The life and times of a true knucklehead – No photos to be used without permission
Rome
Day 9 started with a taxi ride to the middle of town where we started our walking tour of Rome. Giulio Cesari our tour guide was informative and charming.
After the walking tour, we had lunch and took it upon ourselves to explore the rest of the city.
For dinner, we ventured a couple of blocks from our hotel. The fried artichoke was excellent. I really enjoyed my puffed pastry, beef & mozzarella dish but Jimi ruined it for me by stating it was a glorified cheeseburger.
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.
Sarteano
Day 7 started out with a drive to Sarteano to explore the open air market.
Sarteano should really should be renamed Citta piena di gatti (town full of cats) as we saw numerous cats… or I should say gattos.
We found Sandy’s Caffe on one of the small streets and decided to have a cappuccino. We met up with Jimi & Amy. Jimi was excited about finding fresh porcini mushrooms.
Later we drove out to the Etruscan Tombes.
I was disturbed to find condom wrappers on the ground. Littering yes, but who would go to a tomb site to… nevermind.
Monticchiello
For lunch we had reservations at La Porta in Monticchiello. The fresh porcini salad and the beef cheeks were outstanding.
Dinner was left in the very competent hands of Jimi, who made a great chicken dinner.
After dinner we helped make sandwiches for our trip into Rome. This was our last night at the villa.
The prior day apparently ended with some late night drinking and card playing. I was a good boy, asleep. Looks like Skittles were used as currency.
For breakfast, we had hard boiled eggs. Laid on a crostini and topped with caramelized onions, prosciutto and fresh vegetables, these were the fanciest hard boiled eggs I’ve ever had.
Clothes needed to be washed and while there was a washer at the villa, there was no dryer. I now know why I couldn’t find the coat rack.
Everyone wanted to return to Montepulciano to do some liesurely shopping . For lunch, we separated into 2 groups. Our group went to La Briciola. We immediately noticed that the menu was in Italian, which we welcomed as a good sign. Our waiter was very charming and encouraged us to practice our Italian. I attempted to relive my gnocchi experience. BTW the grilled vegetables in Italy are so good.
Brushing up on our Italian, we learned a new and not so useful phrase,”Non ho malattie contagiose!” I have no contagious diseases.
Did I mention the roads are narrow? All the cars in Italy are so small and cute.
Portrait day – Since we had some dead time I decided to attempt some portraits at the villa (portraits are my weakness). Thanks to Amy for her help, at the same time my apologies to Amy as I forgot to take a portrait of her. The shot of Amy was a test shot.
That night we had 2 chefs come in to prepare dinner. For whatever reason this is the only photo from that dinner. It might have something to do with the numerous bottles of wines and incessant laughing.
We awoke very early to drive to Chiusi and catch the train to Firenza (Florence). It was a nice change from some of the long drives we’ve been subjected to. I once wrote that I was in Florence… Florence Oregon . Now this was the real thing.
Florence
No photography of David allowed, although I saw a few trying to sneak in a shot (no respect). He was truly amazing.
They just had to try a McDonald’s while in Italy.
For dinner we decided to go back to our local favorite Tre Stelle. All of the alcohol indulgence backfired that night when Uncle Dave inspired by David started making penis jokes. Everyone was brought to tears.
Although some could not bear to hear it.
Exhausted, everyone went straight to bed when we got home. So I thought…
Podere Spedalone
Day 4 started with a drive out to a farmhouse, Podere Spedalone on the outskirts of Pienza. Giancarlo, the proprietor, was quite charming and he immediately made us feel welcome at his place. In the backyard where drinks and appetizers were served, we met Maggie the Magpie, an injured bird nursed back to health at the farm. Maggie was quite social.
With lunch ready, we shuffled into the dining area. Needless to say, the multi course meal was fantastic. Standouts were the vegetable ravioli, braised pork in milk, ice cream with pink pepper corns and a fig desert.
After the meal, we spent some time entertaining ourselves wandering the property and playing with the resident dog. We never got the dog’s name. He was shy at first but slowly warmed up to us and then started demanding attention and play.
