Villa in Tuscany

I can’t decide which phrase I like more - “a Tuscan villa”, or “a villa in Tuscany”! This is like a dream come for us both. We have booked a villa for two weeks, and during this time we will be joined by Fabian’s mum Sue and her husband David, and his grandmother Mary. We are looking forward to seeing these guys, to the romantic idea of a villa in Tuscany, and to relaxing in one place for a while.

However, all that good stuff doesn’t start just yet. Currently we are in Rome, having just spent three wonderful days here. We have to get out to the airport, pick them up, pick up our hire car, and drive up to Tuscany, which will take about four hours. Naturally all flights from Australia arrive at 6am (why??) so we have to be up at a correspondingly early 5am. And I can assure you it is still hot at 5am :-)

The best thing about leaving cities at ungodly hours, on bicycles, is the relatively pleasant cycling through traffic free streets, and this time is no exception. Yawning as we cycle through the vacant streets, bumping over tram tracks and going the wrong way down one-way streets - and nobody cares! Wonderful. Careful navigating gets us to the station and we wait for our train to the airport. No, we’re not planning to cycle all the way. It’s about 20km, which is not far, but we would have had to get up even earlier, and it’s going to be such a long day regardless…

Getting down the stairs, under the tracks, and up at ours is quite a feat with fully laden bikes, but Fabian is not big and strong for nothing! (Well, I navigated :-) After a rapid dash to the wheelchair section of the train and a heroic heave into the car, we are on our way.

Arriving at the airport I am impressed to see the ramps around that make moving our bikes a breeze. I never though I would be so grateful for wheelchair access! For a second I have a flash of what it would be like to be in these cities, wheel-bound. It’s not a pretty thought. Anyway, we make it to arrivals and Fabian is immediately snaffled by our car rental man. He disappears off in a flurry of contracts and passports and I settle down to wait for the parents. To my surprise they also arrive within a few minutes and lots of time is taken hugging and catching up. Sue, David and Mary look surprising good for the long flight.

By eight o’clock we are packed and ready to go. Fortunately our bike rack survived the long trip. This excellent rack fits straight onto the back of most cars, using straps. The car is chock full of bags, and we all have something on our laps. We weren’t sure if we would need it, but in hindsight there is no way we could have managed if we didn’t have it. Thanks are due here to my Dad who packed it up and dropped it off at Sue and David’s. Thanks Dad!

The long drive up the autostrada starts with an unexpected detour through the suburbs of Rome, but luckily that doesn’t last long and we are soon zooming up the motorway. Our car is very nice, turbo diesel, and very comfortable. It is unfortunately a manual, although we asked for an automatic, which means we all have to drag our manual-driving skills out of our primitive hindbrains. It’s a tough job but we manage sterlingly.

We finally reach the little town around where we are staying, Buggiano Castello. We are trying to follow the directions we were given but quality control obviously lapsed a bit here and bridges, underpasses and churches don’t seem to be where expected. I pop into a bar to give him a ring (actually to buy a phone card, but the bar owner seems quite happy for me to just ring on the bar phone - a useful discovery). After four long hours in the car, the conversation goes something like this:

“Hello, Michele Cota? It’s Katheryn Dines for the villa at Buggiano today.”

“Oh.” (sounds puzzled) “Today? You arrive today?”

(me, sounding worried but absolutely determined we are going to sleep in that villa) “Yes, we arrive today! Saturday! Today!”

(him) “Ok, ok, no problem. Today is fine. Come at 3pm”.

(me, thinking, good grief, three hours to wait) “Ok”.

So I’m not completely sure what happened with the whole time thing but we now had to wait three hours before driving up the hill. We are tired, and hot, but there is no getting round it. We drive on and, in the narrow streets, we clip a parked car’s mirror with our mirror. Oh dear. There are people in the car and we pull over, they catch us up. They are two young girls, and I think they are a bit surprised when they see three jetlagged Australians emerge from the back. For a while we have an interesting conversation in Italian about their broken mirror (ours is ok), until one of them pulls out her mobile and rings her friend who speaks English. This works quite well and we explain the incident. The girl on the phone suggests 30 euros would be reasonable to cover the cost of the mirror. We happily pay the girl and are grateful it wasn’t more. They are surprised we don’t argue about the price (Italians would have!) but we are too worn out. It ends with civilised handshakes and best wishes all around.

