Tuscany Trip - Week 2 Monday to Thursday

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Glen's Notes:

Monday: Drive to La Foce/Radicofani in the rain - lost ticket on tollway. Val d'Orcia



Wey had researched some of the sights in Tuscany, and told us about a drive around the area of La Foce. There were a couple of different parts to this drive, and we weren't sure what we were up against because of the forecast of rain. We went anyway, because the forecasting seemed to indicate that this was scattered thunder showers, rather than a storm front.



I was thrilled that the first part of the drive was going to be along the tollway. I'd found the roads generally take a lot of concentration with constantly changing speed limits, signs that have too many names on to read quickly - and I have to, because the signs are right at the intersection.





We go to exit the tollway. I put the ticket in the reader. Nothing happens. I tap the ticket with my finger. It goes in further, just out of reach, but not pulled into the machine. The person at the other end of the intercom starts talking to me. He can make himself understood in English. I can't make myself understood in English. I'm trying to explain what is wrong. He asks me what entrance I got on. I don't know, it's written on the ticket. And this is the first time I've used that entrance. I told him the entrance was around Arezzo. He prints me a ticket for 42 € - about $60. I say that isn't right. He opens the gate. I haven't paid anything, but I later learn that I am expected to pay this within the next 15 days. OK.



On to our drive. The GPS doesn't know La Foce, which is the start of the scenic drive. We get close by using another town name, and then follow signs. Pretty easy, and we're obviously in the right place. When we stop at a parking spot, we can see the scenic road winding up the far side of the valley. A this point, I figure all I have to do is to follow the road signs to the other end of the route.



No luck, The route is regular Italy scenic, but not what Wey had found out about. We eventually get to Radicofani, and go in to town to find some place to have lunch. The fog is coming in thicker now, and when we get to what might usually be a scenic restaurant, the town is completely socked in. Not promising. And I have never been anyplace so disorienting as being in a hilltop town that I don't know, and the fog just fades everything away looking down the hill. It feels like the rest of the universe has just .... disappeared.





We do have an excellent lunch. The menu had a large list of pasta and sauces, but the waiter (owner?) told us what was actually available. Spaghetti with meat sauce - good, that's what I was going to order anyway. And the lasagna was Elinor's second choice. Wey and Mireille ordered pasta as well, and we had a good meal. Is it even possible to get a bad pasta meal in Italy? Probably a deport-able offense.





At this point, I'm not too encouraged about the rest of the drive. The fog is still there. I suggest that we drive to the other end of the scenic route, and if the weather is still bad, we find something else to do. We're in wine country, after all. OK. We drive to the intersection, and by the time we get there, the fog has lifted. Great! This road is basically across the top of a high ridge between two impressive valleys. Either side of the road has a really great view. I'll have to see the pictures when we get back, because my concentration is to keep the car from going off the road. At least this is a road wide enough to have a line down the center, and vehicles can pass without taking wheels off the pavement.



Wey now tells us that the next part of the drive is along a valley heading northwest. Off we go, being annoying to other drivers by keeping to the speed limit. At least this is reasonably level and straight that there are enough sections for people to pass us. A lot of nice looking scenery, and we come across a castle just sitting along the highway. Elinor insists we stop, even though it doesn't look like public property. Sure enough, this is a privately owned bed and breakfast, but they encourage Elinor and Wey to go take all the pictures they want of the outside.



And now the adventure begins. It looks simple enough to drive to Cortona, which Wayne and Wendy had visited the day before and found quite nice. Trying to make the GPS directions, road signs, and roads make sense would have made Hercules give up. Or Job. We drove in more or less the right direction, but not always through the towns we thought we were going to drive through. And it sucks, because there were a lot of beautiful towns that we drove through shouting, 'No, I think it is that corner!'. Eventually, we told the GPS to get us to Arezzo. It told us how to get back to the tollway. OK, my first experience with it was good, lets see how it goes. And it works just like it should. 2€ at the other end.



Tuesday: Assisi, wine tasting, Commonwealth War Cemetery



My uncle Lawrence passed away just a few months ago. What I didn't know until I read his obituary is that he had served with the Allied forces in Italy during the second world war. Before I knew this, Elinor and I were already talking about visiting a war cemetery in Italy. Knowing that my uncle could have lost friends over here made it more important.



I had marked the commonwealth war cemetery by Assisi on my map before we left Canada. Elinor wanted to get in another wine tasting, so we picked a winery in the area, and headed for Assisi.



The first stop was the winery - www.saioassisi.it . We hadn't booked beforehand, so they said they couldn't give us the tour or the food pairing. That was OK, we just wanted to check out the wine. Sure, the guy tells us, that part is free. My kind of price. The problem, of course, is that I'm driving, so I insist that I just want a small taste rather than the generous taste that usually gets poured. Not a problem, and the owner didn't seem bothered that I poured out the wine that I didn't drink.



