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Published: September 17th 2009
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Tuscany….ahhhh!
Arriving at the Villa was everything I imagined, and more! After entering the large black iron gates and travelling up a tree lined drive-way, there it stood; a most magnificent old, two story house, set in the middle of no-where, overlooking hills, pasture land, and rows of sunflowers, cypress and olive tress. The building is an off white colour, with massive thick wooden entrance doors, and bottle green shutters on all of the white trimmed windows. There are five bedrooms and 4 bathrooms, with an array of other rooms serving as kitchen, formal dining and living rooms. Outside the back of the house is a BBQ area and wood-fire oven, where we can make our own wood-fired pizzas, and out the front, under a covered area of the house, is a beautiful ‘long-table’. I can imagine how much laughter and fun has been had by families and friends over the years at this wonderful gathering place, where delicious food and local wines will have been served in abundance. But the delight did not stop there, and after being led through a beautifully manicured garden and rows of fruit trees, we entered a large private area, containing a swimming pool, Jacuzzi,
banana lounges, umbrellas, and even a mini gym under a gazebo! What more could one ask for???? There was still one more surprise however; as we started to settle in, we noticed a home baked tart in the middle of the table with a complimentary bottle of home-made wine along side it!
What we didn’t realise, in our very long and rushed day to get here, was that the Villa actually was in the middle of nowhere, and we had no food or drink, nor any means of acquiring any! The Italian (Villa) owner’s son came to the rescue though and came in his range-rover to pick us up and take us to the nearest shop to get some essentials - and ended up doing the shopping with us, as it was a little corner-store supermarket with just the one older Italian lady working there and nothing what-so-ever was labled in English, nor did she speak any English, or us any Italian!!! (I think she may have opened up especially for us as there was not another soul around and she turned off all the lights and locked the doors when we left!). So with our new friend having
helped us get enough ingredients to make some pasta for dinner and pizza for the next day (nothing is open on a Sunday), as well as half a dozen bottles of the local wines, he took us back to the Villa and bid us goodnight (or bon …. I should say!)
It has been a wonderful experience trying to communicate and negotiate with Italian people with the limited language we have, and they have been very kind and accommodating in trying to speak English with us. Of course we have had a few mistaken meanings but that has added to the fun of it all. At the moment we are all just relaxing by the pool (already had a swim) and waiting for our ‘rental’ car to arrive. It was supposed to come at 11 am - then the owner of the Villa arrived just after that to tell us 1 or 2 pm. It is now 3 pm and no sign yet! I’m hoping they are just running late (and that it is a proper hire car, as I have my doubts and a gut feeling that it might be someone who knows someone who knows someone who
has an old bomb that they are going to ‘rent’ us for the 4 days, for what we think is 68 Euro for the first day and 25 euro for each day after - but who really knows what we have agreed to as nothing is in writing and we are communicating with non-English speaking Italians, through an old Italian who has very limited English himself!) But our Italian is worse then his English by a long way so if it all goes pear shape we will just have to put it down to experience, have a good laugh, and make sure we learn the local language before our next holiday!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well the car did arrive…at around 4.30pm, after the owner had been and asked ‘car?’ with arms raised and palms pointing toward the sky. I had been just about to phone him when he arrived so that was good timing. He gave the rental people a call and said, ’10 minutes…here’…pointing at the ground. It turned out to be a real car rental deal but the prices were not as had been interpreted. The 68 was correct but it was 57 for each day after, and 30 euros
for delivering it to us, then 20 more to pick it up, plus 10.50 per day for insurance on top of that, and the diesel of course! So with paperwork signed and keys handed over, we set off, on the right hand side of the road, to Montepuliciano where we hoped to find a Restaurante! It was quite an experience, to say the least, and we came within a bee’s dick of the bushes and stone walls a couple of times, with Dale trying to ‘stay right’! Of course, he declared that we were all talking rubbish…that he has good judgement, and protested greatly against our comments otherwise. That was, until we turned (too quickly for my liking) into the driveway to the Villa and he hit the side mirror on the gate (thinking he had ‘plenty of room’!!!). Thou protests too much me thinks!!
No damage done though, and we all breathed a sigh of relief at arriving back safely, all in one piece. Imagine our frustration when we went to unlock the door and found that it was dead-bolted on the inside, with a lock we had no key for!! ‘Who locked the door?’, we all chorused!
It appeared that someone (who shall remain nameless) had ‘securely’ locked all doors on us leaving…not checking that we had keys to all 5 locks! (This person also being the same person who, in trying to lock a door at a previous place of residence, set off the burglar alarm in the middle of the night!!). It need not be said, that said person is no longer allowed to lock or unlock any more doors!!
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European Escapades
Diane
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