As my facebook folks know, somehow my blog address appears to have gotten out and I got a slew of random comments last night. Strange comments and I don't know any of the people. Maybe on a travel forum? Anyway, I transferred everything to a new blogspot blog because I like their format better. I realized that I never finished posting Italy or Greece or any of the last Costa Rica trip. Oh my. I have some typing to do. Lesson Learned: For the next trip take the laptop!
Today we had to leave at 6:30 am so that we could get to Phil's job by 8 am. In the town near the jobsite we stopped at a pastry shop for a quick sweet breakfast and a cappuchino each.
Although he had been describing the job for 3 years, I could never imagine it. I believe he said the entire property was 4200 acres. The gardens and grounds were the true gem and it is clear why Phil has been working on this for years. The ruins of the old castle are still standing and are used as backdrops for gardens and lawns. It has the stereotypical views of Tuscany. I told Phil he had to get married here. It would be a fairytale setting. He said they were already planning on using the site for that.
We viewed some more of the project, but it would only be interesting to architecture dorks like us. On our way out we had a strange Tuscany experience. We were driving the dirt road and Josh had his window down so that he could take shots on a whim. All of a sudden, Phil shouts "window up, quick!" We look in front of the car to the right and there was a heard of sheep along the road. Out of nowhere two large white sheepdogs emerge from the herd and barrel towards our car barking. I think they would have come straight in the window. It was a close call but he got the window up n the nick of time.
We made it out of the hills safely and headed over to Phil's old stomping grounds Siena. We headed straight to lunch at his favorite neighborhood restaurant.
We continued our education of wine drinking with Josh. After a complimentary round of prosecco we opted for a bottle of chianti. For someone who proclaims to not like reds, Josh held his own and drank half the bottle. first course was a group of crostinis. There was an assortment of pate, pesto, red tomato sauce on them. I tried all but the pate (Josh liked it, though). The red tomato topped was amazing. I could have eaten a whole plate. We also had an antipasto plate that was yummy. Next we had pasta courses. Josh had pasta with wild boar sauce and mine with duck. Both were okay. Phil's taglione with ham and cream sauce was by far the best so we all shared some. By the entree course, I was full and made the boys split the chicken and pork dishes. We were stuffed after our 2 hour lunch. By the time we were finishing around 3pm we wee the only ones in the place except the staff. They weren't bothered by us s they measured tables for new tablecloths. The main cook was the grandmother who looked about 85. My duck dish is her secret recipe.
After lunch we wandered around Siena. Josh fell asleep in the middle of the square which made for some good photo ops. We waited in line to climb the big tower but after 10 minutes the line hadn't moved. I was okay with not paying 7E to climb something like 600 steps. Instead we went to find the leather bag maker. Phil was excited to get a gorgeous leather briefcase for 160E. Josh probably would have gotten one too if they had another in the dark brown color. We saw similar ones in Florence for double the price and the one he got in Siena was obviously very well made. I spent some time trying on new glass frames in the hop that Phil bought his Armani frames. I found a pair of cool Miu Miu frames (sister company of Prada) but they were 175E. I decided not to spend the money in the end. Around 4pm we headed back to Florence.
Everyone was pretty tired this night so we opted to just go out for pizza. I think the pizzeria was part of the Osteria Italiano Cafe. There was a restaurant and a separate pizzeria. We grabbed a table in the pizzeria. The dinner choices were Pizza Margherita, Pizza Napoletina and one other pizza. I was really needing some greens. Phil told me that they only served pizza but the waiter agreed to bring me an insalata mista. Huge, but good. The pizza place was packed and seemed to be very popular with locals. I didn't see it but Phil said that one of the back tables was built on an old well. They put glass on top of it and dropped a light down the hole so you can see all the way to the bottom. Pizzas were very good but not as as good as Il Refolo in Venice.
After dinner we headed back since we were getting up early again the next morning for Cinque Terre.