After this we retire to a bar in Buggiano, and down gelatis and beers. The parents are starting to sink with tiredness and I feel awful for them. When arriving off a plane from Australia, the last thing you want is eight more hours of travel. However, they are champions and we survive the time.

Finally we drive up the hill on the winding road to our meeting point. Michele, bless him, is there. He is a gentle man, and is very respectful to Mary as we do introductions. He takes our luggage up the hill, but we have to walk. The only directions he gives are “always up”.

We leave the car park and toil up the narrow road that winds up the hill. We knew from the brochure that it was a “short walk” from the car park to our villa, but in the hot afternoon sun it seems insurmountable. David soon christens it “cardiac hill”. The cobbled path flattens out, and on other days we will notice the beautiful houses, the painted shutters, the geraniums, the view. Today we just cluster around the bottom of a ridiculously steep section. Up that? A donkey couldn’t get up that!! But yes, Michele appears at the top, waving us up. Good grief. We push on (literally for Fabian and I as we are wheeling our bikes). As we get to the top, Michele says “people say they are like the steps to heaven”. I think that means, they are very steep.

Finally, we make it up the last few steps to our doorway. We walk in and are blown away. The villa has three levels, and we have the one in the middle. This makes it cool even on the hottest days. We walk in, hearts pumping, and are immediately soothed by the terracotta tiles, the cool dim rooms, the icy water from the tap. From one side of the house we have a view over the valley, absolutely beautiful at any time. The other side has views over the tiny village square. It is spacious and cool and our bubbles of heat, sweat and discontent evaporate away.

The afternoon improves out of sight after we are in our villa. Everybody collapses, Fabian and I rest then drive out again to visit the supermarket for supplies, while the others have a well earned rest. We do an enormous shop, drive back, and make two trips up the hill carrying the food. Our parents are suitably impressed but really, what are young people for? Our first night ends with some lovely grilled eggplant, zucchini and other antipasto dishes like cheese, ham, and bread. We sit out on our terrace, sip wine, and contemplate the next two weeks. It’s gonna be good.

Pisa

Although it seems a bit cheesy, we can’t resist a trip to Pisa to see the leaning tower. The next day after a big sleep in we are all feeling a bit more human. We head out for a lovely afternoon driving through the countryside and end up in Pisa. Wandering into the city we round a corner, and there it is! I can report that it does have an enormous lean. It looks incredibly unsafe but apparently has all been fixed up. (I think we are quite lucky with the timing of our trip to Italy as the Sistine chapel had been fully restored, as has the tower. It used to have big stabilising steel bands, apparently, but there is no sign of them today.) It is also an education to realise what the tower is - it’s the bell tower of the neighbouring cathedral. There is also an accompanying baptistery and cemetery. The buildings are plonked right in the middle of pleasant grassland, unlike lots of the other buildings we saw in Rome, which have roads, car parks and all sorts of things all around them. The grass has quite a few people doing the “Pisa lean” - getting friends to take photos of them apparently holding up the tower.

We have a nice lunch, and afterwards take a few photos and go inside the church. By now I have seen a few of these things, and some are better than others. This one, I think, is a bit of a hotch-potch of different things added over the years. Still enormous though, so Pisa was not a poor place. Apparently it was quite a maritime power, until Florence grew powerful enough to dominate it, and the sea retreated due to silting up of the Arno river. I am touched when David says later that night that he was “blown away” by the church. I ask if the parents are enjoying Italy, after a somewhat tiring beginning, but they are unanimous in saying it is fantastic, beyond their wildest imaginings.

Sometime during our wanderings we hear a big hubbub on the other side of the grass. Craning to see we observe some people jumping and singing, and ahh, a Brazilian flag! Looks like Brazil won the World Cup! Congrats to them! The few Brazilians in Pisa have come prepared, they are all dressed in green and yellow, waving flags, blowing horns and generally going mad. It is lots of fun to see them so happy. And I know some people back at work who will be very glad they won… :-)

By the late afternoon jet lag is starting to show again so we head back. We stop for gelati in our local bar, and it is again magnificent. I truly don’t know how the quality is so reliable across Italy. As we eat dinner on our terrace there is a lot going on in the square below. It turns out to be a concert! We are serenaded in the evening light, by artists of it must be said, varying quality :-). There are various singers, mostly jazz and modern music, including a choir. The poetry reading between sets was novel, but the crowd loved it. It was a lovely atmosphere in the little town.

