After a mad rush to the airport, I got to the airport in plenty of time but unfortunately the flights all filled up and the 7:30 flight to Newark cancelled…which messed up the rest of the day. Four hours later…I got a zedfare ticket on Air Canada. So back home to try another day…..It only took 8 hrs to figure out I wasn’t going to make it to Newark any day soon. Dorth had equally bad luck and rescheduled to leave tomorrow as well. Maybe because it’s the 13th….nah, I’m not superstitious…no, really….
Back to the LBC and met Karel for a Golden Spoon and an update on the day. Early to bed to start..again….. on our trip.
Day Two: August 14
Picked up Dorth at 0500 and off to the airport. Relatively eventful. I caught an Air Canada flight to Montreal and made the connection to Rome. Arrived 0725 on the 15th of August. Amazing how the times flys…so to speak. The flight was uneventful and I had an exit row to myself. Unfortunately it was next to the bathrooms so …..I had 150 of my best friends come by to visit during the flight.
Day Three: August 15
I reached the airport about an hour and a half ahead of Dorothy so I waited in Baggage claim and Voila! There she came right on schedule. She had met a lovely young Irish Lass by the name of Rhiannon who asked to travel with us to Firenze and of course we said Sure! Unfortunately during our ticket buying and running to get the train…she couldn’t change her ticket in time from the later train so we lost her.. our loss, she was delightful.
For a day that started out with the loss of a new friend, we made up for it in no time. Arleen and Ashley Tolle picked us up at the train station and a quick stop back at the villa to change and head out to Siena and the Palio!!
What an experience that was!! We arrived and found parking easily…a complete surprise since we were warned that we may have to walk miles. We thought that it was because the actual race was on the 16th that there wouldn’t be so many people.
We wandered through town, got a bite to eat, had some gelato, all at a leisurely pace. We had a drink in the center plaza where the race was to be held and then went out to stake out our spot from which to watch the practice race.
The race is between (among?) 10 of the 17 Contradas or neighborhoods in Siena. They compete for the 10 slots, And it is a big deal. They all have their own flags and songs and a lot of contrada pride.
At this point let it be said that we chose our position…poorly. Having never experienced the spectacle before, we chose a position near one of the openings. Not a wise move. But we defended our position to the end. Well, almost…a large contingent of young men from one of the contradas “put the gate into position” and literally shoved everyone in their way out of their way. Little did they know they were dealing with the Belmont Shore Babes and we put up a good shove right back. We only lost about 3 feet but I thought we were going to lose Arleen. Luckily, we befriended one of them and got away relatively unscathed, except for maybe a little of our pride.
There was a lot of pageantry prior to the start of the race. Contradas marching in with lots of singing and flag waving, it was fun to watch.
Apparently “our” horse won the practice round and we walked out with the winning Conrada..and apparently THAT was a no-no as well as one of the old women.. I’ll refrain here from calling her a lady…was shaking her finger at us
(it was an acceptable finger) and yelling NO! NO! Oops! Well, you know what they say about pleasing everyone….
We then were feeling rather triumphant and decided on a glass of wine before our trip back to the Villa. We found a restaurant overlooking the soccer field for a (finally) relaxing and quiet well-earned glass of wine. All in all a successful day that none of us would have missed for anything!!
Day Four:
Arleen and Ashley were up early and off to Rome for a final day before Ashley’s trip home to the LBC. Dorth and I slept in til about…oh 2PM! I have never slept that late…EVER! Then a hectic day of laying by the pool, drinking wine, and reading. Great day!!
Day 5:
Well, never let it be said that I don’t know how to relax with another day of poolside lounging. I felt the need for some serious sun time. Don’t tell my dermatologist!!! But, aaahhh it sure felt fine!
Arleen returned and picked up Mary Coates along the way. So now we are four. A late afternoon run into San Casciano for strolling and dinner.
Ryan sent me a text a few days ago and since I haven’t had a signal at the villa, I just got it and he’s going to drive down tomorrow and meet us. I’m so excited to see my boy!!
Well, I’ll try once again to get to sleep. It’s about 4am and so far have been unable to let everything go. So, I decided this would be a great time to catch up, then maybe off to nana land. Buona Notte!!
Day 6:
Yay! Ryan is driving down to meet us. But he got caught in traffic and so did we, so we decided to meet in Lucca.