Really good wines. we were both very impressed with the Merlot-Sangiovese. Sangiovese is the grape that is used for Brunello wine. It used to be really rare and commanded a high price. Now you can get cheap Sangiovese wine in the corner store. How do I know? Because we did. The difference is the wine we tasted was 8 years old, and the corner store wine wasn't a year old. The Merlot-Sangiovese is only aged about 3 years. I found it had a smokey smell to it, and it was suggested that the best pairing is with strong meats, such as wild meats.



The second stop was the commonwealth war cemetery. The gravestones are kept clean and in good repair. The grass is kept in good shape. There are flowers growing beside each grave. And each one holds the remains of a young person who gave up their future for the future of others. This cemetery has a little over 400 graves. There were around 40,000 allied soldiers who lost their lives in the Italian campaign in WW II. While we were there, we met some Australians who make a regular trip to this cemetery.



The next stop was to head into Assisi. Parking was fairly easy, but there was lots of walking up and down streets. Especially when I decided I wanted to get to the fort at the top of the hill. Excellent view of the surrounding area. I'm sure that was the motivating factor in building there. I wasn't as interested in going in. Good thing, because by the time we walked to the Basilica, we were told we probably just had enough time before it closed. We got the audio tour, and looked at most of the works there. For people like me, it would have been good to be given a piece of paper with a map that said where to play track 1, track 2, etc. We had to ask where one of the sections was located, and found another section just by wandering around, which isn't the best way to do it when time is limited. The architecture and the artwork was all very impressive.



Elinor had handed over her driver's license as security to ensure the return the audio players. They told us they closed at 6. We got there at 5:45 to return the players and get the license. Closed. At least, that's what it looked like as we were walking up. It turned out they'd shut the windows so that they didn't have to keep turning people away. Elinor tapped on the window, and they opened a door and did the swap. Saved us a return trip to Assisi.



And this was strange. It felt like the entire town was shutting down at 6 PM. The churches were stopping their tours. The businesses were shutting their doors. The snack bar at the car park wasn't doing snacks, just the parking fees. This seemed at such odds with other places, where they shut down for a while after lunch, but then kept going until 8 in the evening. We weren't planning on staying much longer, anyway, so we headed back.



We decided to have supper in Monterchi. The restaurant just outside Monterchi we'd wanted to try was closed. The printed sign said that they should be open. The hand written sign said something else. We drive into Monterchi and pull in to the town's parking lot (yes, singular) and look across the street at the pizzeria. Closed. And the bar is closed. We're missing something.



We decide to drive down the road towards Arezzo to see what's open. We pass a pizzaria a short block away that looks open. Back to the parking lot, walk to the pizzeria. We startle the owner who is watching sports on television as we walk in. It turns out he has a fairly extensive menu, and suggests the fish. At least, that's what we thought he was doing, as his English was just slightly better than our non-existant Italian. He recommends a seafood platter for an appetizer, and Elinor orders a white wine. A half-litre of white wine, in a restaurant, 4€. Roughly $6. Can't get a glass of wine in a Saskatoon restaurant for $6, let alone a half litre.



The owner took us to the back of the room where he had his forno oven. He demonstrated getting it prepared for the food, and then put the fish and potatoes in. We got to meet his Russian wife, who does most of the food preparation. We didn't get many words, but Moscow was amongst the ones we did. The owner also explained, via charades, that there was a Canadian architect or decorator or something who had come to take pictures of the interior of the restaurant, to possibly build a similar one in Canada. There was just enough of a nautical theme to know that they served good seafood.



And one more day down.



Wednesday: book hotel, Urbino, winding road

One of the tasks I'd been delinquent in completing was getting a hotel booked for our last night in Italy. We leave the villa on Saturday, and our flight is Sunday, and I've been told that sitting overnight in the airport or camping by the roadside are not possible options. So on to expedia, I'm glad that they let me book without an account because I'd forgotten to bring my password. We've now got an airport hotel that we'll have to check out of around 5 AM Sunday. We will have a few more hours in Florence Saturday afternoon. We need to have the cars back by noon. That means we'll have luggage to deal with until we can check in to the hotel, but hopefully the hotel will hold our luggage.



And there are too many options for what to do with an afternoon in Florence. We'll have to decide before we get there. I say this because we didn't decide what we were going to do with our Wednesday. Eventually I suggested taking a drive to the ocean, and Elinor just wanted me to decide something, anything, and get moving. So we got moving.



First thing: figure out how to put diesel into the car. Self serve station, and nothing in English. Buttons don't seem to react. I go ask the attendant, and she is good enough to show me a machine on the other side of the pump that I put money into and then it enables the buttons on the pump. OK, I put in a 50 Euro bill and fill the care. 33 Euros of fuel at about 1.35 € a litre, or close to $2 a litre. The machine doesn't give change. It does, however, print out a receipt and tell me how much change I would have got. I take this to the attendant, and it appears this is the way it works - the attendant takes the receipt, and gives you the change. Maybe I was supposed to use a charge card. I worry that it would have run the card up to the limit, and then what I didn't buy in fuel would have been given to me in change by the attendant. I'll stick to putting cash in these machines.