We gave ourselves about an hour from the time we left the hotel to the time our train left. That gave us plenty of time to sleep in and have another relaxing breakfast at the hotel. As we finished up eating, we struck up a conversation with three Americans in their 50's. They were from Long Beach and come to find out the man was an urban planner. They were just arriving to Venice so we shared what we had done over the last two days there.
We got our stuff together and grabbed the crowded #1 towards the train station. That was an experience. We were pushed every which direction with our luggage. Josh was worried we wouldn't make our train so I struck up a conversation with a young couple from Malibu. They were going to Florence as well and Josh said they had been on our flight.
Despite Josh's worrying, we got to the train on time. We had to ask about 5 times to make sure we should be getting in the Rome train. We figured out that the #6 on our ticket meant we should be on car 6. I, however, messued us up. When I had been doing my research I thought I had read that the difference between the 1st and 2nd class was that 2nd class didn't have assigned seats. I guess I was wrong for the Eurostar fast trains. After only one stop with us comfortably relaxing in our seats, we were interrupted from reading by an Italian couple who were standing above us and speaking loudly to us. We had no clue what they were saying which seemed to only make them speak louder. Luckily, the woman next to me explained we were sitting in their seats. I got scared that we had no assigned seats and had unfortunately chosen the two seats promised to others - meaning we would have to stand for the next two hours. The same woman took our tickets and showed us that we too had reserved seats right across the aisle. Whew.
Sheepishly, we took our correct seats with a young Canadian couple. They had their own problems. No one told them that although they had seat assignments on this train, they had to trade their EuroRail passes for separate tickets. The ticket checker charged them 23E a piece and they were not happy.
Two and a half hours on the train and we were in Florence. We both agreed how easy the train was. Quicker and cheaper than a plane. And more comfortable.
Upon arrival, I should have known better than to leave the instructions for meeting Phil up to Josh. All Josh said was to meet him by the buses. Huh? I aimlessly stood around the buses while Josh wandered around to see if there were buses somewhere else. Just then I saw Phil through the crowd. He seemed so happy to see us. Josh emerged just then, too. After exchanging hugs we loaded into Phil's tiny little car (literally barely the size of the Smart Car).
Driving in Italy is crazy. Josh kept comparing it to being part of the movie The Italian Job. After driving in and out of traffic we lucked into a parking spot and walked across the bridge. The weird thing about the city is that you have to have a special pass on your windshield in order to park in the city during the day. If you drive in there and don't have it, somehow a camera is triggered, it takes your picture and you get a ticket in the mail. A similar system works for nighttime. Because of the number of folks out at night, no one can drive in a certain part of the city between midnight and 4 am.
We dropped our stuff and made a mad dash for lunch. Most places close by 2:30 pm or 3 for lunch. The first two placed we tried were closed and ended up at a place Phil had never eaten. I was decent, though. Wine, pasta, etc.
After we had eaten we no longer had to run and followed Phil all over Florence. We saw the big piazzas, the huge modern light sculpture, some churches, the river and bridges, etc. We were quite tuckered out by evening and headed home to shower and rest a bit.
Since we had a late and big lunch we just went out for appertivos. Appertivos are genius. the cocktail prices are outrageous here (8-9 euro minimum). However, every night (even Sundays) the bars serve appetizers from around 7-10pm. The food is free as long as you get a drink. Some places it sees to be a set price for the drink, too - no matter what you drink. THat is key as some cocktails are much more expensive than beer and thus a much better deal. We started at a place that had a really cool staircase leading up to a loft. The food was so-so but we were so full. Phil ordered a Nigroni that had those horrible bitters from the spritzers. I stuck with a rum and coke and Josh got his new favorite prosecco.
After a drink we headed to the next spot "Slowly". It was very cool inside. Long bar with booths on the other wall. One more drink and we all seemed down for the count. We were getting up really early the next morning.
