“Travel leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” – Ibn Battuta

“Aren’t you even excited to see the Moses sculpture? What about La Pietà? And the Sistine Chapel?”

I glanced at the rearview mirror as my youngest daughter Anna, 10 years old, questioned her oldest brother who sat beside her in our minivan’s middle seat, deep into his phone.

Her little hands spread in earnest as she questioned him about our upcoming trip to Rome. Apparently she’d taken to heart our daily readings from the children’s art history book I’d checked out from the base library to prep the kids for our epic vacation.

The large volume featured spreads with glossy photos of the masterpieces, architecture, and sculptures across Rome, and she was enthralled with the possibility of viewing them in person. With a small pad of paper propped on her lap and pink marker in hand, she busily worked on a list of all the works of art and museums she wanted to make sure we didn’t miss. 

Matthew, in his mid teens, looked at her with a mixture of boredom and annoyance, 

“Oh my gosh, you are such a nerd.”

Nonplussed, Anna blinked at him and turned back to creating her checklist, now carefully placing some bright fuschia Lisa Frank stickers to mark her “must-see” sights.

Like many military brats, my four children traveled more by the age of ten than I had by my early twenties.

And as we moved around the world, my husband and I made it a priority to introduce them to the amazing locations we were stationed and the history, art, and culture that were within arm’s reach.

In Germany, destinations like Brussels, Amsterdam, Luxembourg, Austria, Switzerland, and Paris were just a few short hours away by car. 

We visited sites like the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam and took in the gravity and loss of the Holocaust and experienced firsthand the plight of a Jewish family in hiding.

We wandered through the Louvre in Paris, all of us surprised and fascinated with how small the painting of Mona Lisa’s mysterious smile actually is when you see it in person.

We took in the huge fields of springtime tulips in Holland, amazed at the colorful blossoms that spilled across seemingly endless miles.

We paused in tiny villages for lunch or an espresso as we tooled our minivan through hill-lined back roads in Belgium, on our way to peruse the wares of the Bruges Zandfeesten, a huge flea market that spanned blocks of the city of Bruges. 

My husband and I felt lucky to get the chance to be stationed in Germany, with its access to an abundance of living history and bucket-list sights, and we assumed the kids were as well.

But as we drove around off base after we’d lived there some months, our excited pointing out of a beautiful landmark or monument was sometimes met with a disinterested, “Oh look, another castle,” from our by now not-so-easily-impressed kids. 

Teen attitudes notwithstanding, the whole family was excited about this vacation to Rome.

We’d planned it for the early fall when the weather would cool down, but rearranged our trip plans when we learned that Steve would be deploying earlier than we’d expected. So off we went full throttle into vacation mode in the heat of July.  

Our lodging accommodations in Rome were at the tiniest bed and breakfast, which had looked much more impressive in its online ad.

Within a stone’s throw of the Vatican, the whole environment seemed surreal, as if I’d stepped into a movie for which I wasn’t given a script or even knew my part.

From the elf-sized window overlooking a small “balcony” onto which one person could squeeze if they sucked it in, we could throw open the wooden shutter and take in the landscape of the neighbor’s garden, with the silhouette of Vatican City looming in the background.

If I squinted, I fancied I could see the iconic Swiss Guard in their bright red, yellow, and blue.

Rome was one of those vacations in which time is precious and you don’t want to waste a moment, so we hit the ground early each morning, walked miles and miles while taking in all the sights, sounds, and smells, and, of course, ended it late in true Italian style.  

With the rich smell of cappuccino and sweet pastries wafting past us one morning, our family of six meandered towards our planned tour of the Roman Forum and the Colosseum, the heat already rising from the iconic cobblestone streets.

We’d learned to plan in lots of breaks, which had something to do with the whining which ensued partway into our walking tours (mine, not the kids), and ducked into stores and bakeries to escape melting completely into the cobblestones.