Montecatini

The next day we plan to do some jobs, like cashing travellers cheques and visiting an Internet cafe. We drive to Montecatini, which is the next reasonable sized town about ten minutes away. Our town, Buggiano, only comes to life in the morning, but doesn’t seem to have much in the way of shops. Montecatini on the other hand is actually a spa town, and has quite a few pricey outlets as well as a supermarket.

However, we forget our Italian etiquette, and only arrive around 12pm, just before lunch. We manage to change some travellers cheques but then the whole town grinds to a halt for three hours. Faced with a closed internet cafe and tourist information we give up and do the inevitable - lunch. It’s good to get out of the sun anyway.

We are getting good at the lunches now. Italian restaurants seem to have a good variety of salads, which are always huge and delicious, and of course some wine and sparkling water. We finish with gelatis for all, and stagger off to the tourist bureau. The lady there answers some of our questions and suggests a free tour of the local spa building, just up the road. Seems reasonable so we head up. It was built about a hundred years ago in the “Liberty” style, which eventually dawns as Art Nouveau. It is a grand, pleasant building, and in that typical Art Nouveau style seems to be gently teasing the style it is built in. The columns are taller, grander, longer, the art more florid and romantic. It would be a very pleasant place to come and “take the waters”. I’m pretty sure, too that spas are on the national health in most European countries.

David tries the water, and so do we. It is very minerally and salty. Can’t say I’d want to drink too much of it! Anyway, it’s a quiet day and we head back for a delicious dinner of fried chicken. We are gearing up for our next big day.

The Palio in Siena

Tuesday July 2nd - the day of the Palio. This is a big horse race that completely stops Siena for two days a year, and we are going to visit on the first one. After a lovely lazy morning we drive out. Mary doesn’t feel the race will be her cup of tea, so it’s just the four of us. We drive out in the early afternoon, taking the back roads to Siena. This turns out to take much longer than the autostrada, even though it is physically shorter. Seems like Italy, like Britain, doesn’t have much in the way of fast roads apart from the motorways. It ends up taking about two and a half hours, which is long enough in anyone’s book.

Arriving in Siena is both a relief and a hassle, as parking is all over Italy. The car is great to have to get in and out of our villa, but a real pain to get in and out of cities with. Siena itself has the old town at the very top of a big hill, and the inevitable modern suburbs are down on the flat. This fortunate location has meant the old city is still remarkably atmostpheric, uncluttered by modern changes. We drop Sue and David off at the top of the hill, and inch down looking for somewhere to park. We are, sadly, almost at the bottom when we finally find a space :-).

Siena is fantastic. It used to compete with Florence for supremacy in the Tuscan region but fairly early on was defeated by Florence at war. As punishment Florence disallowed some trades, especially banking, strangling Siena’s development. Life must have been hard then in the economic backwater, but has had the beneficial effect today of making the city unable to afford renovations, so we see a beautifully preserved medieval city today. (Florence, on the other hand, had lots of renovations in later Renaissance times). As it turns out, on this day it will be especially medieval, but more on that later.

The race itself has been going on for centuries. It is a competition between the contrade, the powerful family groups in Siena. Each contrada is roughly aligned to a trade, like carpenter or goldsmith. Each year about 10 out of 17 families compete in the horse race. It is a very important, violent, and much-betted on affair for people in Siena. The families provide the horses, but the jockeys are chosen at random, and they are outsiders to the city. Our guide book describes them as “hired mercenaries”. The chief job of the families is to make the best bribes to the jockeys so their horse has the best chance of winning.

It’s getting on to 6pm as we wander through the town, vaguely aiming for the Campo. We see lots of flags of the various contrade hanging from buildings. They are concentrated in their own areas, so we have the feeling of wandering through the horse area, and the fish area, and the porcupine area. There are quite a few people wandering around, but not as many as one might think. Where are they all? We soon find out as we have our first view of the square - a little, tiny view!! The square itself is full of people. The race is run around the outside, and all the plebian spectators - those without tickets - are in the centre. All we can see is a huge mass of people in the still sunny square. All the entrance alleys are completely closed off and manned by police. Is this what we came all this way to see?

Fortunately, not. We circle the Campo from the next ring street, snatching glimpses of the square as we go. We spend a long time at one gate, as it has a view of the square. There is a lot of pomp and pageantry going on, that is certain. After a while a horse actually emerges from the square through our gate! The person leading him is all dressed up in colourful, medieval looking costume. The horse itself is similarly attired. We realise the ceremonies have been going on for hours, display of horses, etc.

