Anyway, we decided to meet up with the Tottens in Tuscany to show them around Radda and Chianti. We arrived early at the Relais Vignale and the Tottens met us there in time for dinner the first night. I must have been more excited to see them than I realized because I first ordered a bottle of prosecco followed and a magnum of Chianti. I will confess that I didn’t know a magnum was 2 full bottles – I thought it was more like 1 ½ . Oh well. I think I would have been fine but then we decided to retire to the bar for limoncello. Dave and I decided to get up somewhat early and go for a little jog to start off the day and then it was the usual breakfast-pool-lunch routine. We went to lunch at a new place on the way to gelato in Castellina and then some wine-tasting in Greve. I wasn’t having anything to do with wine on this day. I tried beer and Gatorade but needed a nap more than anything. After a quick nap under a shady tree we headed to the famed Da Michele for pizza and pasta. It was unusually quiet (no long queue with people leaving disappointed or any drama involving prolonged waits for orders to arrive) and Michele seemed out of sorts. Anyway, I stuck with beer and Dave ordered the “grande”.
The Magnum is bigger than Treva
Chillin at the pool
Tiff and Treva at the Vignale
Feeling much better the next morning so Dave and I repeated our little jog followed by breakfast-pool-lunch. The Tottens decided to tag along for some shopping so we looked for a place to lunch near Montevarchi. Found a place up in some tiny little village that sounded great, but they were closed for lunch. Minor panic ensued because we didn’t have a backup plan, lunch time was coming to an end and we didn’t want to waste a lunch in Italy at Autogrill or something. We basically found a major road, followed the signs to an Osteria and decided to give it a go. Turned out to be another great meal in Tuscany. Hit the D&G and Prada stores where Treva came close to buying some shoes while Dave wondered if there was an extra digit on each price tag. Wrapped up the evening at our favorite little restaurant in Radda – Al Chiasso dei Portici – where Dave and I finished off the steak for two.
The tastiest sandwich I've ever eaten
The random restaurant
Dave hadn’t run in months so he managed to hurt his back after back-to-back runs so no running on Sunday. The weather was actually rainy too so it was a good day to be travelling to the Cinque Terre. Dave needed to drop off his rental car on our way, and Tiff and I hadn’t been to Florence in 13 years so I suggested we hit Florence on the way. I must say that I was pretty disappointed. I’m sure the art museum is great, but other than that…I must be missing something. Plus, the AGIP gas station there owes us €9 of diesel so I’m boycotting AGIP and Florence from here on out.
We made it to our hotel in Santa Margherita relatively unscathed (one mirror rubbing incident aside). We stayed at the Hotel Tigullio et de Milan which was totally fine in my opinion. We ventured out to the harbour-like area for some dinner. The restaurants aren’t like those you’ll find in Tuscany, but they were fine. We came back to the hotel, grabbed some drinks from the bar and headed to the roof deck to wind down the evening where we were surprisingly treated to a fireworks show.
The hike
The hike between the five hill towns was the main activity of the next two days. We took a train to Riomaggioire and did the first 3 legs to Vernazza. I was in favour of knocking out the last leg on the first day, but was overruled as it was starting to rain and the thought of sitting down for a drink was too good to pass up. In spite of DWT’s last second loss of courage, we snuck on to the fast train back to Santa Margherita and headed to a pizza/pasta restaurant that was just off the main square of the town. As we were deciding on the place, a guy was warming up for a music act so we were treated to good people watching as most of the town converged on the square for the show as well as a pretty good one man show. Turns out he was doing some sort of recent history program so we wandered over after dinner and listened to Ants Marching with Italian subtitles. The last day we finished the last leg of the hike. The lady over-charged me for the train tickets, but I challenge anyone who doesn’t speak Italian to go back and get a refund. After training it back, we said a sad goodbye to the Tottens and headed down to Pisa to fly back to London. The trip home was not as blessed as the rest of the trip – I messed up the time zone difference and our flight was delayed so we left about two hours before we needed, I was about €9 short (damn AGIP) on filling up the car with gas and the machines wouldn’t take my card and the car ride home from Gatwick was painful but all that couldn’t damper our spirits from the trip.
Dave and Treva after the 'concert'
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