Super Bowl Sunday

Believe it or not, Mike found the game on t.v.! Not that we watched any, but we could have haha. And we would have if it was the Lions or Bears, but it didn’t end until after 4 a.m., sooooo…zzz

I was expecting a lovely relaxing car ride through the hills of Tuscany, soaking up the country air and shaking off the city. Ha!

At 27 degrees yesterday morning, we walked to Enterprise Car Rental, which was tricky to find. But the man was super friendly and even gave us the best route to follow to get out of the city in our tiny Fiat 500. I navigated and Mike deftly squeezed between cars and avoided hitting scooters on our way out. A scooter inched along next to us exactly in our blind spot.

Then we were the stupid Americans. Our gas gauge showed 3/4’s tank which was frustrating because it should’ve been full. We noticed a gas station just outside the city and thought we might as well figure out how to get gas. The rental guy had showed us how to remove the gas cap with the car key, which was all on the passenger side. We could not get the cap off. The car manual was in 4 languages: Italian, French, German, Dutch, even though the stickers and stuff in the car were English. We finally had to ask a guy how to open the gas tank–it was easy haha. We put in the gas nozzle after determining it was super regular (not diesel), but it would not flow in, it just kept clicking off like it was full. We gave up and the nice man came back to make sure we could close it, so we must’ve looked pretty helpless. Later Mike realized it’s a hybrid car, so the battery was at 3/4’s and the gas tank was full. Huh.

We inadvertently but fortunately came upon a huge cemetery. Mike had seen it on the map so he realized it was a cemetery exclusively for Americans who died in Italy in World War II. It was stunning, albeit gut-wrenching. Not one of these men, boys, came home.

There was a wall with the names and states on it. One was painted over in gold lettering: Medal of Honor recipient Lt Col Addison Baker from Ohio.

It turns out that many Italians like to ride bikes through the hills of Tuscany on Sundays also. The narrow roads were filled with them. When we finally came upon a “town” there was a virtual traffic jam with people enjoying a Sunday wine tasting. The drive is not in rolling hills but on mountains and is very similar to the Blue Ridge Skyway if you’ve even taken that.

Since we will be in the country for a week we planned to stop at a grocery store, but also on Sunday they were all closed in the smalls towns, not even a Wawa was open haha. We had lukewarm pizza in a cute little cafe.

We got to the house and met our sweet host who was full of suggestions for our week. The place is old and rustic and soon Mike had a roaring fire going in the fireplace. In Italy, central heating means there is heat running under the floor, but as the flooring is brick it was not warm yet. The host said she turned the heat on the morning before when it was 3 degrees Celsius in the house–not sure what temperature that is but it was still really chilly.

Supposedly there was a restaurant opening at 6 p.m. only a few miles away. The Italian man with almost no English welcomed us and conveyed the kitchen didn’t open for a bit, but what did we care. Eventually we ordered an antipasti, an appetizer which we found included bruschetta, 3 different types of delicious salami, and cheese.

I have learned that here you are expected to order everything you want when someone finally comes to your table. I was not ready so I got flustered and randomly pointed to something. It turned out to be a penne pasta in a mild brown meat sauce and was very good. Mike has a calzone with ham in it. At one point the rotund Italian cook came to our table with a question and we had no idea what he said lol, but it all worked out!

Rarely in any restaurant does anyone check back with you, they just know the food is fabulous and if you don’t like it or need ketchup too bad. They will come back at the end to see about dessert, however, and wanting to linger a bit in our warm restaurant we split a pear/cake thing with chocolate drizzle which was light and yummy.

Now I’m up before dawn and wanted to surprise Mike (and warm up!) by lighting a fire but I guess I’ve lost my touch. I was able, however, to make coffee using this mini percolator-like pot, which an AirBnb host taught me how to use in Florence in 2012. You put water in the bottom, coffee grounds in a little middle section, then put it on the gas stove and within minutes you have delicious hot coffee magically in the top section.

Now the birds are gradually waking up in our lovely Tuscan home, where last night we were able to see more stars than I’ve seen in years.