Editors’ Note: We are very excited to publish our second guest blog entry! (And while we’re at it, we’d like to apologize to the esteemed authors of the *first* guest blog entry [“Israeli Sausage Toast”] for our general lameness in failing to follow it up with additional posts and pictures about our adventures in Israel. We really are working on those posts, S&I! Stay tuned!) But back to Italy… As most of you know by now, we recently spent a week in Tuscany with Laura’s mom (Mary), dad (John), sister (Teresa) and uncle (Buzz). Thanks to a lot of hard work and planning by Mary, we were able to spend the week in an old (as in, the 13th century!) villa outside of the sleepy town of Stigliano near Siena. It was a wonderful week full of amazing food and wine and beautiful countryside, but as you’ll see in Mary’s post below, it wasn’t entirely stress-free. We’ve posted a few albums from the week in Tuscany: one with pictures from our Stigliano villa and two others from the cities of Siena and Perugia (the Umbrian city where Laura spent a summer in college). We’ll have more to say about our lovely week in Tuscany (as well as some other albums to share), but for now we happily give the floor to Mary. Thanks, Mom!
The Navigators
You may know them as Lustin, but after spending two weeks with Laura and Dustin in Italy, we prefer to call them “The Navigators.” Here’s why.
;)
We had this view from our villa in Stigliano to look forward to… we just needed to GET THERE.John and I, Teresa, and my brother Buzz flew into Rome on the morning of 9/4. Before heading to Siena (actually Stigliano, a tiny village south of Siena), where we would meet Laura and Dustin, we had a guide drive us around the city to see Rome’s historical sites. Ezio, our driver, then dropped us off at the rental car place and left us to our own devices to get out of town. We were confident this would be easy because both the car rental guy and Ezio said so! EuroCar even gave us a city map, highlighted with the way out. We did notice that the highlighted route was a perfectly straight line, crossing over numerous streets and through parks and buildings. But not to worry – John had come prepared. He brought our GPS from the States, which included a special chip with all of Italy’s highways and byways ($99.00 for the chip – what a great idea).
Within mere moments of driving away from the curb, we knew we were in trouble. To begin with, “Garmina” (as we fondly called our GPS) does not speak Italian very well. Each syllable gets the same emphasis and monotone pronunciation. Secondly, streets in Rome all seem to have at least three-word names and a minimum of 8 syllables, like Via del Canto dei Nelli. Thirdly, God bless you if you can actually find a street sign at any intersection. And this was further complicated by the fact that the highlighted map indicated we should head north while Garmina felt it was best to go due west. Needless to say, tempers quickly grew short (remember, John is Italian). Teresa was the only voice of sanity, suggesting we flag down a cab and pay the guy to lead us out of the city. Unfortunately, by this time we were too busy trying to get out of the “no automobiles allowed” zones where, if we were caught by one of the many hidden cameras, we would be fined US$100, charged to the credit card number we left at EuroCar.
Somehow, we did manage to escape Rome and we thought that even though we were way behind schedule, it should be a piece of cake from that point on. As you may have guessed, this was not the case. A trip that should have taken 2.5 hours tops, ended up taking 5 hours. Along the way, there were several conversations with Dustin via his Italian cell phone. At first, we simply told him we were having a little trouble but would surely see them in an hour. By the third or fourth call, there was panic in my voice. Eventually, we got to Stigliano, but if it hadn’t been for Dustin’s precise description of the final twists and turns, we would probably have been another hour trying to figure out the last half mile – this is not an exaggeration.
;)
The little yellow clown car that led us around TuscanyThe Rome-to-Stigliano experience taught us many things, but number one was don’t go anywhere in Italy by yourself – always let Lustin lead the way. These two were amazing. Laura did all the driving (in their adorable little yellow Panda) while Dustin was on his iPhone constantly, using Google Maps to plot the best way to go. Not only that, but they both seem to have an innate sense of direction. (Sidebar: When we moved to Wisconsin in 1990, Laura was 13. She literally navigated us around Madison those first few days. The rest of us were completely directionally-challenged.)
We made several day trips around Tuscany, exploring Siena, Perugia, Greve, Florence, Volterra and Montevarchi, and other beautiful towns. We always took both cars since there were six of us. Garmina routinely told our car to take every curvy, hilly, back road possible even though it was programmed to give us the fastest route. Numerous times, Dustin and Laura (in the lead car) would call us after seeing us foolishly turn off onto some dinky road and say, “Please trust us and Google Maps and toss Garmina out the window.” But it was hard to give up on Garmina, mostly because we had paid $99 for her expertise. Also, sometimes just for the fun of it, we would program in our latest destination to see how quickly the Bitch (her new name) misdirected us.
Our biggest nail-biter experience came the night that Laura, Dustin and Teresa stayed in Greve for a late dinner while the rest of us headed back to Stigliano (60km away), in the dark. We were entirely dependent on the Bitch, having quickly forgotten whatever verbal directions we had received from Lustin and others. All was well until we neared Siena and she again began to lead us down some scary back roads. We knew there was a more direct and much better highway somewhere nearby because we had been on it before – we just didn’t know how to get to it. But we did finally make it home, and without having to call Dustin – to his great relief, I’m sure.
Our driving experiences in Tuscany convinced us, some more quickly than others, that there was no way we were going to drive on the Amalfi Coast when we all headed down there the following week. So we cancelled our rental car reservations and made do with other means of transportation – trains, busses, ferries, taxis and private boats. Again, we take our hats off to Lustin and especially Laura, the only one among us who spoke Italian. She figured out bus and train schedules, argued with taxi drivers, sought out assistance from strangers when necessary, helped us in restaurants and stores, and on and on.
I think all us of will agree that Laura and Dustin made our two weeks in Italy so much more enjoyable than they ever could have been, had we been on our own. It was a wonderful trip and we thank you for inviting us to join you.
We love you, Lustin!
;)
The author with her two girls