We checked out of the villa, but not without incident. The day before, it rained so the clothes we left hanging on the clothesline got soaked. We drove around town in search of a laundromat but learned from the tourist office that the only self-service facility was at the top of Montepulciano. Unwilling to carry 11 kilos of wet clothes up the hill, we decided to go with the professional cleaners near the villa. Our extremely limited Italian was compounded by the proprietor of the laundry not speaking any English. She didn’t even take our name. Would we get our clothes back before it was time to leave for Rome? How do we know that the neatly but mysteriously wrapped piles of clothes are indeed all of ours?

As promised, the lady had it ready at 9:00AM the next day. With that resolved, I created new stress by insisting on doing a pano before we left.

Rome

We made good time to Rome. We had drivers pick us up after we returned the rental vans to take us to the hotel. I stopped wondering why we needed drivers when we started zipping through the streets of Rome. The extreme narrow cobblestone road would have stressed me out if I had to drive on them.

At the hotel owner’s suggestion we had lunch at a place around the corner. The osso bucco was marvelous, the marrow was buttery.

Later in the afternoon we took an open double decker tour bus around Rome. It was nice to survey the sights from the comfort of a very high bus. Impossible to get any photos, but nice none the less.

Next we made the mistake of listening to another suggestion for dinner, which was right next door to the hotel. It was less than stellar. All the Italian cliches were present. The costumes, the singing. Our waiter either got our orders wrong or took it upon himself to change them. My risotto wasn’t cooked all the way. I guess they can’t be all winners.

Attempting to wash the bad experience down our throats a few of us went to a bar for an after hour cocktail. The very modern restaurant was playing euro versions of 1970 songs.