The mission to locate them got off to a good start, managing to cadge a ride down from the mountains to Trento and meeting up with my aunty Janet for lunch. She is walking through Europe for a year, a rather large undertaking, Europe is a big place! Previously she has done the pilgrim walks through France and Spain. This time around she began in Germany and moves down the length of Italy before needing to make a few decisions. The first choice is to head in the general direction of Jerusalem but given the unstable nature of that area at the moment it might be off to the UK instead. It was great to meet up with her, having not seen her since I was about 14 she looked much the same as I remembered and we enjoyed a lovely, albeit short lunch in Trento. The Italian train drivers had decided to strike that day so I was limited with travel options and the priority of getting to Matty and Van was high on the list.
After managing to jump on a train to Florence I had the fun job of finding space for my bags. It seems a tad crazy that long distance trains in Italy don't account for people with large backpacks or cases. Of the few trains going, mine was headed all the way to Rome and by the looks of the overflow of luggage so were most of the very full train. It's amazing what a smile, laugh and general friendliness can get you despite language barriers. Somehow I managed to get some help getting my luggage stowed under the seat, getting it out again was even more entertaining. Finally I could settle myself in for the picturesque 3 hour journey. And my horribly hungover body took that as the perfect opportunity to catch up on some much needed sleep, good one.
Awaking just outside of Firenze (5 weeks in Italy, so Italian now) I planned to jump on the next train to the main station. Plans thwarted, no trains, bugger. The bus was the next best thing and I ended up being nice to myself and getting a taxi the last 20mins to the airport as it all got too much in the 30 degree heat. My trip was relatively uneventful in comparison to some of the team with the strikes. It took Ross and Matt 11 hours to get from the mountains to Venice courtesy of their unorganisation and the limited train options. I don't think I would have been too pleased with that!
Finding Matty and Van by the car rental desk was great, having not seen them since September when they left for Norway I have been really looking forward to a fun week with them. They didn't disappoint!
Being the only under 25 I had the luxury of getting relegated to the backseat and let off all driving and directing duties, let the amusement begin! The supposed 10mins to get out of Florence stretched to 45 as we did circles around the Italian roads, got to back out of the ticket area for the autostrada and generally got hot and flustered in the car. Eventually we succeeded in escaping the cars and were on our way to Montepulciano.
Van and Matt are doing week about for organisation of their 5 week holiday and Italy is Van's domain. Montepulciano is a little walled town perched up on a hill with windy cobbled back streets that are only made for tiny Italian cars. Our night time arrival was accompanied by a huge downpour of rain, a slight rush to try and catch the Rugby World Cup final and some suspect navigating by Matty. After driving up a couple of dead ends we eventually squeezed through the town walls and started nosing around the corners to find our accommodation. Google maps is not quite the genius I thought it was, just because it has a road name does NOT mean you can drive down it. Particularly if it is only a meter wide and has steps.
The highlight for me was the Italian lady gesticulating wildly as we drove back the way we had just come as we couldn't work it out. She may have been upset due to it being a one way street, we most definitely were not going the right way, whoops!
Eventually we found our beds along with a delicious dinner and a German win.
The next day consisted of surprise surprise, a wine tour! Sheesh I love Tuscany, the food, wine and general area can't help but make me smile. Some exploring of Montepulciano was also to be had, this area is very well known to all Twilight fans as the home of the Volturi (probably the wrong spelling but the Italian vampires in the Twilight series). My ignorance of the finer details of the movie may have meant I didn't really appreciate this fact but it was very pretty! That evening we found the most entertaining restaurant with live music performed by two old codgers who had their own groupy. She sat behind them for most of the performance except to escape for a fag. Her sparkly boots, sparkly skull necklace and bright red bob didn't do that much for her, mind you being 75+ maybe, just maybe mutton dressed as lamb?
The proprietor of the restaurant Pier made sure he moved around and introduced himself to all the guests. We got the typical exclamation of "oh Neeeew Zeeeland" before being told he had very sadly never been on a plane. However Robert Pattinson has eaten at his restaurant so life can't get much better than that.
The wine has been going down a treat and the real novelty that I even had to text home about was that I have my own room! The luxury! You know you've been travelling with orienteers on the cheap when that is such a big deal.
Today was a rather strenuous day starting with a skype home before we set off for another wine tasting with lunch. Verrazzano wine is great, really great. The tour guide was quite the performer and as we wandered around we got a great lecture on how nobody can define what is good and bad wine. You must decide for yourself using your eyes, nose, palate and most importantly your heart! This was followed by a delicious 4 course meal with some wine tasting techniques for those of us that are far from being connoisseurs. This is the life!
We have really gotten into the Italian way of life, pre dinner snacks at 7pm (today is rockmelon wrapped in proscuitto) with a bottle of white, followed by some reading and relaxing in the sun, then dinner around 10pm (pasta, of course) with a red and all topped off with the Limoncello currently chilling in the fridge.
Tomorrow we head to Florence via San Gimignano (on my recommendation from the last trip in 2009, too pretty to miss!) and have to hunt down some sunflower fields for photographer Van. Matty has big plans for a Florentine steak which only comes in one size fits all. Luckily between 3 of us 1kg of is not too daunting, with the prospect of expensive Switzerland on the horizon I need my meat while I can afford it! There is also talk of a big night out, given how much of a light weight I seem to be after WOC this will be a challenge keeping up with Matty and Van. But I think I'm up to it, scarfie for life!!
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