Day 1 - Makin' Memories

Well, our first day in Italy is over, and after a couple of misadventures we are safely ensconsed in our hotel in the little town of Montalcino. This is in Tuscany a few hours north of Rome.

Rome to Montalcino

Didn't get any sleep on the flight, but still was wide awake when I arrived. Adrenaline is a beautiful thing. Armed with my carry-on stuff and my passport, I joined the line for customs. The last time I traveled overseas to England, the customs agent asked me all kinds of questions before stamping my passport. In Italy there were no questions at all. I don't think that the lady even looked at me in the 2 seconds she had the stamp and my passport in her hand. That was fine by me, but it seemed strange.

Our little foursome, PJ and Christy Perdaems and friend Michelle Miller all met at baggage claim and were on our way to the rental car. The Rental Car (an Alpha Romeo) is a stick-shift, and I have never been more grateful not knowing how to drive one. Granted, I know one of these days I'm going to need to have this skill, but after a few hours on Italian roads I am quite confident we are much safer without me behind the wheel.

Driving in Italy is a real adventure. In spite of the fact that there are electronic police cameras everywhere, no one seems to pay any attention to them. Going 80-90mph means that you're going to be left in the dust by some Grandma out on her Sunday drive. Lane lines are merely suggestions, used only when there are a lot of other cars in the road. It's basically a free-for-all. They think nothing of passing you on a blind curve, and there are a *lot* of curving mountain roads.

Michelle is one of the most organized people I have ever met. She has a binder with every reservation, plan, map and activity printed, tabbed and highlighted. She, PJ and Christy have done an amazing job in planning this all out. My method of traveling has always been to go where the wind takes me, but given how much we want to see and do while we're here, I'm thinking this is probably a better way to go. ;)

All the planning in the world, however, didn't quite prepare us for the day's adventure. Getting to Montalcino was relatively easy. I say relatively because while it wasn't easy, it was the easiest part of the day. Finding our hotel was a completely different story.

Using the map we found a sign pointing us to "Piombaia," the place we were supposed to stay. The fact that it was off a dirt/mud hole road was a minor concern, but the fact that our car didn't have enough ground clearance to make the trip was a major concern. The Alpha Romeo doesn't have much ground clearance to begin with, and loaded to the gills with 4 people and their luggage didn't help. At one point we were scraping the ground, so all of us but Christy had to get out and walk for a while until she navigated the bumpier parts of the road.

We eventually came upon a gate with a sign that said "Piombaia" and a lovely farmhouse set amidst acres of grape vines and olive trees. PJ got out of the car and went to the gate's intercom to ask to be let in.

A very elderly woman responded on the intercom, and spoke no English. PJ kept asking to be let in (my rapid Italian courses didn't gover gate entry :) ) and she kept saying "Si." without opening up. It took a few minutes for her to understand, but eventually the gate opened and we drove up to the house.

We must have interrupted her siesta because she arrived at her top step in a night-gown, and was just tying on her robe. We all piled out of the car, and I went up to her porch to try and explain that we had a reservation and needed to know where our rooms were. She was very frail, clutching my arm as she tried to get me to understand and point the right direction.

She continued in rapid Italian that I had no clue about. I showed her our binder and the printed reservation, and she seemed to register some understanding. PJ started unloading the car, and she got very animated, pointing to a shed out back, repeatedly saying, "Roberto." "Roberto."

This is Christy and I trying to explain the situation. The woman is standing just behind Christy in her blue robe.

Like a dolt, I assumed that Roberto was going to show us where our rooms were and help us out, but I was a little wary of just wandering off to find this mystery man out in the shed. In a few seconds however, Roberto appeared, looking almost as confused as the woman.

Thankfully, Roberto spoke a little English. I showed him the reservation, and he explained that we were a couple of miles from where we needed to be. This woman had absolutely no connection to our hotel, and this was her private home.

We were of course, really embarrassed, and thanked them both profusely. We quickly got back in the car and got out of there as quickly as we could. Thinking back, I wonder what would have happened if Roberto hadn't been there. How long would we have continued to unintentionally torture this poor woman?

Armed with new directions, we decided to stop for lunch. In our first attempts to find our hotel, we stumbled upon a restaurant that a friend of Christy's recommended highly. Set amidst rolling hills and grape vines, we decided to see if they were open for lunch.

We were greeted by Kevin, the waiter, who inspite of being from Great Britain did not appear to have a firm grasp of the English language. Tough to explain. But he was very nice and showed us to a table near a huge window that gave us an amazing view.

Italian Travel Tip: When looking for a place to eat, do not go to a "Ristorante" if you are looking for a quick bite or a casual meal. "Bars" are sandwich (not drinking) places, and Trattorias or Osterias are for casual, relatively inexpensive dining. Ristorantes are dress-up places where you are served multiple courses and are usually really expensive.

This lunch was amazing, duck soup, risotto, pasta, beef. Every single thing was amazing. Even the bill...my lunch was 45 euro...which is about $70. I was hungry enough to eat/pay anything, but we didn't do that again.

Full from lunch we struck out again in search of the hotel....which wasn't too hard to find once we made it to the right place.

The hotel is an old converted villa in the middle of grape vines. We have a small apartment with two bedrooms, one bath and a living room that's private, and a larger sitting room with a fireplace downstairs that is accessible to the other guests. We're here in the off season, so there are no other guests.

Once checked in and settled, we went into the city of Montalcino to do some sight-seeing. There's what we could call a castle there, but in reality it was more of a fortress. When the Medici's or other mauraders would come to rape and pillage, the town would flee to this fortress for protection. They would stay within those walls until the danger passed.

We didn't stay in town very long. There's not that much there, and we're exhausted. Our hotel has a little restaurant (less expensive than the lunch place :) ) where we decided to go for dinner. All of the options on the menu looked great, but for reasons I can't explain, I decided to do something different and selected an item about which I had no clue. All I knew was that it wasn't going to be fish...and really I was so tired and hungry at that point I really didn't care.

It turned out to be amazing. It was hearty beef and barley soup with some sort of bread filling the bottom of the bowl. After roaming around out in the cold, this was exactly what I was looking for. I may do this again, but I don't think I'm going to probably get that lucky a second time. :)

Well, it's roughly 8pm and I can no longer keep my eyes open. The adrenaline is gone, and after a filling dinner and a glass of wine I'm ready for bed. My little internet card has a 250mb limit, for the entire month, so I won't be posting many pictures until after we get home. But there's three cameras at work here, so there will likely be more than you could ever imagine over the next couple of weeks.

I really can't believe I'm here. Tomorrow we are headed to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Will write more later.