We tire of this keyhole view though, and move on. At the next gate David tries to get the guard to let him through to get a photo. He waves his passport and says “Australian” a lot. It doesn’t help, but a nearby man gives us a pointer to go further round where we’ll find something for the “pubblico”. Ah. We continue on, having circled almost all of the huge square by now by now but unable to enter the glittering square. Yet as we come around the last bend, we indeed see an alley with an open gate! Amazing! We run forward and in a moment are out in the square, on the track, in the blazing sunshine. We drink in the light and the sounds around us. It is the most perfect medieval scene you could imagine. There are no modern accoutrements, except for the people with clothes and cameras. There are flags hanging from all the windows of the buildings. The square is surrounded by simple wooden seating for a lucky few, then the track, then a heaving mass of people in the centre. We can see the even luckier few watching from the windows of the buildings, wearing suits and drinking champagne.

After only a few minutes of gazing around, the police next to us start to push us into the centre. We are thrilled to be able to get in here, but it quickly becomes a real crush. Sue declares she doesn’t like it and a policeman puts a hand in and pulls her out bodily. She retreats to a nearby restaurant. The rest of us persevere. In a few minutes the gates are shut. It is about half an hour till the race starts. Fortunately, after couple of minutes the crush eases, and I am only touching five people instead of eight. It is incredibly hot and steamy, and Fabian complains that the camera lens is fogging up! Thank God though we are in the shade, the sun now having mostly passed over the edge of the buildings. I cannot believe some people have been in the centre for hours and hours.

We are drinking in the sights and sounds when the appointed time arrives. Oh goody, I think, the novelty having worn off completely. I wasn’t able to see too much, and I was quite looking forward for this to be over. Fabian could see the horses lining up and kept us apprised of the status. Yay! Over soon!

Ho ho ho. What a joke. The horses have no starting gate, but have to line up precisely by the skill of their jockeys. This alone takes about ten minutes. Every time they get close, a roar goes up from the crowd that can see. But eventually a bigger roar follows, but no, a gunshot fires almost immediately. It takes a while to realise this is a false start. It is followed by three more, each taking upwards of 10 minutes to reoganise. By this time my nerves are shot listening to the roar of the crowds die away constantly. I am aching to hear that roar continue and become a real roar, reach some completion. It takes about 45 minutes for that to happen, and when it does, the crowd goes wild. I suddenly can’t see anything as everyone is jumping up and down and waving madly. Italians around us are yelling and screaming as much as they can. The horses whip past in a cloud of dust and noise. They do this two more times, then it’s over.

Already people are streaming down from the bleachers and pouring onto the track, following the last direction of the horses. Within about 10 seconds our fence is lifted and we explode onto the track. With all the screaming locals racing around the track, doing a human version of the horse race, it takes almost a minute to bump and crash our way off the track to the side street. It is such a relief to be out of the crush! Then we see the most interesting site of all.

I first noticed the man in medieval costume, blue and white, with his face bowed into a door. He is wordless, but clearly in deep grief. Wow, he cares a lot about the horse race, I think. Then I see another, and another. All people walking towards us, all wearing blue and white. They are wailing, crying, tearful. Some women are sitting on a stoop blubbing. A young boy with a blue and white cape strides toward us, shouting that he can’t believe it. Obviously, these guys didn’t win! It was fascinating. I have never seen such emotion, and there were no others around. The competing contrade all have their own city quarters and this was the Ocean contrada. We were almost first out of the centre, and there were no other colours around. Just them and their amazing grief.

Later we discovered that the Ocean had been pipped at the post by the Porcupine. Rumour went around that the Ocean jockey might have been sufficiently bribed by the Porcupines to throw the race. And we also realised that part of the upset-ness might have been not just pride, but all those lost wagers.

We found Sue and the outpouring of emotion had rattled her a bit. We decided not to stay in Siena for tea but to make our way back to the car and head off somewhere else. We saw lots of other contrada people (wearing the scarf of their contrada) but none looked happy. I was dying to find out who won (none of us had been able to see the conclusion of the race, behind us), but not until we passed a TV store did we see Porcupine flags waving madly on a set. So the Siena Palio was very exciting and a real experience! I wouldn’t stand in the middle again though, not unless I wanted to lose several kilos due to the sauna effect.

