surely someone found it and threw it away. (Didn’t they?) I struggle to let it go. One does not step out of the groove for such a goose chase (honk, honk).

At this point, Sophie cuts me loose, along with any more on-the-feet time. We’ve covered the city end to end and back again. We’ve gotten lost and turned around several times. We mistook one gigantic church for a major landmark and had a heck of a time finding the botanic garden. On foot, misdirection is a mighty defeat. You have no choice but to turn around and walk back the whole way you came. I’m really glad my step counter doesn’t do subtraction, for there was some serious back-tracking. We are tired. She wants to go back to the apartment. But I’m good. I got a few stones left unturned, not to mention the unused portion of our morning ticket. Leftovers, baby. We really never finished at the Scrovegni Chapel after Ellie left for lunch because we got caught up with heading for our next site. Sure, it’s late now. For us it’s bed time, even thought the foot traffic is work people on their way home and students headed for their last class. Museums and historic sites are routinely open here to 6 and 7 p.m. Handy. Because my grad student will be in class till 6:30 and then she has that 40-minute walk to get to us. But I got time. Andiamo!

I decide to return to the museum complex of our morning start. Rule # 625 of the budget traveler: if you’ve paid for it, take it for all it’s worth. So I am the lucky last visitor to the Eremitani museum, a private collection of grouped objects: pocket watches, fans, various costumes and church paraphernalia. While there–I’m wandering, right?–I’m just looking to maximize the day and the outlay, but let’s face it, I’m dragging. Tea and feet up await at the little flat Sophie and I rented in the via Dante. In departing I decide to exit via the free bathrooms in the bookshop. Near the main entrance and ticket desk where we had come and gone this very morning, nine hours earlier. This morning. The morning that once included a panini. What are the chances? I think. More importantly: dare I ask? If she don’t want me asking for a doggie bag, then inquiring after a lost sandwich is surely verbotten. But without the girls with me, I discover, my anonymity is more pronounced. It wraps me close, practically outerwear for the gathering rain. The inhibition forecast is at a flat 0%. What’s the big deal?

In English and a rather convulsive form of sign language, I inquire of the ill-fated doggie bag from this morning. I even prefaced it with “strange question.” And it was. Had they done the most normal thing and pitched it, asking would have horrified my wanna-be Italian and her gotta-blend sibling. Horrified. Because it would have forced my hand about asking about the, ahh, trash? The one over there? This wastebasket?? But I am just an old lady traveler, getting hungry and wondering where in the world I left my lunch, among other things. Harmless. All questions welcome, especially the strange ones.

Can’t say I wasn’t glad the signore in the coat check and at the register were different. There’s been a changing of the guard. I wonder briefly at the intel they may have received at the shift change midday. (You found a what? And you found it where??) This is an upscale book store at a world heritage museum, not a bus station bathroom. Would they? Could they? What are the chances it’s still here? Ticket lady looks at me as I gesture and try to get across my point. She is listening intently, head nodding up and down with my gesticulations, brows knit until: “Ahh, si!” Her face brightens from confusion to clarity, happily ignoring disbelief, and she reaches under the desk where she last saw it and produces… a white paper sack, folded twice and looking no worse for the wear. “Si –YES! It is… here!” She bears the little sack in both hands like an offering, eyes me, eyes it, and hands it across the desk. “It ease–” she questions me before releasing it into my hands–it eese wis mushroom? “Si!” I respond. “Yes! That’s it!” (as opposed to–what??–all those other half-eaten sandwiches people left on the postcard display today? My PB&J??)

On our last day in Padua, I took the girls out to lunch. For real. Tablecloths on the tables, silverware on the cloth napkins and classy Murano glass tumblers from which to drink our purchased water. Yes, purchased water. You think I drink zee tap water?? This is a class act for m’ girls, and budget Jenny is digging deep. Huge, hot, woodfired pizza with mushrooms and I am thinking this will be a nice end to our time together in this interesting, intellectual city. But it’s not the end of the pizza. Too much for one lunch and Ellie’s gotta get to class. Not enough time to argue with me why they won’t have a take-out box (they do) or why I can’t walk around all day with a giant pizza box smelling of mushrooms and onions (I do). I teach Sophie some tricks of the street trade (discreet trash picking 101), score a nice carrying bag, and we’re back in business. Off to the next ticketed site–the Battistero (baptistery) of the Duomo. Great! Okay, ancient and treasured national historic monument in state-of-the art, climate-controlled facility: meet leftovers. And I won’t be checking them at the gate. Yet another 1200-year-old array of frescoes viewed with the accompanying aroma of mushroom and onion. Fantastico!