You call this Planning?

Or Why We Spent Five Months Based in Rome Rationing 90 Schengen days. . .

What you should know as background to this post is that my husband and I have four grown children (three daughters and a son). Two daughters and their families (three of our grandkids, two really great sons-in-law) live in the same city as we do; our son, daughter-in-law (also wonderful), and two grandkids live three to four hours away (there’s a ferry involved). And here’s the most relevant point to this post: one daughter, a much loved son-in-law and a fabulous grandkid have lived in Rome for ten years.

If you were a reader of my blog from the beginning, in 2007, until 2015, you’d have me pegged as a Francophile who visited Paris annually: a tradition that began in pre-blogging 2005 when we went to Paris for 10 days to celebrate the defence of my doctoral dissertation.

But then a baby we were just getting to know moved to Rome with her folks, and our itinerary tilted. . .

Since then, we have continued to visit France (mostly Paris — Air France offers direct, non-stop flights from YVR to CDG, so we often acclimatize in that city for a few days — and Bordeaux). We’ve been to other European countries over that period as well, but a huge portion of our travel time is directed to ensuring that this little one knows her Nana and Grandad.

For a while, we even considering buying a small cottage in a quaint village conveniently supplied with train service to Rome . . . or maybe a neat little apartment . . . if Covid hadn’t stopped all plans for nearly two years, maybe that would have happened. But so many complications, predictable bureaucratic and legal hassles that we’ve let that idea fade away (lit up, occasionally, by an Instagram post about “affordable dream homes in Italy”).

But I’d started thinking about experiencing ex-pat life on a temporary basis. My Italian is pretty decent after years of Saturday-morning classes, and Paul’s got the basics via Coffee Break Italian and Duolingo. As well, we’d been thinking of doing something special to mark our 50th anniversary, and an extended stay in Italy? That would definitely qualify.

So when the owner of a B&B we stayed in a couple of years ago suggested that we might be interested in renting her two-bedroom apartment in Rome for a few months, we bit. Her B&B is about 90 minutes by train from Rome; the apartment (10-minute walk from Borghese Gardens) was her home (with husband and now-grown daughter) for years. She didn’t want to rent to someone who would want to live in it for years in case that daughter might move back to Rome at some point. Neither did she want a continual series of short-term renters she would have to vet.

But we had quickly become friends over three days of breakfasts around her big table on a sunny terrace in autumn ‘23, and we’d told her that we were looking for opportunities to stay near our Roman ex-pats in a place of “our own.” Her latest renter was leaving at the end of the year. Maybe we could be next?

We were definitely interested, and as soon as we got back home I emailed to confirm interest, with the idea we could spend three months in Rome in late winter, early spring. Perfect!

But somehow, as emails went back and forth, the apartment was already rented to someone until the summer — and now available for July and August. Ugh! I’ve never wanted to be in Rome during full summer — it’s already too warm for me when I’ve visited in June, September, heck, even mid-October when we were walking the Via Francigena in Tuscany.

Still, I didn’t want to lose the chance of living in this apartment — and yes, you’re right. . . I could have gone on any number of sites and found another rental, perhaps even a swap, but by now I was fixated, and there was something different about coming upon this one through a personal connection. The possibility of strengthening that connection, having a teeny network of our very own in the country where our kids lived. Might not have been the most rational approach.

But also, she was offering us a very good rate. Such a good rate, in fact, that our son wondered if we couldn’t just take the apartment for those summer months and add on some months with weather we liked better, then use it only as much as we wanted to in the summer. As it turns out, he doesn’t even remember making the suggestion, but we grabbed and ran with it. Our new landlady quickly agreed, although the rate, still very reasonable, would be higher for the three months we’d add to July and August.

So then, July to the end of November in Rome, with forays from “our apartment” to other Italian cities we hadn’t yet visited. Perhaps another week walking a portion of the Via Francigena. Maybe take a ferry to Sardegna. Dreams like these . . . rudely interrupted by the bit of research that announced that, contrary to sloppy assumptions, one could not simply hop to a neighbouring country, nor even to the UK, for a pleasant long weekend, to “refresh” one’s visa exemption.

Suddenly we found ourselves combing through numerous websites trying to understand the complexity of “Schengen rules.” We could spend 90 days of 180 in “the Schengen zone” before being subject to fines, deportation (at our own expense, possible confinement while that was being arranged), even refusal of entry for however long might be deemed appropriate, lifetime refusal not out of the question — yikes!.

Okay, so this was serious, but to comply, we first had to figure out the “90 days out of 180” — which 180? Well, the last 180 counting backwards from the day we would be leaving the Schengen zone. And the 90 days? Included both full and partial days, so we had to count the days of landing and departing. All of these also counted on “a rolling calendar” backwards from the day of departure. The Schengen zone itself changed during our planning, with Bulgarian and Romania both entering the zone last spring, countries which we had first imagined as possible destinations close to Italy but sparing our Schengen days. Nope, not anymore. . .

So that was the situation, the background against which we planned how and where we’d spend five months from the beginning of last July and the end of November.

Almost.

A few more factors to consider, and then we’ll head to Rome. . .

Next post, that is. . .

Because this one, I know you’ll agree, has gone on long enough. You’re wondering how anyone could make travel plans this haphazardly. You’re thinking we’re lucky we ever got home in one piece. You have, in other words, questions. Or advice.

Maybe hold off on the latter until I show you — in a later post — what space “haphazard” made for serendipity.

Walking through the streets of Marrakech, for example — we would never have spent 18 days as the only guests in a small riad in that city, if we hadn’t “mis-planned” our Rome rental.

Still, you might have questions, and I’ll happily try to answer them. After all, we’re still getting to know one another, aren’t we?!