Florence

The next day we all slept in as we hadn’t got back till after midnight! Finally after lunch we decided to train into Florence. It took quite a while so we didn’t arrive till after 3. Our last train back was at 6 (only discovered after we bought a thick book of train timetables) so we decided to just see the Duomo (cathedral). Frankly it was nice to have a lazy day. We spent a pleasant time poking around the Duomo - covered in white and green marble - absolutely jaw dropping - and also the Baptistery. We went in and were able to take photos. It is a bit hit and miss in Italy where they allow you to take photos and many good places you are not. But here we could take some of the magnificent frescos. This was really the start of our appreciation of Renaissance art, as Rome was a mixture of ancient Rome and modern stuff.

The next day we returned to Florence, but we were very unlucky as it turned out the state museums were closed due to a strike. We saw the strike notices eventually, written in multiple languages, a standard form with only today’s date written in it! Strikes must be fairly common then. However, we did manage to see the Palazzo Medici, an amazing fortress of the ruling Medici family, and the Santa Croce church, and have a nice lunch. But we couldn’t see the Uffizi gallery, one of our major destinations.

So a suggestion for anyone coming to Florence is to allow enough time in case major sites are shut due to a strike. We gave up on Florence after that and decided to have a few days doing something else.

Cooking class

The next day Fabian had planned a surprise - all of us taking part in a cooking course! We were out early, and driving round to the other side of Florence, to find this winery in the Tuscan hills. It was near Rufina, amid beautiful scenery. It was at a big villa, built of stone, nice and cool after the drive. We needn’t have worried about being on time, either, because the chef wasn’t there when we arrived, so no rush! His American assistant, Brian, talked us through chopping up vegetables. There was an excellent selection of fresh stuff, better than any you can buy in the supermarkets. We all had a go and he demonstrated various techniques. Because it was just the five of us, it was very friendly and casual. Not surprisingly Mary (Fabian’s grandmother) had the best cutting technique!

Eventually the chef, Ricardo, returned with five big bars of chocolate, and explained the menu. First, we would make the desert, and give it time to cool in the fridge. It would be “chocolate salami”, a very simple, but effective dish of melted dark chocolate, then mixed with pine nuts and other nuts, and egg yolk to make it stiffen. We then rolled it into alfoil and put it in the fridge.

Meanwhile the vegetables were cooking. Everything was good quality. Ricardo was a young man who worked (or part owned, I’m not sure) a nice restaurant nearby. He told us the olive oil was for sale at 45 euros a bottle! It did taste very nice but I don’t think I’ll be buying any, this in a country where a litre of extra virgin costs 3 euros in the supermarket. Ricardo was very proud of his country and produce and could describe whether the oil was made from olive trees that get the sun in the morning, the afternoon, or all day.

The vegetables fried gently in generous amounts of olive oil while Ricardo sliced some tomato and put it onto salted focaccia bread. He heated this in the oven and we had it as a snack in the kitchen. Wow, if only I could buy tomatoes fresh every day and afford 45 euros for the olive oil!! It tasted pretty good. He was also making a vegetable stock which was a new one for me - reckoned it tasted better than just adding water to dishes. Of course, when five apprentices have chopped up all your vegetables for you and someone else does the dishes, it’s pretty easy :-)

We then made a batter for our main course, which would be vegetables, chicken and rabbit deep fried. This is a traditional Tuscan dish, which we saw on other menus, and was absolutely divine. Ricardo said you could tell a good deep fried dish if “there is no oil left on the serving paper”. (And he was about right!). To demonstrate he made some deep fried sage leaves. Each leaf came out in a little bubble of batter, beautifully caramelised. They were delicious! Finally, it was time to serve.

We scampered back to the dining room, and settled in. First came the vegetables, served with gnocchi. I thought he had been cooking them for about an hour, but in fact the cooking was so gentle, the vegetables (in tiny pieces!) still had a crunch to them. It was sublime. Sweet vegetables and cheesy gnocchi. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven! Brian served us a glass of red wine from the winery, which was magnificent. We saw later it was about 20 euros a bottle. Then the chefs did the waiter thing (which I really quite enjoyed) and brought out our mains. These were deep fried vegetables, like zucchini and eggplant, and chunks of chicken and rabbit, all in a light, feathery batter, with a hint of lemon, and plenty of salt. I am getting hungry now just remembering it!!