Later that afternoon we drove into old town Montepulciano for shopping. I understand this is where part of the movie New Moon of the Twilight saga was filmed. We also had an appointment for some wine & olive oil tasting.
Pisa
A trip to Pisa of course meant we had to take six million photos of the leaning tower. If I had a euro for every time I saw someone doing the hand on the tower pose, our airfare would have been paid for. This was also the beginning of the ever repeating theme of being awed by historical sites and then disappointed by the sight of vendors selling cheap plastic miniature reproductions within close proximity.
These photos don’t do justice to the scenery. This and other sites were just jaw dropping. I wish I would have brought my flash that day. What was I thinking?
For lunch we separated into two smaller groups and went to look for a place to eat. I can’t for the life of me remember the name of the restaurant we ended up in but we had the back room all to ourselves.
Of course we had to have gelato after.
Sadly I found that graffiti is a universal problem.
Dinner that night was memorable in a good & bad way. We all agreed this was the worst meal of the trip so far, so I won’t go into details.
Perhaps to compensate for a bad meal Jimi performed his childhood impressions of Jon.
Day 2 started out with breakfast made by Jimi. A simple egg & potato dish and a fruit platter… well he made it look simple.
Pienza
For our first day trip, we drove the clan to Pienza. This was our first exposure to the small meat and cheese shops we quickly fell in love with. No fast food in these towns. The old architecture and narrow streets were picturesque. I’ve never seen so many ding dang cameras in my life. Speaking of cameras, lighting was difficult with the bright sun and dark shadows. I also realized I forgot to pack my 24-70mm. This meant I had to use a 16-35mm the whole trip but it actually worked out quite well. So I was either using my G11 or my big camera depending on what I “thought” I would need. There were times I would kill for a flash on my MkII.
I think this was our first of many gelato experiences. Eating gelato fast became a daily event with the COE (Council of Elders).
In the afternoon we had some downtime. The ladies played analog/digital scrabble… that means the old tiles on the board scrabble but they used the iPad to check the validity of the entries. Women.
Later that night we had dinner at Il Covo where I had the greatest gnocchi with gorgonzola cheese sauce I have ever tasted. It was by far the most memorable dish of the trip.
After dinner, Jimi forced us to work in the kitchen to prepare for the next day’s breakfast. After hours at regular pay!
Podere Monti
After the stress and chaos of waiting for everyone to arrive, renting 2 huge diesel vans, ramming everyone’s luggage into said vans and driving for 3 hours, we finally arrived at our temporary home, a villa in the small town of Montepulciano. Podere Monti is a 7-room bed & breakfast and we managed to take all the rooms and have the whole place to ourselves. This allowed us access to the kitchen which became very important as we had Jimi, our top chef. After settling in our own rooms, we explored the local area. Thinking we were back home, we set out to find something to eat at 5PM. No restaurant in Italy is open at 5PM! Later that night we had dinner at Tre Stelle our local favorite. This was also the start of the Italian meal protocol. This begins with multiple bottles of wine, antipasta, followed by a 1st course and a 2nd course. It doesn’t stop there. You have to have dessert, espresso and final drink of lemoncello.
There are a lot of smokers in Italy and that was hard to get used to.
Bonjourno, today our Italian adventure begins. We’ve been talking about this for months and I can’t sit still. I packed all sorts of camera gear and 2 shirts… We’ll fly out of SFO, stop over in Washington DC and then on to Rome. I’ll try to update the blog daily but I don’t know what to expect for internet access out in Montepulciano.
We arrived @ SFO. The weight limit for checked bags is 50 lbs. I made it with 1/2 a lb to spare. I have heavy underwear.
The flight to Dulles was pretty uneventful except for that elderly German gentleman that spent 1/2 the flight taking photos at the emergency exit door. Oh I forgot the rude dude that had 5 bags and cut in front of everyone. The 2 women in front of us kicked his roller bag. I wish I would have gotten that photo.
