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Published: March 9th 2007
Tuscany
Oct 14 - 21, 2006
Saturday
We checked out of our Florence hotel at 10:30 and took a cab to Europcar. It was only about 6 blocks from our hotel but we had too much luggage to walk. Europcar was a mad house with lots of people returning and picking up cars so there were tons of cars on the street and lots of traffic. We got the car all loaded up and decided Roger should drive. Having driven a stick shift only a handful of times he might not have been the obvious choice but he had driven most recently in a foreign country and he’s fairly used to DC traffic. He had a little trouble getting situated with the stick shift at the beginning but we finally made it out of town. Driving around Italy is a stressful experience and Roger handled it like a champ.
We stopped for lunch at Osteria alla Piazza in Castellina and had one of our best meals in Italy. It was the most expensive place we had eaten so far in Italy but it was totally worth it. We dined on the sun-drenched patio, perfectly set for casual
but luxurious dining, overlooking grape vineyards. It was such a good meal that we feel it necessary to bore you with what we ate. Amy had bruschetta and pumpkin ricotta cheese pasta with meat sauce, Pam had pasta with beans and grain soup, John had ravioli with truffles and Roger had risotto with squash and pear and cheese.
We stopped at a grocery store in Poggibonsi called Pam to have a look around. We purchased a few items we couldn’t live without and that would survive sitting in the car until we made it to our villa. We stopped in San Gimignano, the town closest to the villa we were renting. Although at night it is nice, in the middle of the day it is overrun with tourists, almost all of them American. It is a dense brick city built along the spine of a hill with no cars allowed in and even with all of the tourists it is a very cute town. Pam and Roger waited in the car while Amy and John went to call the landlord about our villa. She didn’t answer her cell phone so we called her house phone which was answered by
someone who didn’t speak any English. As you may know, the way to handle someone who doesn’t speak your language is to just keep talking louder and louder until they understand. John pulled it off beautifully. It was really funny to watch the people look at us as they walked by and he shouted “We’re calling about the house!!!!!”
We gave up and decided to follow the directions we originally received to the villa. The directions were confusing so we stopped at a resort to call the landlord again and we finally reached her. She sent someone to meet us at the house. The woman who met us
didn’t speak much English but she took our passports to make copies and showed us around the villa. The villa was really great with 4 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, and an extra room off of the front room. There was also a beautiful pool with cold water which we never took advantage of because it was too cold. The best part about the villa was that the week we rented it was the start of the low season so the price dropped from 1000 Euros to 480 Euros.
We got settled
in our digs and then headed back out to get groceries because we knew everything would be closed on Sunday. We weren’t sure what grocery store would be closest and so we ended up at Coop in Certaldo. One thing we liked about Coop is that you have to insert coins to get a grocery cart and when you return it your money is returned so there are no loose carts all over the parking lot. Someone should bring this to Safeway. We found out later it was definitely not the closest place to get groceries and it was not nearly as nice as Pam. Coop was packed with locals and the aisles were jammed. We bought some Italian necessities like olives, meat, cheese and bread. After we got back home, we had spaghetti for dinner which turned out a little bland but with enough anchovies it was pretty tasty. Everyone is a little worried about Amy’s addiction to anchovies and an intervention may need to be staged.
Sunday
Because Sundays are quiet in Europe we slept in and hung out around the house. Once we were all up and moving we decided to head into Sienna. We
got really lost driving around Sienna and looking for the Piazza del Campo. We’re pretty sure we ended up in an area where cars aren’t supposed to be although it was hard to tell because there were other cars so we dropped off John and Pam and looked for a parking space. It took us about an hour just to find a parking spot near where we wanted to be and Amy was tempted to just turn around and drive back home. We walked to the Piazza del Campo and had pizza at a restaurant right on the Piazza which always means great food and cheap prices. OK, it wasn’t really and the extra bonus was that our waitress was a huge sourpuss. She was not friendly at all but we enjoyed watching a bride and groom in the Piazza being photographed while people cheered them on. On the walk back to the car we stopped for our obligatory gelato and realized that some of the shops that had been closed on our way in were opening.
John had found a restaurant called La Pievina he wanted to try in Tuscany and after reading the review he brought Amy
was in complete agreement. We decided to drive there to make a reservation for sometime during the week because Amy misread the directions and thought it was only 4 km outside of Sienna but it was actually 4 km from the next town but we decided to go anyway. When we finally arrived it was closed so John and Amy got out to look around and hopefully find out about the cost and get a reservation. A woman came out of the restaurant and Amy tried to make a reservation in English which did not go well and so she left very frustrated. John saved the day though by going back to the woman with his Italian phrase book and his Italian accent and got us a reservation for Wednesday.
