Looking forward to the first full day on the farm, we both popped out of bed to get ready for the orientation. This is where Isabella has all of the guests come to a big gathering room and she gives you a little background and advice on the property and then goes over the itinerary for the week. She said the night before that she would understand if I wanted to skip it as I had been to orientation before, and I responded, ‘Are you kidding me? That was one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. I will be there.’ The pearls of wisdom she drops about life and especially life in this part of Tuscany linger in your mind long after you are home from your trip.
We all huddled in the room, that was a little chilly and there was sleek Isabella propped up on a table with her legs crossed and her arms outstretched already describing things with gestures. Things I learned during this orientation include:
- To come visit Italy on a week like this is to experience only the sweet slice of life. Making your life here and becoming part of the fabric of the community is very different.
- She is a big City girl from Milan who married into this family over 25 years ago and moved to this part of the Italy (Tuscany). Eventhough she is Italian, she still had to work to be accepted here and prove she was part of the fabric. Everytime she used to leave for Milan to go visit her friends for a weekend, the townspeople would say ‘Oh, there she goes again, she’s probably not coming back.’ Then she would come back after the weekend and the townspeople would say, ‘Oh, she came back.’
- Many tourists come and think they will buy a villa and retire here and it will be their Italian dream, and it would most likely be their Italian nightmare to renovate an old villa. There is the sweet slice of life that is Italy, but it is also very different from the US with many other different customs and integrating into that life and knowing the language would be a must.
- To fall in love with Italy is like falling in love with a person. You must love the whole person, the good and the bad. When have enough love you accept all of the person, faults and all. It’s like this way to love Italy.
- Practical: Never bring a bottle of wine to a restaurant in Italy for them to open. They will be insulted. They will say why? We have our own wines.
She then went through the options for each day and you could sign up for any of the activities they had listed, they just had to know in advance so they could make arrangements. This was like an amazing dream wine camp for adults. A few folks were leaving mid week, or deciding to do other things like drive back into Florence for the day and Isabella would say, ‘Oh, too bad.’ As if to say, ‘Oh too bad for you.’ It was hilarious.
Last time I came with Dana, and we made the mistake of signing up for everything because the way Isabella described things had you believing it was the most amazing thing on the planet that you just couldn’t miss. Well, even on a trip like this you only have so much capacity. Halfway through, we started bailing on activities as we had no downtime. It was all too much and we had overbooked ourselves. This time I knew better, and I was careful about what Carla and I said yes to. Before we knew it, it was 2 hours later and the orientation was over. I actually didn’t want it to end as listening to Isabella pontificate about life and life in Italy is like reading a book on simplicity and you hope to absorb this into every fiber of your being so you carry it home and remember.
After orientation, we went back to our little studio apartment room and started cooking breakfast. The whole kitchen exists in a cabinet and it takes getting used to, but once you get the hang of it, you actually kind of miss it when you get home as you realize it is all you really need to get by for simple meals. We needed some help from Marta in figuring out how to turn the stove off, once we got it on and also Carlo needed to come in an show us how to work the little overhead light. He had helped us also the day before with a light in the bathroom. Each fix was simple, he just flipped a switch and would say, ‘These problems, I like, so easy to fix.’
After we were set up we made a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs, salami, cheese, and toast with a side of espresso made in the Italian coffee pot. I remember making these breakfasts with Dana and coming home trying to recreate the same magic in my own house. Somehow once you get home, it isn’t the same – the fresh eggs from the chicken, the bread from the bakery, even the way the coffee tastes in the Italian coffee pot isn’t the same. The coffee pot is an award winning designed Moka pot in the 1930’s by Bialeti that still exists today. It reminds me of an old stove top percolator – like the kind my parents used to have in the 70’s. I’m here to tell you it does the trick to produce delicious, thick Italian espresso.
After we finished breakfast and did the dishes, we went to town to try to buy waters. The grocery closed at 12:30pm on Sunday so we had about 15 minutes to get there and get our purchases made. Unfortunately when we got there, it was closed. I guess it is closed for the week. Hmm. Okay, one of the lessons of Italy. They can just decide to close for the week. Maybe the family needs them. It’s okay, Italy, I love you anyway. We wandered around Pienza a bit to look for water and Carla wanted to go into this Lavendar store that looked way too lavender to me – I mean everything was lavender in there, but I have to admit, it did smell good. This interesting eclectic lady with disheveled hair did a good job of explaining the quality of their products to us, the organic motto of the company, as well as all of the benefits of lavendar. She just kept talking and talking though. I felt like backing up out of there slowly so we could be released from this conversation, but it was much harder than that to pull off – but finally we extracted ourselves. Phew. We found a pizza shop that would sell us 2 BIG liter waters and hoped that we could find an open store to buy more tomorrow. This was good enough for now.
When we got back to Cretaiole, it was time for our hike with Carlo. I had also done this hike before, but in the summer time when we had to meet at 6:30am, before it got too hot. This time we met at 2pm to make sure we hiked in the hottest part of the day. Even then, the temps were brisk and in the high 30’s. We all showed up bundled up and even on an intermediate hike where your heart gets pumping and you are moving, you never really get hot enough to take off your jacket. The most hot any of us got was deciding to unzip our jacket for a few minutes. Then the wind chill would come back and up went the zipper.
