And the circus kept rolling along…so after our fill of all things Roman and ancient, we traveled north by train to pick up some rental cars and drive to our Tuscan villa. The boys, big and small, got to enjoy the bar car on our train and we rolled our way to Florence. The villa we rented was in the village of Barberino Val D’Elsa which is about midway between Florence and Siena in the Chianti region. It was a picturesque little village and a primo location for us as a base for day trips to nearby hilltop towns. The villa was an old farmhouse owned by the Borghese family. The current owners are the grandchildren of the Princess Caterina dei Principi Borghese. They own a vineyard, olive groves, and a winery. One of the most delightful things was that they had a wine rack in one of the kitchens stocked with their wines. It was our own little shopette and they just kept track of what we drank. We weren’t sure if it was genius or a devilish ploy. We would see when the bill came at the end of the week. The pool and grounds were the selling point for us though. We spent hours every day cooling off in the pool and just relaxing under the cabanas. Everywhere you looked were stunning views: the stone towers of San Gimignano to our south, verdant green cypress trees lining distant ridges, rolling hills of grapevines that morphed in and out of haze, and skies that changed from blue to purple to orange as the sun set.

We did our share of both relaxing and touring. We spent time in San Gimignano, Pisa, Siena, Lucca and Volterra. Our day in Siena was early in the week since their huge annual horse race, The Palio, was occurring that Thursday. We all decided that our kids wouldn’t be up for battling the 20,000+ tourists that flock in for the race. It was too bad but after seeing the crowds there days before the race, I’m glad we went early. If you have never heard of the Siena Palio check out this link Siena Palio  The rest of our week in Tuscany was filled exploring small towns, shopping for leather goods and artwork, lingering over elegant meals of local game and fresh pasta, cooling off with “the world’s best” Gelatto in every town we went to, and toasting the setting sun just in time to greet the rising moon.

Because every great trip is remembered  more for its hiccups, I have to mention some of the things that made us go “grrrrr”.  A little too much sun, fun and vino on Day 2 had us all retiring for the night without a real good lockup of the house. It’s amazing that a heavy drape in the doorway doesn’t deter wild animals! My husband woke me up early the next morning to have me accompany him to battle in the kitchen. Apparently we had a nocturnal visitor enjoying our leftovers. The plan? We were going to eradicate it with some of our pool equipment. Riiiigghhht! Luckily the little bandit high-tailed it when Jason came for backup. After that bit of excitement, we were better at cleaning and locking up. Nontheless, sometime around day four we started to notice a strong odor in the main kitchen.  Thinking that perhaps our group was testing and besting the dated plumbing, we didn’t worry too much. We thought it would pass and added air freshners to the grocery list. But as the days wore on it was abundantly clear that some poor animal had died within our walls. If you have ever lived through this you know that the smell gets way worse before it gets better. The villa’s caretaker, because she couldn’t find the source, came by daily with “gratis” wine for our suffering. We took our wine and moved our cooking to the second kitchen and were just happy that the smell didn’t permeate the entire house. And while it was annoying, we just reminded ourselves where were. Things could always be worse!

 

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