Victorious we headed back home. We tried to go to Pam but it was closed and so we stopped in San Gimignano at a small shop to pick up a few things. It took longer than we would have expected because the owner had a long conversation with the local in line in front of us while we looked on with our American impatience. Pam made pasta with vegetables
for dinner and we ended the night by trying (and succeeding) to get John and Pam hooked on The Office.
Monday
We left the house around 9 and arrived in Pisa around 11. Although distances aren’t very far, it takes a long time to get anywhere because of the narrow windy streets. We found a nice pay parking lot near the attractions which was a relief after our experience the day before in Sienna. We walked to the Piazza dei Miracoli which contains the Cathedral, the Baptistry and the Leaning Tower (Torre Pendente). Except for capturing a few photos, we ignored all of the buildings except the Leaning Tower. We took the obligatory “I’m holding up/touching the Leaning Tower” photos like everyone else and we perused the numerous tacky souvenir vendors. We were all surprised at how much we enjoyed seeing the Leaning Tower. It is pretty cool to see it in person after seeing photos of it for so long and we definitely felt that it was worth the stop in Pisa even considering the traffic.
After Pisa we drove to Lucca. Lucca is a walled city with wide walls 3 km around that you can
The Leaning Tower
complete with crowds and vendorswalk or bike on. John remembered reading something about not being able to drive into the city but Amy couldn’t find it in our guidebook and we saw cars going into Lucca and signs indicating parking lots so we headed in. It took us awhile to find a spot because the one small parking lot we found was full but we ended up finding a spot on a street without any signs prohibiting us from parking there. We walked around a bit exploring the different piazzas as there weren’t any specific attractions we were looking for.
We had lunch at Trattoria da Leo (www.trattoriadaleo.it) and had one of the nicest waitresses we had during our time in Italy. She was an adorable older lady who didn’t speak any English and who you wouldn’t have been surprised to see playing an Italian grandmother in a movie. Trattoria da Leo was hopping with both locals and tourists. Amy ordered minestra di farro luchese because John and Pam told her spelt was a small fish so she had visions of anchovies dancing in her head. Well, spelt is a bean but the soup was really wonderful. Roger didn’t really like beans before
our trip but he loved the soup. Our waitress saw Roger cleaning Amy’s bowl with bread and brought him another bowl of soup for free. The rest of the meal was good but not exceptional although the tiramisu was good (it’s good everywhere we’ve tried it in Italy).
We walked around some more after lunch and saw another bride and groom being photographed (this couple without any other spectators). On our way to the car we stopped for some gelato which unfortunately wasn’t enough to soften the blow of the 100 Euro parking/driving ticket waiting for us on the car. There were no parking signs on the street we parked on but we think there were “no parking” signs on the way into Lucca in Italian. Amy and John disagreed on this but if they really don’t want people driving or parking in Lucca they would have “no parking” signs in as many languages as most of the menus (or at least in English). But if their goal (as Amy believes) is to make some extra money off clueless tourists, then they should keep doing what they’re doing because it’s working for them. We loved Lucca but this soured
us all a bit. Lucca seems like it would be a great place to base yourself in Tuscany because we didn’t see anywhere near the number of tourists we’ve seen in other places. It has a nice quiet relaxed feel to it.
We headed back to San Gimignano and discovered that getting there after 6 is great because there’s parking and not too many tourists. We made a dinner reservation for 7 at Trattoria Chiribiri so we didn’t have too much time to explore but we walked up the main street and looked at the shops. Trattoria Chiribiri is a really small restaurant so you need reservations (you actually need reservations at most restaurants in Italy for dinner) but it was a very good value which we didn’t expect in San Gimignano. The food was really good and really cheap although there is a definite emphasis on meat: John had ox tongue and then rabbit stuffed with meat, Amy had pasta with wild boar sauce and beef carpaccio with gorgonzola sauce, Roger had pesto pasta and beef with roasted radicchio and Pam had a mushroom salad and osso bucco. We all like food.
Back at the house we
watched more episodes of The Office and tried the vino, a dessert wine that we bought in San Gimignano. It was not a big hit and so John and Roger were the only ones that finished it and the limoncello that followed. The stress of driving in Tuscany may have driven Roger to drink because he never seemed too sad to drink his portion plus Amy’s portion.