Finally the dessert came out, big slices of chocolate with nuts. Ricardo made a light citrus jus to go with it, but even it failed to cut through the richness. In the end we took several slices home in a doggy bag, for dessert that night.

Having the undivided attention of the chefs was fun. And also very revealing in the different attitudes between American and Italian people. For example, Brian (the American) dressed his dishes with about the half the amount of olive oil Ricardo would use. And, at one point Brian was sitting with us an telling us about a previous night’s class. The Italian chef, as Brian put it, “just wanted everyone to have a good time and take real pleasure in the food”. He looked over to the kitchen to see that Ricardo wasn’t coming, and said in a low voice, “I hate to say it, but they just don’t care about money!”

Eventually we rolled back to the car and drove home in a very satisfied state. Everyone was very happy with the surprise!

Lucca

Sunday afternoon we headed out to Lucca. Apart from being an attractive Renaissance town, we’d told everyone our villa was near Lucca so were keen to actually visit there!

The contrast with Florence was amazing. Yonks ago it was a moderately powerful little town, but the big vacuum cleaner that was Florence defeated it and sucked out lots of industry and investment. Lucca is today a small, prosperous town, with a lovely centre which is a pleasure to walk around. Not as punished as Siena, which didn’t advance past the middle ages, Lucca has mainly Renaissance buildings and squares, but less of the traffic and certainly less of the tourists. When we wandered to the main square, we saw a church with a magnificent facade, but they had run out of money to finish the rest of it. How does this compare to Florence, where every inch of their cathedral is covered in the most expensive white and green marble! The richest buildings outside of Florence, that we have seen, are actually in Pisa, which got them built before Florence conquered it.

It was nice not to be exhausted at the end of the day. We returned home and ended up going for dinner at our local ristorante, Sant’ Elena. This is most of the way up the hill to our villa and so has a magnificent view over the plains, full of villages and churches. It was excellent food. Fabian and I shared a tagliata, which our chef Ricardo had mentioned but we hadn’t quite understood. It turned out to be an enormous T bone steak, seared on both sides, served rare, and cut into slices. It was fabulous. I really can’t go on enough about the food in Italy - the style of the food and quality of ingredients are superb.

The beach!

Now for something long overdue - a beach trip! Fabian and I are keen to return to the Ligurian coast, and show the parents this gorgeous coastline. We drive down the autostrada at a reasonable time in the morning, heading for the coast above La Spezia. On the way a car accident happened just in front of us. I don’t even recall what happened, except I saw a car move suddenly, then bits of car started spraying everywhere. Bumper, lights, plastic, metal flew onto the road. We screeched to a halt (the ABS is good) and pulled over to the emergency lane. One involved driver left his car and hobbled over to the emergency barrier (not what I would have done, he didn’t even look for oncoming cars). The others pulled over a bit ahead. It was a nasty accident but no-one seemed to be seriously hurt.

Almost immediately other cars started streaming past us. Clearly they didn’t want to be caught up in a delay due to the accident. I was surprised at their inconsiderateness but later it became obvious that accidents on the autostrada are all too regular. Since it was clear that several cars had stopped, we decided to continue too. It felt a bit heartless but there was nothing we could add, as we didn’t speak Italian and hadn’t even seen it clearly.

A word here is due about Italian drivers. After two weeks of driving amongst them, I can say they are terrible. They have two main faults: first, they do everything with never a look over their shoulder. They change lanes, turn, stop, with nary a look behind. Second, they tailgate. Obsessively. I have never seen so many little snakes made up of three or four cars, travelling at 120 km/hr, all about 3 metres apart. We believe these two traits were the cause of the above accident. We suspect what happened is that something caused one car to brake suddenly - maybe a car pulling out to overtake without looking? and a third car went into the back of the first. As Fabian said it’s thanks to modern engineering in the cars that no-one was hurt.

So that was exciting, and a bit disturbing, and made us more cautious on the autostrada. But, we made it to our destination with no problem, a little town called Chiavara on the coast. It was blazing hot as we piled out of the car, and went looking for somewhere to eat. At random we picked a little place on the waterfront, run by a very pale guy and his wife. It turned out to be delicious, one of our best meals. Fabian, David and I had spaghetti with prawns. Big prawns that we had to shell, served in this tasty spaghetti flavoured with the scent of the sea. Smashing!

