Recipe: Tuscany 2006 Journal Entry #3-Orientation Day

Tuscany 2006 Journal Entry #3

Thursday, March 23rd

Orientation Day

We breakfasted on toast, peach (pesche) jam & coffee along with blood orange juice from the oranges our hosts left for us.

We will need to buy some paper towels and balsamic vinegar somewhere today.

Off to orientation, Harriet is sooo good at her job. She explains the ins and outs of parking in Italy without getting ticketed. The police are cracking down on speeders, they even have some photo radar. Her daughter got married since we were here last, in the church at Monte Oliveto. Her son stills lives with them, in the Italian tradition of grown sons living with their parents. She lived in Florence, Alabama as a child and then moved to Florence, Italy. She was studying there during her junior year of college when she met the man who would become her husband.

We have decided to sign up for the Banfi wine tour and luncheon that we skipped last trip. There is a glass museum there we would like to see.

After orientation we have lunch at the restaurant, Fattoria Pieve a Salti, where orientation was held for 18 Euro apiece. Fusilli pomodoro crema basilico, (Corkscrew pasta with basil cream tomato sauce), Tacchino con le verdure (turkey slices with vegetables, carrots and celery in the sauce on top), Insalata, (salad) and Macedonia di frutta (fruit salad) along with red wine and bread. We sat with an Untourist traveling alone whose name is Maureen She is very funny and there is a lot of laughing during lunch by the 3 of us.

Describing the truffle tasting lunch that follows the olive oil mill tour tomorrow Harriet called it a, "light lunch". HA! We know better! She doesn't know the Italian word for oatmeal, I'll keep looking. She shows DH how to read the train schedule and is sending us to a travel agent in Buonconvento who can sell us train tickets to Rome and make our room reservation there. Sounds great, nice and easy!

Maureen says she always flushes toilets with her foot because of germs. I tell her I want her to1 let me know when she goes to the bathroom after lunch. I remember this bathroom, you flush the toilet by pushing the lever at the bottom of the tank .which is suspended from the ceiling!

Back down the hill we stop at the little cemetery just before Buonconvento that we wanted to take pictures of last time and never did. This time we get our pictures. The countryside is just so beautiful!



We visit to the Coop in Buonconvento for olives, paper towels and more blood oranges. Harriet has told us that the Coop has caused some of the smaller stores to close. We will try to search them out though, we like the produce, meats and cheeses from those places better. Still no oatmeal, Harriet has said she will bring some from Florence if we can't find any soon.

We go to the travel agent, but they can't print train tickets due to a problem with the train people. They are very apologetic and make copies of the relevant train schedule pages and reserve a room for us in Rome at the Hotel Augustea. It's downtown near the Termini train station. We are thinking of driving to Grosetto and catching the rapid train to Rome from there.

Walking through Buonconvento we see Christian standing in front of his family's restaurant, da Mario's, where we plan to dine tonight. I tell him we are coming for dinner and he tells me, "I wait for you!" I have a sense of d j vu.

Then we head to the audio visual shop to pick up an Untours cell phone from Massiamilano, a red haired Italian young man who is VERY helpful. I reconfirm our return flights (WHO wants to think of that now?) because Harriet said we should since we didn't fly on to Pisa yesterday and may have been bumped out of their computers. We are still in their computers though, so we can concentrate on being here now.

We find the little shops we remember from our last trip, the Tutta Frutta (for produce) and a pastry shop for bread and other goodies, but the great salami shop is gone. While at the Tutta Frutta we meet a group of four women traveling together. One of the group wants to go out for dinner while the other ones want to stay in. We tell the one that she can go with us, we're going to Mario's for dinner and she's welcome to come along with us.

In the pastry shop an Italian man hears me struggling to remember the word for how many biscotti we want and helps us out. When the lady behind the counter waits on him next she is still talking in hand gestures. He laughs and tells her in Italian that HIS Italian is fine! Too funny. Then we go to the Alementari (a smaller grocery store) for Pecorino cheese and salami. While there we run into the same group of four women again and DH gets to talking to one of them. Her ex-sister-in-law is someone who worked with DH a couple years ago! It's a small, small world. During our wanderings we run into Untourists Tom and Judy from our group several times and remember running into people from our group a lot on our last trip here.

We head for our apartment for a rest in the late afternoon but miss our turn, so continue on up the hill to Montelcino. As we park, here is Harriet just driving out! We have a nice chat and catch up on the last couple years. When we tell her of our Yellowstone trip last summer we learn that she worked one summer during college as a maid at Old Faithful Lodge!

Harriet directs us to the Bar Fortezza where we buy a soda and use the bathroom. We walk around town, reminiscing and taking pictures. We take a picture for Steve, Elaine, Bunny and Bette of the scaffolding all the way up the bell tower. We enjoy the sunset off the edge of town. One of the Untourist couples has an Unmoor apt right here in Montelcino. That would be cool, but we understand that the parking garage is a real challenge and it's a ways from the apartment.

As we head to the car we see a sign for, "Camare", which is the word for "room to let", though I don't remember that at the time. We go in and find oil and watercolor paintings for sale. The artist is there, a young woman who shows us her modern oil paintings and tells us that to her, this one is a flower, this one is something else, etc. She tells us in broken English that she thought she was the only one who painted this way until, and she opens a drawer and pulls out a book, she found out about Pollock. We like two of her watercolors, a small one of sunflowers I want for Virginia and a primitive one of the Italian countryside that DH picks out. When we go to pay her tho, we are short 3 Euro in exact change. We tell her will come back tomorrow. She insists we take both, that the sunflowers are her gift to us. We plan to get back to her in the next two weeks with her money, but can never find her in and the door is locked each time we try.

Heading down from town we take a wrong turn. We've done that here before! We turn back and correct our mistake, heading for da Mario's for dinner. We arrive about 8pm, which is late for us, "silly Americans", as Elaine says. Christian calls out, "I waited for you!" and we immediately feel at home once again. We begin to order and Angie and Alan, another Untour couple, come in the door. We ask them to join us so Christian moves us to a larger table. We have Rossa de Casa (house red wine), Angie and I enjoy ravioli stuffed with spinach and ricotta in olive oil, garlic and hot pepper sauce. DH has his Pici (hand rolled Tuscan spaghetti) with meat sauce while Allen has vegetable soup. DH and I split a slice of pork with Gorgonzola sauce, which is very good, the Gorgonzola is not overpowering. Angie and Alan split a slice of turkey with sauce. I have some warm white beans with sage and oil and DH and the rest have insalata mista (mixed salad). Alan and Angie finish with tartufo gelato and I have Vin Santo and biscotti. A very nice dinner with nice conversation.

Back home to a nice fire and a bit of planning for Rome and journaling. Then bed! Buena Note!