Nadda to Radda, then Long Drive to Venice So We Can... Wait? Whaaat?...

Sunday, September, 30, 2007.

Damn, but that tiny apartment in Radda was an icebox overnight. Had to layer on clothes to keep warm. No icicles formed on my face overnight, thankfully. Nadda to Radda, I say.

That morning, we revised our original plan of driving to Venice. Having stocked up on wine and food, we thought it would be nice to just drive to Florence and relax on the train to Venice. Our revised plan, however, got nixed—because the rental office in Florence was closed. Ack. Had to drive all the way to Venice Airport…

Jen took over driving for a while. We practiced a bit of rudimentary Italian. Watched the landscape go by. I dozed in the back seat.

At one point, a bit of mis-communication meant we missed our exit and ended up driving to Modena instead. Wasn’t a complete loss, since we got to stretch our legs, see a bit of Modena on Sunday (there’s not much to see on Sunday in the smaller towns in Italy, since everything is closed, and Modena is no exception), and we got to check out some lovely aged balsamic vinegar. Alas, the balsamic vinegar festival (yes, there’s a festival, and yes, it lasts for over a week!) wasn’t until the beginning of October…

Oh yeah, and Adam bought a chocolate Lindt ball the size of his head. Ah, Modena, the land of balsamic vinegar and skull-sized balls of chocolate.

Finally got to Venice airport, dropped off the car, and took the bus to the edge of Venice (no vehicular traffic of any kind is allowed on the Venetian islands), and disembarked at the Piazzale Roma.

We were to meet our contact for the apartment rental around 5pm at the vaporetto station #82. Since it was only just after 2pm, we decided to have a nice break at a canal-side café and relax. Jen and I each had a glass of prosecco, Adam had a beer, and the children sat around looking disgruntled (Adam christened my backpack “Samson,” after the Samsonite luggage tag I had secured to the front of it. Good enough, I say. Better than “beast” or “thing”).

After our nice little break, we wandered back to the vaporetto station and waited for the woman to arrive.

And waited.

And waited some more.

And waited even longer. Hmm. 5:45pm and my feet are killing me.

Then spotted what I thought was the right woman, wandering through the crowd of tourists. She held a folder of papers in one arm, and seemed to be approaching every single male standing around nearby… except Adam. I pointed her out to Adam and Jen, and we finally tracked her down.

After introductions, we walked the short distance to our apartment, which would be home for the next few days and nights. Turns out that this spot was ideal—central, easy to navigate to and from, and right on the waterfront, kinda. The short street our apartment was on ended by one of the canals (Rio Malconton). More on the canal story later…

After cleaning up and settling in, we decided to step out for a walk to get oriented, and grab some dinner at one of the places the apartment rep recommended. A bit of circling around, and we finally ended up in the Campo Santa Margherita, a square where a lot of students would hang out during the day, and tourists would feed at night. Settled on a restaurant with outdoor seating under some pretty white awnings, and tables decorated with kitschy table lamps. Our waiter, an elderly gentleman with vim and vigor, insisted that we order by menu number (rather than put up with our lousy Italian, I guess). He merrily punched numbers into his PDA and trotted away.

To start, each of us had a bellini (Jen and Adam informed me that Venice was the place where the bellini was invented! Jason Dubya, wish you coulda been here, man… wanted to order a fishbowl for you…). Also had a bottle of valpolicella. Oh yeah, and I guess we had some food, too. Heh.

After dinner, we wandered back to the apartment and settled in, each to do a bit of writing and reflection before bed.

More on Venice later. Much more...

Leaving Castellina, Finding Some Place Else...

Saturday, September 29, 2007.

Woke with the sun this morning. Had left one of the window shades open, to let the morning light in. Quickly showered, dressed, then went outside to witness dawn in Tuscany. Was not disappointed. Sat by the pool. Wrote in journal. Meditated. Breathed.

Left Fattoria Tregole. Did some driving around the countryside but couldn’t find any wineries that were open. Arrived in Gaiole—tourist info office was closed (wanted to check there for places to stay tonight), so had lunch in the town centre. Had very creamy, very cheesy, very yummy lasagna—prefer not to think about how many calories were ingested.

Finally found winery that was open, on way through to Radda. The Geographico. Sampled wines while the attendant ran back and forth to service the drive-in wine garage—just drive up with your 50 litre jug and fill ‘er up with the hose. Bought some lovely Chianti Vin Santo—a perfect blend of wine and sweetness: kinda like a late harvest, kinda like an ice wine—but not as sweet. Kinda have to experience it to appreciate it. Proceeded to experience as much of it as I could handle.

Drove the rest of the way to Radda, and found a tourist office, only to be told that everything was booked up. Ouch. Attendant called around to a couple of places, then found one that had room. Grabbed it without hesitation, preferring not to sleep in the tiny rental car.

Had picnic dinner on patio of apartment, watched the sunset. Ate fresh fruit, veggies, capicollo, bread, drank wine, finished with cantucci and vin santo. Told ghost stories as the tea lights burned and the light faded from the sky.

Heaven on Earth, in Tuscany

Friday, September 28, 2007. 9:13pm Tuscan time (12:13 pm Vancouver time). Fattoria Tregole, outside of Castellina in Chianti.

