On her own two bare feet

Day 13:

Despite a late night we hit the road early on our way to fabled Tuscany. We reached SIENA by midday and hitched our tent in a daffodil meadow about 4kms from the old centre of town. The sun was shining but biting alpine winds herded us into a rustic warm restaurant where we took comfort in regional cuisine. Grounded and warmed by the food we discovered the town with its exsquisitely appealing window dressings of flowers, meats, cheeses, pastries, leathergoods. Late afternoon we wandered home to enjoy a picnic blanket, a bottle of a chianti, a good book and just generally soaking up the last rays of the Tuscan sun.

Day 14:

A day to explore the towns in the surrounding area. MONTALCINO we enjoyed coffee and pastries on the central square under the slowly emerging sun. The bell tower marked a musical welcome. Tuscany has been a turn from the intellectual journey of museums, galleries, ruins, and sites to the spiritual journey of slowing, savouring, inspiring, and allowing myself to drop down and in to the pace and feel of life among the rolling hills and tucked away villages that come to life at every turn. Next to something something TERME for hot springs and a hot lunch as the day had quickly turned grey and the wind again picked up as if carrying the cold from the snow. For a reason still unfathomed, the whole town was shut down except for one bar/restaurant. Settling on a quick, hot plate of pasta we were presented with two plastic containers of microwave-heated pre-cooked spaghetti and preservative sauce – a sacraligious gesture in the region of slow cooked, artisanal food. The hot springs were instead hot baths, so we skipped on to PIENZA, another tiny hill top town and procured organic olive oil, limoncello, and generally explored the various gourmet food shops. Final stop MONTECILLANO for an exsquisite selection of artisanal shops seling everything form hand crafted leather theatrical masks, to mosiacs, to leadlights, to etchings, to knitted and felted clothes, to copper cookware, and ceramics. The rain set in so we wandered about in drizzle a little longer and then made our way back to the car, and back home for an aperitivo at the local bar.

Day 15:

It rained hard all night, and the tent is so ‘compact’ that both the tops of our heads and bottom of our socks got wet from being pressed up against the sides. We quickly packed the sodden tent and hit the road on our way to PISA via SAN GAMIGNANO (or something like that). We had our best Italian meal of the trip, seated in a refurbished butcher shop still with original brickwork and shiny stainless steal runners and meat hooks. Lesson learnt from yesterday’s microwave lunch is to only eat in places that advertised pasta ‘fresh’ fresca. We dined on pasta made on site, cooked to perfection, finished with sauces so delicious we both literally wiped our plates clean with the accompanying freshly baked bread. Warmed and satiated we wandered the tiny shops catching exsquisite glimpses and 360 degree views of region. We drove on to PISA and considering the previous cold wet night in a tent, upgraded to a bungalow with covered outdoor kitchen and terrace. Italy has been an experience of contrasts, and much more difficult to connect to people and just generally get by, without some sense of the language. We both miss being in France so have decided after our next stop in FLORENCE to get back there, and to make a day trip or two to Switzerland instead of a whole drive. This will give us more time with less kilometres and less haste.

Day 16:

Slept in and ha a leisurely gourmet breakfast on the terrace cooked by my own personal chef 🙂 Read my book ‘a thousand days in Tuscany’ in a sunny spot and felt the power of simple, fully lived moments (thanks Eckhart Tolle). Quick stop at the leaning tower, well worth it, then on just another hour to Florence. Set up camp on the hills above and overlooking the entire city. SPECTACULAR! A quick trip via GPS to the closest supermaket for supplies ended in a 2 hour ordeal as she navigated us into areas inaccessible by roadworks, then another shop that we kept missing the turn for despite re-doing it 3 times (with a 1.4km re-run each time), then the grand finale following her soothing voice into a pedestrian only area and being stopped by police who told us to slowly make our way out by turning right, which we did, straight into an absolute swarm of people, like driving through a parade, being variously told off by locals, and continuing our crawl of shame at 1km an hour with no one moving out of the way and some deliberately walking in front of us as if to prove a point. Finally managed to find a way out the jumble of narrow streets and set off back to camp disheartened only to find a supermarket 500m from where we were staying! We dropped the car home and set off on the bus to explore the centre on foot (much more relaxing). It is music festival time in Florence so make shift bands of musicians are getting together on street corners. We ate gelato on the steps of the pink and green marble cathedral, one of the largest in the world. Enjoyed the markets and just generally soaked up the feel of the city. We rode home to the illuminate panoramic view and the mood of Italy has again lifted.

