Yesterday, we left Florence and headed to Tuscany.  We took a cab from our apartment to the car rental place.  There was an unexpected very long line at the car rental place.  Justin left James, me, and the luggage to go stand in line. It took about an hour and 15 minutes.  Uggghhhh.  We all held it together pretty well, thankfully.  One highlight of the wait (for me) was watching a middle-aged German couple inspect their car for damage before driving away with it.  I’ve never seen anything like this in my life.  The two of them probably spent 20 minutes and took over 100 pictures of every single inch of that car.  At one point, the woman took out a flash light and meticulously looked at that interior of the car. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they also used a magnifying glass. Y’all, I’m taking about a Fiat, not a suburban.  It should not have taken that long! I’ve never seen anything like it.

We have an Audi hatchback.  Justin said that it was several upgrades from the standard rental because we needed something to fit all of our luggage and a car seat (and we still barely fit).  We got the full insurance.  No inspection necessary.  We can beat the hell out of this thing.

We got all loaded up and headed out.  The plan was to stop at a couple vineyards and have lunch on the way to Saint Angelo in Colle outside of Montalcino.  Well, the plan changed. 30 minutes into the trip, James fell asleep.  And he slept, and slept.  In the meantime, I was in the backseat under a pile of luggage, nauseated as shit.  The Tuscan hills are quite winding.  So, as plans continued to change because we didn’t want to wake up James,we ended up driving into Siena to possibly have lunch.  At this point, James has been asleep for over 2 hours.  Well, people suggest that you don’t drive into any big Italian cities for good reason.  The streets are very narrow, it’s hard to find a place to park, and it’s very tricky getting around.  We got into the city and then we got out. Total Fail.

After we left Siena, James woke up.  He was pretty angry about being in the carseat, and he let us know about it.  It was an hour to Saint Angelo in Colle, and we just powered through it.  By this time it was about 3or 4 pm (I can’t be sure because I’ve already tried to block out the experience) and none of us have eaten pretty much anything all day.  To say we were frazzled when we got here is a vast understatement.  And then we looked around.

It is so amazingly beautiful and just what we needed.  We are staying at a place called Castel Brunello.  It is not exactly a hotel and its not an apartment.  It’s in between, and it is perfect.  We are overlooking vineyards and the Tuscan Hills.  The property has lots of places for James to run around.  It is quiet, and we all relaxed as soon as we got here.

We let James run around and play while we got settled in, then we went into the small town to buy some milk.  The little store was so cute with a couple of old Italian Nonnas in it.  They just all fawn all over James.  We bought 2 bottles of wine, 1 liter of milk, and some mozzarella cheese for 16$.

This is definitely a family town.  We have seen a lot of kids and it is so nice to be away from the crazy cities.

For dinner (yes, we actually got to go out to eat!), we ate at a place called Il Pozzo.  We had a delicious antipasto plate.  We also had some veal and pasta.  It was a good night.

Ciao

Alyce