Tuesday, 25 December

 Genoa to Rome

I woke up at seven and had breakfast at half past seven. We were ready to depart at eight sharply. The hotel system of Italy was that hotels were put into different grades by the government. I was afraid that the tax and the various levies here could not be found elsewhere in the world. For example, the daily rent for my room was originally 3,200 lira. But adding the six types of surcharges which included hot water fee, telephone duty and so on, the total would be 5,560 lira. The situation was much worse than the period in China when various levies were most numerous.

At a quarter past eight we left the hotel and passed through Rapollo, Chiavari, Gestri and La Spezia. The scenery of this section was the best, but the roads were bending and rugged. After passing through the roads were smooth and normal. At a quarter past one we reached Pisa. We had lunch at restaurant “Corsi”, Corso Italian, which was found by Sun Fo on the travel guide written by Americans. It was in the central business district, which was quite far away from Pisa Tower.  The restaurant was quite unworthy to go to and the food was just common. But its price was cheap.

After having lunch, we went to visit the Pisa Tower and took photos. We lingered there for half an hour and continued our journey at four. We passed through Livorno, Cecina, Grosseto, and arrived Rome at half past nine. The highways along the way were so wide and flat. Our cars moved very fast so that we could catch up with the banquet at the Embassy, which had already started, while Baoqiao and Qinwu and others had arrived here this afternoon by taking a flight from Nice. When Sun Fo saw Baoqiao, he enquired of him how his luggage was. Baoqiao was angry and enquired Sun Fo where his luggage was. It was really bad that they did it before so many people, but the fault was with Sun Fo and we should not blame Baoqiao. Later we found out that because Baoqiao’s car followed Yu Junji’s car, he wrongly turned towards Dijon at the junction road. Yu Junji realised it earlier so he turned back, while Baoqiao and the others did not see him turning back because of the heavy fog.  So they drove the car directly to Dijon. They went to Nice from Dijon the next day, but the car broke down twice on the way.  They had to leave the car in Nice for repairs, which meant that they had to change plans and fly over to get here. But as soon as we saw they had arrived safely we were more than relieved. That Sun Fo first asked about his belongings but not their safety seemed to be inappropriate.

Guo Jinkun (郭錦坤) and Yin Yingshing (尹英聲) took flights from Paris and arrived earlier, so the banquet of Yu Junji was a really happy one. Besides staff of the Embassy he also invited Li Guoqin and Chinese students studying in Italy. There were in total several tens of people. Later there was music and singing and other activities. It did not end until one and I finally went to bed at two in the morning.