Tuesday
After our busy Monday we decided to ease into the day and so we didn’t get on the road until 1. Amy and Roger weren’t feeling too great because Roger had overdone it with the cherry licorice that John and Pam brought for him. Amy wasn’t feeling well because she had started the day with four anchovies before deciding she needed chocolate to balance the anchovies and so she ate a mini cornetto ice cream. John wanted to try some of the wineries and olive oil places that we had seen driving around. We weren’t exactly sure where to go so we just headed off looking for places to drink or eat lunch. We stopped at a couple of places for wine but nothing was open. We were slightly relieved
because it probably saved an awkward social situation with the four of us sampling wine. Nothing appeared to be open for lunch either so we ended up at Ristorante Pizzeria Vento Medicio for a very mediocre meal. The menu was in Italian and while we could make out a decent number of dishes we weren’t sure of everything. Roger ordered pizza but that was only available for dinner so he went with the special not having the slightest clue what it was. The special turned out to be quail and it wasn’t too appetizing because it looked like they just removed the feathers and cooked it (it tasted good, though).
After lunch we looked some more for wine but still couldn’t find anything so we headed to Volterra. Volterra is a very cute town set up on a hill. We walked around looking in the shops and admiring the view before ending up at Web and Wine for wine, dessert and internet. The place was very cool with see through floors designed to enable you to see the walls found below during renovation.
We headed from Volterra back to San Gimignano and walked through town. We found a
place we were interested in for dinner but we didn’t have a reservation and it was full. This was disappointing to John because he had spent awhile trying to get in, pulling rather than pushing, on the door. We ended up eating at the casual brasserie at Ristorante La Griglia because our guide book had a review. The favorable review we had was way off though because the food at this restaurant was what you would expect in a mediocre Italian restaurant in America. Plus the prices were pretty expensive. On the plus side, the waitress was very nice and she brought Pam ice for her coke. After dinner, Roger and John had two shots of limoncello and stayed up “discussing” football after Amy and Pam went to bed.
Wednesday
Our day started off poorly. Right after leaving the house a wrench light on the dash board went off. We stopped at a gas station to try to get help because we couldn’t read our car manual in Italian although we suspected it said not to drive. The guy was willing to fill up our gas tank but nothing else. We went to a bike shop recommended by
the gas station but it was of course closed for lunch. The second gas station we stopped at checked the oil and sold us some new oil for the bargain price of 13 Euros. Although the guy at this gas station told us he had fixed everything when we started the car up the light stayed on.
We drove to Colle di Val d’Elsa but everything was pretty much closed (including the restaurants which seems like an odd way to run a restaurant) for lunch so we called Europcar. Europcar outsources their customer service and so the woman we spoke with checked with a mechanic and then told us the car had to be towed. She wasn’t sure if we’d be able to get a replacement car and, if we were, she said we’d either have to get to Siena or Florence and we would probably be responsible for any expense over $30. Of course, she wasn’t sure about any of this because Europcar’s offices were closed for lunch and would not reopen until 3. Amy went to get cold cheese pizza from the only place with food that was open and we sat by the car eating and
waiting. Finally, the tow truck driver came and put the car on his truck with John and Roger in it and Amy and Pam in the cab with the driver. At the repair shop the mechanic looked at the car and said that it was just a light that came on for maintenance purposes and so he reset it and we were on our way. Europcar’s ineptitude cost us about 4 hours out of our day but we were relieved that we didn’t have to find out how bad their replacement service was.
With the car fiasco behind us, we headed to Asciano which was tiny with not much to see except gelato. Maybe even the locals there have nothing to do because it seemed like half the town was just hanging around on the street. We still had a good amount of time before dinner but we couldn’t really think of anything to do in the area. If you’re waiting for dinner you can’t really eat and what else is there for us in Tuscany? So we decided to drink. We drove to another town to a wine tasting at an enoteca thinking we could have a glass
of wine and kill some time. The enoteca was basically a store where you can sample some of the wine. There were no seats so we tasted a couple of wines and then bought a few little bottles of different flavored grappa because we just can’t give up on the idea that it might taste good. Our enoteca excursion didn’t waste much time so we ended up at La Pievina early hanging out in the parking lot waiting for them to open.
