Road trip through Tuscany!
Trip Start
Sep 15, 2006
1
27
80
Trip End
??? ??, 2007
Arezzo,
Italy
Monday, December 25, 2006
The sun sets on us as we wind our way north into Tuscany. We decide not to go to Florence, but instead stop at Arezzo, farther to the south, to spend the night. The first hotel we find gives us a good price on a quad room, and after a halfhearted attempt to talk him down farther, we say okay and fork over the cash. From our drive in, Arezzo seemed a thoroughly modern Italian town, with factories and car lots all over the place. But a few minutes' walk from our hotel was a beautiful historic district still inside the old city walls. Here, the hotel owner had suggested a great little pizzeria, where we loaded up once again on pasta and cheese. I don't want to know what a week and a half in Italy is going to do to my cholesterol level.
In the morning, we jog south for a bit of sightseeing in Tuscany before making the drive north to Milan in the evening and night.
There was an old castle on a hilltop near the road, so we decided to drive up and knock on the door. Nobody's home, so we walked around the outside for a little while, in between olive trees, admiring the great (but smokey) view of the countryside below.
Stopping at a sign for direct olive oil sales, we wandered around the outside of a factory for a while. Cierra eventually got tired of this and popped her head in the back door and some of the workers inside started talking to her. She took this as an invitation to come on in, and soon all four of us were treated to a tour of the olive oil manufacturing process. Though the workers there spoke no English, they were more than happy to open little doors in the pressing machine so we could see the olives in different stages of digestion. The final step was clear. On one side a torrent of muddy brown olive waste poured out, on the other, a thin trickle of extra virgin olive oil collected in a pan. We got into the store, where work was proceeding on the counter and bottles of fresh oil lined the shelves, and learned that they weren't really open yet, it was Saturday and their first day was to be Monday. Deann and Greg were their first customers, snapping up half liter bottles for just 5 Euro each. We would see the same amount for 15 Euro later that day.
We drove up a winding road to the quaint Tuscan town of Cordona for a little lunch at another pizzeria. As we arrived into town, a pair of smiling nuns greeted us. One suggested that we drive up to the town, the other seemed to think we couldn't. Watching the nuns argue mildly about it, we decided to proceed with caution, and found another postcard town at the top of the hill. I'm beginning to think that all of Italy is made up of these extraordinary little places, where you feel as if you've stepped into a postcard. This town lives high on a hilltop, and narrow streets and steep stepped alleyways give the impression of a larger town than it obviously is when you view it from outside. There just isn't much space here, so everything gets compressed.
Moving on for a long drive to Milan, phone calls and talks kept us busy for hours while Cierra concentrated behind the wheel of the car. Once there, we checked on how to get to the airport, then checked all the hotels we could find until one of them made us a deal. It took 3 tries tonight, and by the time we get a room, it's almost too late to get any food. Greg and I disappear on a mission to bring back takeout, and we get ferried to and from the hotel in a waiter's station wagon, on the way there driven by the waiter, on the way back, by his wife.
In the morning, we got up and delivered the parents to the airport and waved goodbye to all family members for at least another 3 months. The other thing we'll be waving goodbye to is eating so well. It's back to backpacker style and the Euro is not going to let us ease into it this time...