Regardless, this hike was totally worth it with the views, the opportunity to hear Carlo talk about the land and the property again. To show us how he had already planted the wheat for next year and on neighboring properties, where they had planted a little sooner, little green shoots were already poking out of the ground, looking Iike the beginning of a carpet of grass. He showed us where the truffle is on his property. Truffle is so expensive, he must check it every morning for any new growth or they may be some that come to steal the truffle. Truffles are grown underground and are quietly foraged with the help of well-trained dogs. Chefs and cooks are willing to pay $1,200 per pound for these mushrooms because of the intoxicating flavor that no other ingredients can match.
About half of the group went on the hike and it was fun to get to know a few of the folks. There are Americans on this trip from all over the country – Seattle, Nashville, Birmingham, Atlanta, Athens (GA), and even Palos Verdes. I haven’t met everyone yet, but by now, these are a few of the cities hitting the radar. Everyone is really nice and a lot of fun. They are all equally thrilled to be here and it feels like you are all in this together.
After the hike we had a just a few moments to go back to the room and freshen up before we headed out to a wine tasting at a winery that paints every label before it leaves their facility. They are small wine producer in the area, but still, that is a lot of bottles to paint. I pulled my knit stocking off of my head, wondering, could I really do anthing with this hair now to head to the winery? A few sprays of dry shampoo and a fluff seemed to do the trick. It didn’t seem like it would matter much anyway as it seemed too cold to not want to put that knit hat right back on when we went outside.
The winery was about a 30-minute drive and even with WAZE gps directions going on your phone, you are bound to make a few wrong turns as the decision point between turns is often a 3-4 pronged fork where you need to decide in a split second and if you choose wrong, it’s a while before you have time to turn around. I think out of 20 choices like that 2 times I missed, and 1 time I missed our cut-off because we were talking. All in all – we got there only 4 minutes later than we originally thought, so we did pretty good.
The tour of this winery was frigid and I mean frigid. I could barely focus on what the lady was saying. I was just thinking, ‘just give me wine, it is my only shot at warming up here.’ Still she walked us through the property, her dad’s art studio, the cellars, another art room, all before she finally led us back into the glass room with 365 degree views of the property. Only right now it was night time, with no views, and we huddled around the table with all but our teeth chattering. However, all was not lost. Soon the wine started pouring and we tasted one of their Rossos and two of their Brunello reserves. Along with a few little appetizers to complement the wine tasting.
We enjoyed talking to a couple from Birmingham (originally from Ohio), Tom and Lynette, who were here with their two grown daughters, Stephanie and Stacy. We laughed a lot with them and the more we sipped our wine, the more fun we had and the more the windows on this glass contraption were fogging up all around us. It was the same all along the table with about 16 of us there doing the tasting. At one point they bring out grappa, which is clear, and Lynette thinks it is water. She throws it back like water and her eyes get big and start to water as she tells us what she just did as she puts her hand on her chest and says, ‘Oh no, it is burning, I thought it was water.’ We all started laughing.
After the tasting, Carla and I had planned to go back to our room and eat a salad and heat up some leftovers from our dinner the night before. As we were walking out Stephanie leans over and says to me, ‘What can I do to talk you into coming to dinner with me and my parents? We have a reservation for 4, but we want you with us and we can change it to 6.’ I laughed, and thought well, hmmm, I don’t think that should be a problem. I ask Carla what she thinks, and she says, ‘Sure, why not.’ So we changed our plans and met them for dinner at a place on the way home.
It was great to get to know them some more over dinner and hear about all that they did for a living and to see the typical interactions between families with the looks of, ‘Mom, you are embarrassing me.’ As the mother would proudly talk about both of the accomplishments of her daughters in the most genuine way. The dad, with 3 talking women in his family, was super nice and mostly just sat back and smiled and allowed others to tell family stories that he was quite able to tell, but that they were jumping to tell. So he smiled and would say, ‘Please, you tell the story.’ He was so nice as was the whole family.
I was ready for a pasta break and so ordered their special Rib-Eye of the night. Oh my Lord, when they brought it out, we thought it was for the whole table as it literally could have fed the whole table. I love it how over here, if a little person like me orders something 10x bigger than what she is going to need, they don’t say a thing or advise differently. They just bring it. Carla was thinking she wanted a Chi-Chi’s style antipasto salad, so she ordered antipasto. Um, that’s different we learned when a platter of meat and cheeses was brought to her. Oh well! When in Tuscany….
After dinner on our walk back to the car, Carla and I started laughing about something that I can’t remember anymore. All I remember is we were bent over double and crossing our legs for fear of wetting ourselves as we both should have probably used the toilet before we left. We literally stood there for 2 minutes gasping for air and laughing and trying not to think about what was making us laugh so we could make it to the car. It was also freezing so we had more motivation. Finally, we got a hold of ourselves and were able to head towards the car.
The drive back to Cretaiole was only 10 minutes and we got back to the room. I took a shower and built another fire and blogged, while Carla texted her peeps. I think this is our new routine.