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Karyn Dest, Staff Writer
As Keith Rautio dresses for Church in O'Fallon, Illinois, his gray
pinstriped wool suit reminds him of a tailor shop half a world away.
"I bought it as a reminder of Venice," he said,
recalling the three years he lived forty-five minutes southwest of
Venice in Bastia de Rovolon, Italy, during the early 1990s.
Keith found the quaint tailor shop during a stroll with his wife Beth
Ann and baby Courtland through the City of the Canals. They never
carried a map, opting instead to walk wherever they felt like it on a
given day.
"Don't be afraid to walk. There are many sights not seen on the tourist
path," he said.
Keith advises travelers to keep a train schedule and translator book
handy. But most important, he says, travel with a smile and a sense of
adventure.
"A smile opens doors," he said, telling of the kindness of Italian
merchants and citizens, "People would respond to you, I don't mean
laugh loudly or act silly. Just smile, say hello, and at least try to
speak the language."
Besides smiling, Keith suggested traveling with a baby.
He has many vivid memories of traveling with his wife and newborn son
through Italy, including one from the Eternal City of Rome.
On one of those map-less walks of the city, Keith and Beth Ann found a
trattoria somewhere between the Roman Coliseum and the Vatican.
Keith described the trattoria as typical and perfect all at once.
His family walked across the cobblestone steps into the family-owned and
operated establishment. The outside tables were covered with perfectly
pressed white tablecloths and adorned with impeccably laid-out
silverware and wineglasses. Grapevines crawled up out of planters,
mounting the wall of the trattoria.
"There was so much pride in appearance and cleanliness," Keith
remembered.
Because the trattoria was off the main tourist paths, Keith said the
local Italians looked at his family with curiosity. Some of the locals
in that restaurant had never even met Americans before. But, he said,
the baby broke the language barrier.
"The baby was the perfect passport," Keith said, smiling, remembering
the crowd of Italians who gathered at his table to see the child.
Though he and his wife were not fluent in Italian, they sat around a
table with the locals, drinking wine and enjoying bread, all because of
the bambino and a smile.
As he recalled his stay in Italy, Keith had a hard time saying which
experience was his favorite. Instead, he thought several were worth
recommending to others. Though he traveled throughout Italy, his most
memorable trips were those in which he and his family walked, smiling,
off the tourist maps, in cities like Pisa, Rome, Padova, and Venice.
Pisa invokes images of a leaning tower for many visitors - but Keith
thinks of a cimatario, or monastery.
"We must have spent hours walking around, enjoying the art there," he
reminisced as another reason he was glad to have tried something
different from some of the more typical tourist spots.
Rome was great for Churches.
"I've never seen so many Churches," he said, speaking of the walks
through the city in which he and Beth Ann encountered so many houses of
worship.
Keith and his wife also enjoyed the Cathedral in Padova and the canals
in Venice. He was amazed by the series of canals in Venice.
Though Keith and Beth Ann do not have any immediate plans to return to
Italy, they have signed up with online airfare agencies that send
e-mails when discounted plane fares are available.
When the rates have hit as low as one hundred and twenty dollars round
trip, Keith has encouraged Beth Ann to leave on the spur of the moment
and visit their former home.
Though Italy may be across an ocean, Keith and Beth Ann still have
reminders of their time abroad - like that gray pinstripe wool suit that
they bought with a smile after an unplanned walk in a nearly hidden
tailor shop somewhere in Venice.
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