Day 9 continued:

One of the first towns we came across in Italy was SAN REMO so we naively decided to follow the signs into the centre hoping to magic a car park and a pizza place for lunch. Lights were out at intersections of 7 roads making everyone duck and weave and negotiate by hand gestures to get through. Motos were coming at me in all directions. Cars pulled up abruptly on the curbside wheels akimbo, put on their hazard lights, and flung their door into the already ridiculously narrow street causing Kelly to squeal several times and causing me to indraw breath in order to fit between both cars coming towards me and the cars parked on the other side. After an hour and a half of driving around we hadn’t managed to find a car park or the road out of town. The GPS was not coping, erratically instructing me to make a U turn, turn left no turn right, and directing me into hotel parking lots and dead end streets. Kelly was having a low blood sugar moment so also not coping and was erratically bursting out into fits of road rage and then almost catatonically repeating the phrase “we are never getting out of here, we are never going to find the way out”.  We then got stuck behind a garbage truck stopping every 100m for a kilometre while traffic was piling up beeping behind us. All I could do was laugh hysterically – how could it get any worse. On the 3rd time around the same route I had to ignore a no turn left sign and do it anyway as seemingly this was the only road out of town. We hit the motorway and finally with out troubles behind us took a deep sigh of relief, only to be directed off the highway and on to a road destined back to SAN REMO! At this point Kelly yelled at me to pull over, burst out of the car and burst into tears. I quietly made us sandwiches and we ate in silence by the side of the road. Calmer we navigated our way back to the highway and on to Genoa. From there we took the slow road winding around the peninsula offering magnificent views of the towns built into the hillsides and the wild ocean.  At dusk we found a camp ground by the sea, wandered the promenade and finally found a pizza place with so much glee that we devoured 3 of them, washed down with house wine.

Day 10:

We got up early to continue the drive to LA SPEZIA south of the Cinque Terre national park. The drive was spectacular weaving through forest with early morning mists rising and the first glimmers of sunshine peaking through.  We wound up a few hundred metres before gently ambling down past 4 house towns and following the river toward our destination. We jumped on a train to the 5 coastal villages unreachable by road. I imagined a romantic B&B a top a cliff but instead had all illusions shattered by 1000 Italian tourists who decided to take their family Sunday outing to the same spot. We had planned to do a 12km coastal walk that links each village, but this was closed, which left little to do except eat and look at other tourists. So we trained back to our car and decided to ditch the idea and drive 4 hours to ROME. We arrived at dusk to a 4 star camping place which meant the shower block had an indoor fountain, underfloor heating and played classical music while you bathed.

Day 11:

We spilled out from the train into the Piazza del Popolo. Immediately impressed by that larger than life size marble statues that encircled the entire square, we ambled down streets and bumped into monuments looming on every corner. Absolutely gobsmacked silent by the Pantheon, the pagan temple overwritten by a christian conversation, both stories still legible in the architecture. Gelato on the steps of Trevi Fountain – chocolate mousse and fondant flavours – I vow to never eat icecream again. Late afternoon pizza in a small rustic family run place. A few hours to explore the high brow (labels), mid brow (brands) and low brow (souvenir) stores before falling onto the Spanish Steps with aching feet. Dragged ourselves back to camp for sunset aperetivos and a homecooked meal before a well-earned collapse for the evening.

Day 12:

Second attempt at the Colosseum, closed the day before. We happen to be here in Roma appreciation week which means all sites are free and therefore unseasonably crowded. We lined up to get inside, then avoided the audioguide queues to go straight to the entrance turnstiles. However in typical Italian logic, we were redirected to again line up for the free tickets to put into the turnstiles before we could get in! Unlike the Pantheon, the Colosseum requires quite a bit of historical knowledge and creative visualisation to construct how impressive it must once have been. We took a metro to the Vatican City and were awed by St Peters Basilica but missed the Sistine Chapel closing by 15 minutes. We metroed back to central Roma to meet my aunt Angela who is a resident nun. She took us through streets we hadn’t yet seen, past the uplit fountains and pavement artistry of the Plaza Nuevo, to a local restaurant not inhabited by tourists. We were shouted to a delicious dinner of arrabiata penne pasta, margarita pizza, fried artichokes, veal cutlets, all washed down with regional wine, and finished with espresso and limoncello shots. We cosied into a corner of the restaurant talking and laughing late into the night until we were the only customers left. Having missed our respective trains we decided to taxi to Angela’s car and then she would give us a lift to the campground. It took 20 minutes or more to get a cab at the taxi rank as people kept cutting in and stealing them before us. Once in Angela’s car she took the freeway out of town and we took a belated exit signed to the suburb we were staying in. 100m past the exit was a poorly signed fork in the road, we went left, and after 20 minutes of driving up a sparsely lit and empty road realised we were not going the right way. No GPS. No map. No service station open. It was now 1am and we had only ever driven to the campsite once and that was under the guidance of the GPS, we hadnt paid too much attention, certainly not enough to find it by landmarks. We turned back on the freeway, stopping abruptly with hazard lights at each exit to inspect the 20 signs to search for clues. We saw a camping sign and followed it to another site. We finally made our way back to the original fork in the road and this time bore right, and fell upon our campsite within a few minutes. We said a cheerful if weary goodnight, it was now 1.30am, and fell onto the air mattress satiated and thankful.

The beauty of Ryan Air is that we got a 1p ticket (-taxes) from London to Venice (Treviso). (Note information in brackets tends to be the most important). Treviso is not actually in Venice. It is an 1hr10min bus trip ... [Continue reading this entry]