The meal was quite an experience and lasted from 8 pm to 12:15. It started with nuts and a basket of warm bread before the courses started. We had the following starters: shrimp with chickpeas and pureed chickpeas, assorted crostini with tomato, seafood and baby clams and pate, cold seafood salad with squid octopus and prawns, filleted sardines pickled with sage, rosemary and onion, lunarchi cooked in a rich tomato sauce (these were basically tiny shells where you picked out the meat with toothpicks), filleted sardine stuffed with seafood puree and pine nuts and then fried (this also came with another piece of fish that we couldn’t identify), fish (not sure what type) stuffed with something (we’re
not sure what - maybe we lost consciousness at this point) and onion rings and baked mussels with fresh soft breadcrumbs, mozzarella, basil and chili. The next course was the soup and it was a clear broth with eggs, spinach and fried bread. Then came the entrees: seafood risotto with clams, mussels, prawns and octopus, pasta with seafood (maybe rock lobster?) and fritto misto (a tree with fried seafood on it). There were six different desserts including two cream puffs and four cakes. Dinner also included wine, water, coffee, grappa and limoncello. We also tried the digestive (L’amara del Naturista al Rabarbaro) which was non-alcoholic and tasted like burned plastic mixed with shag carpet and Vicks Vapor Rub. We assume the digestive must work by causing you to lose the contents of your stomach.
We really enjoyed the experience at La Pievina and would highly recommend it. As you can imagine we started off very eager and did a good job cleaning our plates until the pasta dish. Everything fell apart then and it went from fun to painful but we plugged ahead. It’s a pretty small restaurant and there weren’t too many diners. The couple next to us
were young newlyweds who were recommended to the restaurant without knowing anything about it. They were from Seattle so when the proprietor told them their specialty was seafood they were probably thinking “yes, salmon!” The woman didn’t like a lot of the seafood and eventually they stopped the set menu and ordered off the menu. The woman did however eat one of each of the desserts. Also sitting by us was a group of four older Americans from Minnesota. They were the definition of ugly Americans set in their way and unable to try anything new. When they walked in one of the guys told the waitress “The only Italian I know is pizza,” a line he greeted us with, and presumably one he used over and over again every minute of his packaged tour. They asked for butter, complained fairly loudly about the meal and their dislike of sardines before eventually ordering off the menu as well. We think that the proprietor thought we were British because we gladly ate everything they brought us. We were happy that the other couple in the restaurant was German and they also ate everything and actually ate it even faster than we
did which if you know John you know is quite a feat.
Thursday
Pam wasn’t feeling well (with all that food from the night before who can blame her) so we headed out without her around noon. We were all craving McDonald’s (see what rich Italian food can do to you) but didn’t want to drive to Sienna just to go to McDonald’s so we decided to take our chance in Poggibonsi but there was no McDonald’s (or much else exciting for that matter) there.
We lucked out that we couldn’t find a McDonald’s because we ended up in Castellina in another great restaurant, Che Ciccia. We picked it solely based on the number of cars parked out front. The food was fabulous and Amy had caprese salad (tomato & mozzarella) and lasagna, Roger had chicken wrapped around pear and raisins covered in cheese and John had pasta with truffles.
After Castellina, we went to Radda. It was a cute town but we didn’t explore too much because it was raining. After a short walk around we headed to internet/bar/gelato. On our way home we stopped at Pam to get some groceries and then enjoyed dinner
in.
Friday
We went to a market at Colle di Val d’Elsa which we thought was pretty disappointing. We dropped John and Pam off at the market and then spent 30 minutes trying to find a place to park. Italians will park anywhere and everywhere and its fun trying to squeeze into tiny spots with cars parked in all different directions. The market had a little food, some clothes and a lot of crap. Unfortunately, there were no tripe sandwiches for John to try but he was able to try some kind of chicken dish. Obtaining the chicken involved John waiting patiently in line while louder, pushier people all around him got served but he finally got his food. Outmaneuver an eighty-something Italian woman in line. We dare you.
After the market we went to Monteriggioni. We had decent pizza and gelato there. It is a really small town but it is really cute with walls around it. Roger and John even took some time to walk on the wall. We had read that the town is inundated with tourists but it was not bad when we were there.
After Monteriggioni, we headed back to the
villa to pack before having dinner in San Gimignano at a place right outside the walls (we can’t remember the name). It was very reasonably priced and very good and because it was our last Tuscan meal Amy and Roger felt the need to go big (as if every day wasn’t going big) so Amy had bruschetta, ravioli with walnut sauce and sausage with bean & tomato and Roger had seafood salad, soup and Florentine steak.
It may sound as if we did nothing but eat in Tuscany but we had a very pleasant visit and did plenty of exploring (between meals). Our favorite towns that we visited in Tuscany were Radda, San Gimignano (after the day trippers leave), Monteriggioni, Volterra and Lucca, although even some of these places felt more like places for tourists to visit than real functioning towns. The reputation of the Italian countryside is well-earned and we had some amazing meals. It’s a path well trod by tourists and you often feel as if you are being shown a cultural show rather than anything all that authentic, but for all of the hustle and bustle the ample charms and calories remain alluring.
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