What an extraordinary day. How quickly things can change. A day full of beautiful scenery, wonderful wine, and a perfectly gorgeous surprise at the end of the day.

After meeting up at 9:30 am at Adam and Jen’s hotel (Hotel Desiree near the train station), we hiked over with our heavy packs to the car rental agency, which was about a 10 minute walk away. Boris and Brunhilda were weighty, but seemed well behaved. I have yet to name my beastly pack.

At the car rental office, we waited patiently while a pair of elderly couples (from Canada, no less—I spotted the tags on their luggage right away) secured their vehicle and got directions out of town.

After they got their car, we were next. Adam finished the paperwork, and we set off to find the garage. Once there, we waited while the elderly group finished packing up their car with the attendant, and figured out how to drive the thing. (I hope they made it to where they were going.) At one point, Adam mentioned that he thought the back end of the car looked much closer to the ground than the front end—and sure enough, their luggage was probably weighing it down quite a lot.

We loaded up into our car, and headed out of town. After a few close calls and tight traffic situations, we managed to escape the city limits (Adam didn’t get honked at once!), and headed south toward wine country. Tuscany bound!

Our first stop was Greve in Chianti. Before I’d gotten to Florence, Adam and Jen had earlier taken a day bus trip out to Greve to do a bit of wine tasting. They discovered a great little wine shop/tasting salon/cantina/wine museum. So of course, they had to share the experience with me, too.

Thank god they did. I was in heaven. But, despite how elated I was, it wouldn’t be the last time that I would feel that way today.

Le Cantina di Greve in Chianti. The place was amazing. Adam and Jen recorded and posted a video of their experience there—they ended up spending all afternoon when they first visited. It sort of works like, well, there is no real equivalent that I know of, I guess. You can purchase electronic cards for 5, 10, 15, 20, or 25 euro amounts, and use those cards at each of the wine tasting stations. Each station had about 16 or so different wines, and there were stations for the really expensive wines, the Chianti Classico wines, the Annata region wines, some white wines, among others (more on the others below). There was even a station for olive oils, believe it or not! (they didn’t charge for the olive oil station—that was free, you just needed to insert your card.) Each of the wine tastings ranged in price from as low as 0.60 euro per taste, up to 9 or 10 euro per taste (for the high end wines).

Needless to say, I was like a kid in a candy shop. Where to start? What to taste? What to do? It was like spending my allowance, Adam mentioned. I had to be selective and careful about where I was going to spend it all.

While I frolicked and played and rejoiced amongst the wines, Adam and Jen went off to do some research on places to eat, and a place to stay this evening. In all, I must have spent at least two hours cavorting among the wines, tasting everything that seemed interesting (and within my price range). I even got to try some Super Tuscans (oh yes Tom D., it’s true, eat your heart out!!), and ended up buying one, too. The second most expensive Super Tuscan there—but more developments regarding that later. I also picked up a corkscrew with the cantina’s logo and label engraved on the handle. A lovely keepsake that I’m sure I’ll use over and over again.

After Adam and Jen came back to fetch me, we found an open grocery store (most oft he shops in Greve were closed for siesta, and wouldn’t be opening again until after 4pm, yikes!) and picked up some supplies for lunch: bread, cheese, grapes, pears, olives, proscuitto, and pretzels. Then, we took off to go hunting the countryside for wineries and vineyards.

We back-tracked a bit north, and headed to a winery called, Castello di Verrazzano. It seemed very busy, and well-visited. We stood at one of the tasting bars, and got free tastings of their selections. Chianti Classico, Chianti Classico Riserva, their Super Tuscan, and even a bit of their grappa, too. I could definitely feel the wine going straight to my head by this point.

After we finished our tasting, Adam and Jen decided to buy a bottle of the Riserva, and then we headed outside to have lunch. We had the food, and the wine… and then realized we didn’t have glasses to drink from. Ack. So while Jen went back to the tasting room to try to get something for us to drink from, Adam hacked up the bread and started making sandwiches. Jen was back in a few minutes, successful on the plastic glasses front, so we drank wine and ate our sandwiches, while overlooking the vineyard, and the Tuscan countryside.

After lunch, we piled back into the car and headed to the next winery. We found the Villa Cafaggio (I had bought a bottle of their San Martino earlier in the day at the cantina, for 40 euro), and Adam and Jen did some tastings. I had pretty much done all my wine tasting for the day earlier at the cantina, and didn’t have the tastebuds to distinguish anything more (oh, did I mention I was pretty drunk, too?), so I declined. They ended up buying a bottle of the Riserva Classico. The attendant there was also kind enough to take us on an abbreviated tour of their facilities as well. If I recall correctly, their volume was somewhere around 200,000 bottles of wine per year.

Yowsers. Ok, even I couldn’t drink my way through that.

Then we set off to Castellina in Chianti, to find our B&B: Fattoria Tregole.

When we found it, it was like something out of a movie. A lovely surprise, and absolutely perfect. On a hilltop, overlooking two valleys of vineyards and olive groves. Absolutely perfect. Perfect rooms, perfect apartment, perfect views. Our dinner that evening consisted of cheese, bread, some prosciutto, some fruit, and of course wine. A perfect evening to end a perfect day.