This was also the point that my husband Steve was struck with amusement at how the Italian greeting for “good day,” Buongiorno, sounded an awful lot like the brand of our family’s favorite frozen pizza. 

“DiGiorno!” Steve would call enthusiastically at passers-by. The kids would groan out,
“Dad!” in embarrassment, and I would suddenly find something very interesting to study on the sidewalk as I slid to the tail end of our group, pretending to not be related to any of them. 

“DiGiorno!” he waved at the owner one evening as we walked into a trattoria we’d discovered near the BnB for our nightly consumption of crispy, delicious pizza.

Since we’d also arrived well before the normal Italian hours for dinner (who knew 6 pm was early?), it was apparent that the gracious owner viewed us as typical ignorant Americans and Steve perhaps a bit dim.

Or maybe he also had a sense of humor, the kind that appreciates a good Dad Joke.

I’d like to think it was the latter, as he seated us anyway and stopped by our table all evening long to chat and laugh, often bringing extra drinks.

Undeterred, Steve shouted out “DiGiorno!” to the gladiator reenactors who posed outside the Colosseum and pestered tourists to snap photos with them for a price.

They looked surprised for a moment, and the unexpected greeting gave us enough time to scuttle past without being peppered with the aggressive, “You want a photo, lady? You want a photo?”

I mean, they had to make a living, I suppose, but I really did not want a photo. Or at least, not one I had to pay for.

Of course, some of the breaks we built into our days involved stopping for the cool, icy relief of a cup of gelato, which quickly became an intrinsic part of our sweaty Rome vacation.

Everyone cranky from too many sights?

Gelato!

Would really rather take a nap but there are still places to visit and we only have a few more days to do it?

Gelato!

And of course, a long late dinner in Rome would be nothing if not capped off by, you guessed it,

Gelato!

Looking back at the Facebook photos I posted from our time in Rome, I laugh at my persistent, ineffective attempts to keep a hairstyle going (poofy in the morning, flat against my head by evening), along with the kids’ expressions as the days passed.

At the Colosseum, decked out with earphones and walkie-talkies to listen to the tour narration in English, the kids look positively wilting, not unlike the houseplants that often meet their demise in my home from an approach I’ve coined as “cheerful neglect.”

And in front of the ruins of Pompeii, part of a day trip to nearby Naples, the kids’ forced smiles bring back the memory of them begging me to please just stop taking photos and let us stand in the shade.

There’s one photo in which me and one child who shall remain unnamed are sporting actual grimaces instead of smiles in a group photo in front of St. Peter’s Basilica, bringing back the memory of the constant search for a public toilet that is part of the package of traveling in Europe.

I think our eyes are also watering. Let’s just say, staying hydrated in Rome’s heat did not mesh well with the lack of facilities. 

But as family memories go, this was one for the books.

And I did create an actual book, an entire scrapbook dedicated to our Roman holiday.

But as I pasted in photos and relived moments like our gasps at our first sight of the Sistine Chapel, admiring sculptures from the likes of Bernini, sitting on the famous Spanish Steps, being wowed by the breathtaking view of the Castel S. Angelo at night as its lights reflected off the Tiber River, and yes, my daughter’s delight as we surveyed Michelangelo’s La Pietà and the statue of Moses, there is still one memory that stands above it all, one of those silly moments that makes it into a family’s shared history.

“DiGiornio!” our family will still call out to each other now sometimes and giggle.

And the heat, the art, the cool gelato, the crispy pizza, the ruins, the gladiators, and the cobblestone streets come back in a flood of memories. And I just smile.

Maybe even a mysterious, Mona Lisa-like smile. 

*This is the 3rd excerpt from Jen’s upcoming book Milspouse Matters: Sharing Strength Through Our Stories, which will be published by W. Brand Publishing in Fall 2023. Used with permission. Learn more about it here. 

*Catch up with the the past excerpts from Jen McDonald’s upcoming book, Choose Your Own Identity and When You Are Weary of Military Life or visit her personal site Here.