CODY SOSSAMON PUBLISHER I have just returned from a vacation in Italy with 13 friends and family and what a trip it was!

We left Charlotte at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 30, and arrived in Venice, Italy at 12:30 p.m. Thursday, July 1, after changing planes in Munich, Germany. With a 6- hour time difference, that’s about 13 hours travel time — a little more than 8 hours from Charlotte to Munich and a little more than an hour from Munich to Venice with about a 3- hour layover.

We flew very big on a Lufthansa airbus — a very big plane with five bathrooms downstairs!

Upon arrival at Venice’s Marco Polo airport, we loaded onto two water taxis for the 40-minute trip to our hotel, the Ca Sagredo on the Grand Canal, the main “street” of Venice. Marco Polo was a resident of Venice and his house is on all the gondola tours. Gondolas were the basic means of transportation in this city before the advent of motor boats, but today are used only by tourists.

We spent two glorious days there before boarding a train for the 2 1/2- hour trip to Florence to pick up our rental cars. Perugia — not a small town by any means — was closer to the villa we had rented for a week, but the car rental agency there closed at noon on Saturday and we couldn’t arrive before 2. That’s just one of the many cultural differences we encountered. Perugia, you may remember, was where the American college student was convicted of murdering her roommate last year.

So, with no other options, we arrived in Florence and walked about three blocks from the train station to the Hertz office. Florence is a city with city traffic — buses, cabs, scooters and cars flying around small, narrow, congested streets. Imagine, if you will, 14 clueless Americans trying to navigate through this congestion to a destination unknown. I had studied the route via Google Earth and felt relatively certain about how to get there.

That is, until cousin Larry pulled out his trusty Garmin.

“I think we go left.”

I was certain we went right and after about 10 minutes of standing around in the very HOT Florence sun, I made the decision to go right. Off we went, in single file, pulling and carrying enough luggage for twice our number. The Lester boys, Matt and Luke, had it particularly rough as the wheels on their bags had fallen off somewhere back in the Charlotte airport.

We walked a couple of blocks with Larry checking out his Garmin the entire way.

“None of these streets are listed. We need to go left.”

That created some dissension in the ranks so we stood around again for about 10 minutes with those lost expressions you might have worn or seen on others during your travels.

Although I was having doubts, I made a decision.

“We’re going this way.”

We crossed the street and there it was, like an oasis in the desert — a big Hertz sign. (The Garmin was telling us to go another way because we were WALKING down a one-way street and IT did not know we were walking.)

The office was very small so everyone had to stand outside in the hot sun while Larry, Peck (Lester, the other driver) and I checked in. It wasn’t much cooler in the office. Air conditioning in Italy, we discovered, is a relative term. We got the keys to our cars — two 7-passenger straight-drive vans for Larry and me and an automatic 5- passenger car for Peck. Straight drives are half the cost of automatics. Peck’s was supposed to be a straight drive, too, but none were available apparently, so there was no additional charge.

We walked another block to the second floor garage with three attendants who spoke no English and did a lot of gesturing. They pushed and pulled other cars out of the way, we loaded up and headed out: Larry leading, then Peck, then me. I had my Garmin turned on by now, so we figured Peck would be better off in between us with less chance of getting lost.

Getting lost, it turned out was the least of our problems.

The exit was down a steep ramp onto a very narrow street with scooters, bikes and tiny cars parked ever-whicha way. Larry knocked one of the bikes over making the first turn. Thus began our caravan to Passo d’Elefante, our villa some 90 miles away.

As we made our way out of the city center, I was having a bit of difficulty with my six-speed van. After about 15 minutes, I and my passengers started smelling something burning. This little Italian guy pulled up beside us on a scooter and started pointing underneath the van. At about that same time I saw the smoke billowing out from somewhere beneath the van. My passengers were hysterical by this time, screaming and shouting.

I did what any sane person would do. I pulled over. Peck and Larry noticed my predicament and came back to assist.

What’s the first thing you’d do under the same circumstances? We raised the hood.

We (by we I mean Peck and Larry as I am mechanically challenged) determined it wasn’t the brakes as originally thought. It was the clutch. Apparently I had been trying to start off in third gear. Peck and I switched cars.

The rest of the drive was relatively uneventful except for the 45 minutes it took us to get to the A1 autostrada (10 minutes from the Hertz office — Garmins are greaaaaat).

Oh, and when Larry backed the traffic up at the toll exit when his credit card wouldn’t work, horns were honking, arms were waving and Italians were hollering.

In the next few issues, I plan to publish some pictures of what we saw in Italy and write a little more about what we experienced. It is truly a beautiful country with amazing buildings, towns and churches, but with some major differences that really made us appreciate much of what we take for granted here at home.

Ciao.

That’s goodbye in Italian, or hello as the case may be.

The first series of pictures appear on Page 6B.

Cody Sossamon (cody@gaffneyledger.com)

is publisher of The Gaffney Ledger.