We'd originally looked at taking the freeway north or south, and then cutting across on a good highway to the ocean. Instead, as I was looking at the map, I queried Urbino, which was on the way using a road across the mountains. It turns out that its a world heritage site. Across the hills it is!



The road from Sansepolcro to Urbino is marked as a good quality road. And it is! paved, marked, guard rails, the whole 9 yards. And 9 yards is about the longest straight stretch of road. Climbing the hills I was constantly shifting between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd and I'd come almost to a stop on some of the hairpin turns, need to be in first to start accelerating uphill, and shift to 3rd just in time for the next turn. The good thing? Italians know not to travel this road. We met very little traffic. We were overtaken by very few vehicles. And when Elinor wasn't using the map on the tablet to warn me of the turns after the turns, I think she got some wonderful pictures. An interesting drive, and I'd recommend anyone try it once.



So we got to Urbino. The roads were consistently confusing. Once we got through the hills we stopped a few times to try and figure out roads. Our GPS said that we weren't allowed to drive to Urbino town center, so it refused to tell us how to get to the city. We get there despite the GPS, and see a parking garage. We go in at the bottom level, and the sign tells us level 2 has parking available. We park, get in the elevator, and go up to level 6. Then we take escalators up to level 10. Level 10 is ground level on the other side of the building. And we're right outside the old walls of the city. We're now late afternoon, and I'm reluctant to drive back a new route after dark, or even the route we just followed after dark. So we walk through the town, and we are really impressed with the buildings in the place. We check out the cathedral. Impressive. We walk to the front of the palace. Wow! Big, impressive, and overlooking the valley we'd driven along. There is also a university there that was started in the 1500 (if i recall correctly). And my impression was that a lot of the young people walking around were university students. I wonder if the older people are also students from when the University was started. Given how much we liked the city, I was quite sorry that we hadn't got there earlier.



Wendy made supper, and we were back in time for that. The half tank of fuel I'd bought? The tank was still at 7/8ths when we got back. I think that was because I was able to coast on the downhills.



Thursday: Anghiari museums, windy day

We drove over to Anghiari late in the morning. Wey and Mireille joined us for this trip. We'd found out that some of the other tourists had been quite impressed with the town, and decided to see for ourselves. The place is only a few kilometers away from where we're staying and the drive there was quick and easy.

Once in the town, it wasn't so straight forward. We were driving up the hill towards the old town, and Elinor points to the right and says, "I think that's where we want to go".



So, at the next corner, I turn right.



"What are you doing??" Elinor exclaimed.



"You said this is where we wanted to go", I replied.



"Not down this street!", she responded.



I'm perfectly capable of misunderstanding things in English. I don't need to be able to misunderstand things in other languages.



We weren't traveling on a medieval road, but it wasn't modern, either. I didn't see a "locals only" sign, and as we traveled along. We didn't seem to have much for options. It was just follow the road. We end up at the bottom of the hill, but on a different side.



Now we can see the old walls, and the original structure that faces Sansepolcro. We take a tour of possible parking areas, and I try out a couple of parking spots that are good from the "leaving the car in a legal spot" point of view but bad from the "that's sure a long walk uphill!" vote. We finally find a spot at the base of the walls that has an elevator up to the town level. I'm pretty sure the elevator wasn't part of the original castle, but I've been wrong before.



The thing that Anghiari seems to be famous for is a battle that was fought in 1440. The combatants were made up of mostly mercenary forces, and was part of the conflict between the Republic of Venice and the Duchy of Milan. I'm not even going to pretend I understand all the politics of the area at the time. The eventual outcome of the overall conflict was a shift from city-states to more territorial powers.



How decisive was this one battle? I can't find a clear answer on that. It seems that it is more important that Leonardo di Vinci painted a fresco of the battle some 70 years afterwards, and nobody is sure where that fresco is now.



We visited two museums in the downtown area of Anghiari. The first was a history of the region, and talked about the Tiber River. The area here is not that far from the source of the Tiber. The second museum had been a family estate, and a portion had been turned into a museum. As we're paying for admission, Elinor asks if we can get a guided tour. "OK", one of the ladies working there says, "No charge". So we got a lot of additional history, like when different parts of the building were built, explaining why everything seemed to be a few steps up or down when moving between rooms. And there didn't seem to be a plan to the place, just steps and twists and turns. One of the things talked about was the history of ancient firearms being produced in the area, and there was a connection to the Beretta gun production. The Beretta family has been involved in firearms production for around 500 years.



We wandered through the town in search of a restaurant. So much more fun than just checking google maps, although it takes a bit more energy. We ended up sitting in an outdoor area that was on top of the city wall, and had a great view of the valley. A bit of wine, a plate of cheeses, and some breads made a nice lunch for the four of us.



Mireille was planning on making supper that evening, so after our late lunch and a bit more walking around, we headed back to our local corner store for a few supplies and then back to the villa.

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Photos

Forna being used to make our meal!
Taken at a pizzaria in Monterchi