Kassia St. Clair on solo-tripping through Italy with a toddler

I have admired writer and cultural historian Kassia St. Clair for many years, and have gifted her books The Secret Lives of Colour and The Golden Thread to friends. I recently read that Kassia achieved a solo adventure through Italy with her 2-year-old daughter Paloma - who, it turns out, was mid-potty-learning and dropping a nap at the time - so I had to ask her all about it. 

SOUVENIR: You and Paloma made your two-week trip while your husband was in Italy on a cycle trip, is that right?

KASSIA: Yes, but we weren't sure whether we'd actually be able to meet up with him because he didn’t know how fast he would be cycling the route. My best friend lives in Rome and her daughter was going to be christened while he would be in Italy, so I decided to make a trip of it with Paloma. 

SOUVENIR: Where else did you visit?

KASSIA: I had wanted to see Pompeii for years, and I also lived in Florence when I was a bit younger so I thought it would be lovely to take Paloma there. We ended in Verona, because it was close to Olivier’s cycle race finish point. 

“The only thing I could do was go to a takeaway pizza kiosk. We ended up in a queue with lots of Catholic priests who were there for the funeral. We were the only non-priests in the queue, surrounded by men in various shades of pinky- purple and white robes!”

SOUVENIR: How did you travel around?

KASSIA: We flew in and out of Italy and took trains in between. The most sensible way to do it is south to north. The trains in Italy were fantastic and you can book your seat in advance; the only weird thing is that you can’t book a child under four their own seat, so they have to be on your lap. This is fine when the journey is an hour, but less fine when it's three and a half hours and you've got someone sitting in the seat next to you! But everyone was kind. Paloma really liked the process of going to the central stations, having a little drink, getting the ticket, the carriage numbers, seat numbers…

SOUVENIR: I can imagine that, because there's a real energy at big train stations. I guess Paloma would have been perceptive to the hustle and bustle and people's nervous anticipation of their journeys. 

KASSIA: Yeah, there is exactly. She definitely picked up on that energy.

SOUVENIR: Did you have any recurring challenges?

KASSIA: You do experience cities in a different way when with kids. For example, when your kids have got loads of energy, there are still certain rules that can’t be ignored. For example, on a plane they have to wear the seatbelt when they might not want to. In the train station, they can't go running around because you've got too much stuff and they have to be by your side. That can be quite difficult. 

The other thing is meal times. Italians are great with kids and very accommodating, but they expect children to eat with you in the evening. But none of the restaurants open before 7pm. Some days, particularly because she was in the process of dropping her nap, it was just too late. She was exhausted by 7pm. So I stayed in Airbnbs so we could have dinner in. When we arrived in Rome, it was the day before the Pope's funeral and all the shops were shut. Trying to find milk and a banana was impossible. It was 9pm, Paloma was exhausted, and the only thing I could do was go to a takeaway pizza kiosk. We ended up in a queue with lots of Catholic priests who were there for the funeral. We were the only non-priests in the queue, surrounded by men in various shades of pinky-purple and white robes!

SOUVENIR: I can really picture that - it would have made a fun photo! How did you manage to get the balance right?

KASSIA: I tried to make sure the days included things that were all about her and that she enjoyed. And to give her a bit of time each day to just play and not have rules and to be in charge of her own space and time for a bit. That tends to be difficult when you're travelling. Also she refused to nap but she needed a rest during the day, so we'd go back to our Airbnb or to our hotel and watch Bluey in a darkened room for a bit of quiet time. You learn a kind of different form of communication, I guess, about your expectations of one another.

SOUVENIR: I can imagine! What moments do you think Paloma might remember in a few years time?

KASSIA: She appreciated that ice cream is such a big deal in Italy. She decided her favourite flavours were chocolate and pistachio, so we would share one most days. She would compare them and decide which was the best ice cream in each city. In Verona there's a Children's Museum which is essentially like a big soft play. It made a huge impression; she absolutely loved it. There’s a ball pit, a water play area, and a glass-sided beehive so you can see the bees. They have these holes in the wall where you put in the balls from the ballpit and they whiz up in tubes around the ceiling. She really loved that. 

SOUVENIR: I wondered if doing a trip like this would boost your confidence as a parent? 

KASSIA: I think so. But I had like a lot of trepidation about the trip. Of course, there were bits that were difficult. But actually, it was a really positive experience. I managed to find my own kind of rhythm with her. 

SOUVENIR: It sounds like you aced it. I hope you feel proud.

KASSIA: Really proud. I feel really proud of her. We were doing so much train travel, so we travelled with basically nothing. I had her pram, and I had to be able to carry all of it and her at the same time to get onto the trains and to navigate the train stations. So I had one rucksack with my stuff and her stuff, plus her pram. And the pram had to be able to be foldable, so it had to be empty. Travelling with so little stuff for two weeks was difficult - particularly as she was a couple of months into potty training and it wasn’t going that well. I wish now that I'd been like, you know what, for these two weeks we're just not potty training. But at the time it felt like a confusing message and by that time she had associated wearing nappies with being like a little baby, and she didn't want to be a little baby, she wanted to be a grown-up girl. That was an ongoing struggle, particularly as I never managed to get to grips with where children's knickers are sold in Italy.

SOUVENIR: How do you mean?

KASSIA: I just couldn’t find them. H&M children's department didn’t have them. And there are also specific children's clothing shops in most Italian cities that are kind of small, like mom-and-pop old-fashioned children's clothing shops. I'd go into them and ask for pants, and they'd look at me as if I was mad. So the pants just had to be cleaned and ready to go the next day - no matter what happened to them. So that was a fun little added layer of carnage I could have done without. It was naivety on my part, really, thinking she’d be completely trained within a couple of months. 

SOUVENIR: You're a hero, well done you. I don’t know how you kept it together. 

KASSIA: I definitely wasn't bringing the Italian glamour when I was carting around baggies full of wet pants. 

SOUVENIR: Are there any particular memories that stood out for you on this trip?

KASSIA: Pompeii felt like the thing I was really doing for me on the trip but it is not an easy place to take a toddler. There's very little shade for a start. I booked a one-on-one guide, and I got in touch with them beforehand to ask to start as early in the morning as possible so that it would be a little cooler, and to shorten the tour time to two and a half hours. The guide was fantastic and worked really hard for us. She plotted the route according to the shade and she took us to the quieter bits, and I was so pleased with how it went. We actually ended up doing walking tours with another guide in Rome, called Simone, who showed Paloma how to work the street water fountains you find around the city and that just made her day. 

SOUVENIR: Kassia, this is all so inspiring. My final question is a practical one: how did you get on with a pram on all the cobbled streets?

KASSIA: If she'd been smaller, I'd have dispensed with it and used a carrier. I got a very light, one-hand foldable one from Argos that I didn't care if it got rattled to bits. Almost all of the cities are not conducive to a pram, and yet Paloma was too young to walk that far. The cobbled streets were a nightmare but the pram was necessary for shade during meal times and for tired little legs.

Thank you Kassia, so inspired by your fearlessness and your incredible adventure!

By Lucy, founder of Souvenir