So here I was, standing in the Plaza in the middle of Lucca looking at antiques and this tall dark stranger comes up and kisses me…verbally ☺ Lo and behold, Ryan has found me in the middle of the city. What a cutie patootie!! We rented bikes and rode around the wall of the city and had gelato and generally had a fabulous time. Luckily, Mary’s luggage, which had been lost, was found and delivered to the Villa while we were out. We had to have a couple of glasses of wine in order to coordinate the drop off but a little Italian here a little pointy talky there and all was a fait accomplis.
After all was done in Lucca we headed west to Torre del Lago Puccini. Unfortunately, we headed via Viareggio which was about 10 miles out of the way. But we arrived at this beautiful location on a lake, which is the place where they have this Puccini Festival and an Opera of his is performed every night during the festival. We didn’t have tickets but we stayed in town and had dinner on the deck of a restaurant and listened to the opera Tosca while we had dinner. Lovely! The restaurant called Ristorante Chalet del Lago sat on the edge of this fabulous lake Puccini or Massaciuccoli, we’re not quite sure of the name. It was very crowded before the Opera so we had to wait. The restaurant emptied out at about 8:45 and it took the waiters and busboys about 45 minutes to reset the 8 tables for the late diners. Ah well, it is Italia!! We couldn’t quite figure out what had taken them so long….there was much discussion on the subject and then there was more and then there was more….enough already. A little wine was needed…well, maybe a lot, but, I was driving. We had a lovely dinner and listened to the opera while we dined.
I had my own private photographer with me for your pleasure!
Then, we headed back to the Villa in Montespertoli and hit the rack. Ryan stayed the night and we got up earlier than the rest and had coffee and talked. I sure enjoyed just talking. We haven’t had a lot of opportunity to do that. I’ll get more chat time next weekend when Dorth and I head to Budoia.
Day 7:
We got a late start to Volterra. With very windy roads and bellisimo views, we happened to hit it just right again. There was a 1398 Festival going on the day we arrived. Similar to our Rennaisance Faire, everyone was in Medieval attire and there were booths and demonstrations of food and games and crafts, etc. There were strolling musicians and one of my favorites had bagpipes and flutes...very cool. In addition, all the shops were open and it was a FABULOUS Etruscan hill town. I am amazed at the number of people walking around, eating, drinking, generally having a great time….yet, there was no trash on the ground. I think we need to learn a lesson here. But, how do we educate the masses at home??? Not an example of history repeating itself.
One of the fabulous things about Volterra was the alabaster. We checked out quite a bit and bought a little. Beautiful stuff!! But heavy, so I didn’t want to carry it home.
Just before leaving, we realized we hadn’t seen the Roman ruins. So up the hill we went….again.
The Roman theater had been built in 10BC and remained in use as a theater until 4BC when they abandoned the theater and used some of the stones to build fancy baths. Eventually, they were abandoned and it was used as a town dump. I guess there were idiots in all periods of time. At some point in time, the ruins were rediscovered and uncovered. They were amazing.
We came home to wine, fruit and cheese. A wonderful ending to an exhausting but fabulous day!!
Day 8:
We had really ambitious plans for the next two days. We decided to spend the night somewhere instead of making the long drive back and then down again in the morning. On the way to Pienza, our first stop, we stopped for coffee and met an expat English woman who had been a travel guide for 10 years. She gave us quite a few hints and tips for our journey and for the most part they were good.
Pienza, what can I say....another beautiful “hill town” in Tuscany. It had a huge build-up because Bertini apparently designed this “perfect” square in the town. What can I say, I think the square was oversold, but the town was beautiful. Another successful buying spree was topped off with our purchases of pecorino cheese. Yummy!!
Our next stop was Montepulciano. This was truly a hill town. We walked to the top of town and the sights were spectacular. The weather decided to put on a show for us. Clouds blew in, rain and thunder and lightening and about 20 minutes later it cleared up and was sunny yet again. Gotta love this place.
Our final stop of the day was Spello. This place came highly recommended from our English guide. It is a darling little place, another true hill town. We found a lovely hotel. A little more than Dorth or I would normally spend but a little splurging here and there won’t hurt. Beautiful fresco paintings covered the walls and we had a fabulous dinner down the way.