We decided to drive on for the gelati and coffee, to someplace a bit smaller. It was very pleasant to be off the main highway and along the coast road. Shortly though we came to a place where all the cars were stopped. It appeared to be at the entrance to a tunnel, and there was a big red light. We were stopped for about 10 minutes before the light turned green. People in the queue hopped back in the cars and we proceeded - into a single lane tunnel! It was very narrow, with poor lighting. Phew, I said, when we emerged a minute later, only to rapidly dive into one again! And this one didn’t have any lights and seemed to go on forever. The whole series took about 8-10 minutes before we saw the beginning of the return traffic. That was a bit unexpected.

However, we did finally reach a suitable destination - one of the many little towns in the sheltered coves along the mediterranean. The coastline is magnificent here, azure sea surrounded by treed hills. We park in a little town, with just a few hotels and a beach, and go for a swim. The water is lovely - clear and not too cold. We lolled on the beach for a while and watched the tourists. Following up with gelatis for all - and I tried chocolate for the first time, it left every other chocolate I had ever had in its wake - before finally we decided to return. The beach day had been a wonderful highlight, if a bit far.

The Uffizi Gallery, Florence

On Tuesday we felt up to braving Florence again. We trained in and all five of us went to check out the line for the Uffizi, one of the biggest and most popular galleries. It is basically filled with the paintings the Medici family acquired over their 300 year rule of Florence. The building itself is a masterpiece, designed by Brunelleschi I think. The line turned out to be the usual two hours so Sue bravely volunteered to stand in line. Fabian, Mary and I went to have a coffee. Just off the main square three coffees cost nine euros! I had flashbacks to Rome as I was paying. But it was lovely to relax and enjoy the morning. We did see one tourist drive past, videoing from his taxi!

After an hour we relieved Sue. Feeling peckish we bought some slices of pizza to sustain us through the galleries! Finally we made it inside the building, then down to the last barrier, and go! We made it past the crowd control man and saw the steps to the third floor. Mary let out a big groan and the lift lady heard, so we took the lift.

The galleries themselves are amazing. We couldn’t take any photographs (well, Fabian took one surriptious photo of Venus’s bottom), but we bought the guide book so were able to refer to it as we went around. Mostly, it was amazing stuff. And such a concentration of masterpieces! Any one of them would be worth a room of its own in a different gallery. Botticellis jostled with Michelangelos, Donatellos, Lippis, Giottos, etc etc etc. Room after room of amazing paintings and quite a bit of statuary. All in what was basically their palace hundreds of years ago (the whole building was originally offices, which is where the name comes from, but the top floor was always built as an art gallery).

Although I didn’t like the wait when I was outside, once I was in I appreciated the lack of crowding in the rooms. It certainly wasn’t empty but it was possibly to stand in front of the pictures and appreciate them in our own time. I have been to some exhibitions, mainly in London, where the number of people crowded round a picture makes it an effort just to get close.

Some of our highlights were: Botticelli’s Venus, and Spring, altarpieces by Giotto, statues in the Tribuna, including the roof lined with shells, ladies by Titian, and Michelangelo’s round Madonna and child. It was an amazing day. And a real triumph to get in after the strike! I felt personally very satisfied, although I did have to pinch myself to remind myself it was real. To be honest the Uffizi could stand two visits, but most people (like us) only have so much energy!

Florence is always a big effort - an hour on the train - so the next day people were happy to have a rest day. Fabian and I thought we would make tracks back Siena way and try to take some evening photographs of the hill towns. Many of the older towns in Tuscany are plonked on top of a hill, mainly for defensive purposes (as is our own dear villa!). It was quite a drive on the autostrada. But finally we pulled off and started chasing the light over the hill tops. We saw some lovely towns, and wished we had more time to poke around the area. At one point we abandoned the car (in a very Italian way!) and raced across fields to capture the setting sun. It was lots of fun! We stopped in the next town for dinner and noticed a big sign saying that this was the “il Merlo” contrada. It turns out that this area has a palio as well, and all the local regions compete in the town Cassole d’Elsa. A travel tip would be to attend that palio instead of Siena, as I bet it is more comfortable!!

Michelangelo day

The next day Fabian and I headed back to Florence, but Sue, David and Mary elected to spend a short day in Montecatini. We dropped them off and they explored the markets while we caught the train. On this day we ended up concentrating on an area of Florence which was around San Lorenzo church, and it was just fabulous. We had less walking, but saw just as much! First we saw the Medici chapels, which are at the back of the San Lorenzo church. We buy our tickets (6 euros each!) and head down to the tombs. The first one is the chapel of the princes, built very late in the Medici reign and pretty much bankrupted them. It was about the grandest thing we saw. Quickly moved on to the tomb where there are two big statues by Michelangelo, our main target.

The statues took our breath away. It’s a fairly small room, the New Sacristy, itself designed by Michelangelo as well. The tombs of the two young Medici dominate. One side has a carving of the young man, Lorenzo, with Dawn and Dusk reclining at his feet. I felt like they could all stretch and get up at any moment! The figures were incredible in their lifelikeness, yet grand as well. The other side had a different young man, (Giuliano I think), with Night and Day reclining under him. This one was equally amazing. We spent some time gawking at these, no photos unfortunately! Then we reluctantly moved on to the church itself.

San Lorenzo was a revelation. Unlike all the other churches I have been in recently, it was not dark. It was light, and airy. Large grey arches supported the roof. The sides were lined with well lit and well spaced paintings. The white walls contrasted against the structure, all built with grey stone. It was glorious, and felt incredibly modern. It is apparently a good example of a Renaissance church, by Brunelleschi, who seems to have been the architect de jour of Florence. Michelangelo of course was the sculptor. Between the two of them they just about sum up fourteenth and fifteenth century Renaissance Florence.

I was very keen to visit the library, and see a staircase designed by Michelangelo. I had studied this in Perth many years ago and the chance to see the original was too good to pass up! I couldn’t see how to get into the library though, so asked an attendant. She told me to go back outside and to the left, but to hurry because it was about to close! We raced outside and tore up the stairs to the first floor, and there it was. Michelangelo’s enormous staircase, sprawling out from the entrance to the library, taking up three quarters of the vestibule. With their round steps, my guide book observed they looked like a flow of lava. That was thrilling, to see something I had studied all those years ago. We could not see the library, however, also a Michelangelo masterpiece, as it is a functioning library for scholars of old manuscripts, only open for tours on Saturday morning. Figuring out all the opening times of Florentine sights is a bit of a challenge, so again a reason to spend a few days there to make sure you don’t get caught out.

After a bit more browsing in the San Lorenzo church, which is stuffed with more objet d’art than you could ever hope to see or appreciate, we found a pleasant bar to have a drink in. We decided on one more sight before lunch (which was a bit ambitious!) and it was the Palazzo Medici-Ricardo. It used to be the palace for the early Medici family, but in later centuries they moved on to other digs. It was taken over by the Ricardo family who did a lot of renovations, leaving only a frescoed chapel as original. We saw this, but it was in such a small, hot little room it was difficult to appreciate. The rest of the palace wasn’t that special as most of it is taken up with municipal offices. So while it was interesting to imagine Lorenzo the Magnificent sweeping down its corridors, you needed a fair bit of imagination to make it work.

Finally we head back to our pleasant bar and order lunch. It is air conditioned, and busy but very good humoured. The patron serving coffees and drinks has a big grin on his face the whole time. You can tell he enjoys his job, loves being quick and efficient even in the heat! Plus he’s probably looking forward to a month off by the sea.

During the meal I noticed the attractive plates had the shields of various towns around the side, including our locals, Buggiano and Montecatini! I joked about whether they sold their plates. But they went one better - when the guy came to clear our plates, Fabian asked if we could have it! Without batting an eyelid the guy said “just the plate, or the set?” Oh, the set please! So we scored these lovely plates! That completed our set of awards we were planning for that night - David’s last night before returning to Perth.

After lunch we headed over to the Duomo again to climb the dome. We had to wait in a queue in the hot sun for about 15 minutes. Inside, there were 463 narrow steps to the top, for which you were expected to pay. It was brilliant to see the frescos inside the dome in close-up, though. I hadn’t realised how large the figures are. When seen from the floor, about 80 metres below, they look normal sized. Up there, we can see human figures are 10, 15 metres across. And when we make it to the top, we pop outside and have views all over Florence. We can see all the palaces and churches we have visited. It is pretty cool.

That evening all five of us head out for dinner at Sant’ Elena, our local restaurant with a view. We give out awards: David gets an apron with a statue of David on it, for being the bolognese chef extraordinaire. Sue gets the plates, for her sterling job in the queue at the Uffizi. Mary gets a small espresso maker, to keep her jogging up. It is lots of fun and a lovely night before this phase of our trip ends. Our next plans are to drive up through Switzerland, so expect lots of mountain photos in the next installment!