I got back in bed and finished off the blog from last night while Jay woke up - he said he was going to have a shower and asked if I was too. "You don't think I can get away with my hair like this?" (there is no conditioner in the hotel so its a little poofy) he said "You can do whatever you want, you're with me. You don't have to worry about getting married, having kids..." So I ran my fingers through it and decided it was fine.
Before we went down to breakfast Jay sent this text to Anthony.
Anthony’s reply
This morning there are regular sized croissants instead of the mini ones, I still had 2. They're not big like at home, but about twice the size as yesterday. And we took the jam with us so that we can use it for breakfast the next few days.
After breakfast we finished packing, checked out and took the water bus to where we pick up our rental car near the Train and Bus station.
When we got there they didn't have the Alfa Romeo, they had the Or Similar, which is a Mercedes. I asked "No Alfa Romeo?" I think if he had had liquid in his mouth he would have snarfed "No Ma'am". I asked "Is that the nicest car of that class you have?" "Yes Ma'am, we have no nicer cars". I think that Avis has a single Alfa Romeo in all of Italy...I hope the Corey's get it. lol. We get to the car in the designated spot and its a little white, sporty, Mercedes hatch back, the entire passenger side looks like its been side swiped, we made the guy come over with one of those triplicate pictures of the car and write the damage on the sheet, the rest of the transaction was paperless with the contract being emailed to me.
We got turned around a couple of times on the highways, there's no Navi in the car so I'm using my iPhone. Jason voted me navigator but fired me. Twice.
On our way to Siena we plan to stop at Acetaia Leonardi for a balsamic tour, Monica told us we should book ahead so I looked on the website and filled in the contact form with the request for a tour, but because it was 11am and we would arrive at 12:30pm I called. The person who answered the phone said that they had a big tour at 11:30am that we could join of 40-44 people. I explained that we wouldn't be there until 12:30pm and she said, “ok, we wait for you one hour”. Ok...Jay said "I'm not sure that I want to go in if there are 40 people who've been made to wait for an hour for us, can you imagine?” I can't imagine they would do that, maybe she just meant she would do a tour for us at 12:30pm, an hour after the other tour. I asked her how much the tour was, including lunch. She said its 17Eu, it is just a light lunch with some cold cuts, cheese, pizza and salad. We said no problem, please book us in and we will see you at 12:30pm.
We got turned around a couple of times on the highways, there's no Navi in the car so I'm using my iPhone. Jason voted me navigator but fired me. Twice.
On our way to Siena we plan to stop at Acetaia Leonardi for a balsamic tour, Monica told us we should book ahead so I looked on the website and filled in the contact form with the request for a tour, but because it was 11am and we would arrive at 12:30pm I called. The person who answered the phone said that they had a big tour at 11:30am that we could join of 40-44 people. I explained that we wouldn't be there until 12:30pm and she said, “ok, we wait for you one hour”. Ok...Jay said "I'm not sure that I want to go in if there are 40 people who've been made to wait for an hour for us, can you imagine?” I can't imagine they would do that, maybe she just meant she would do a tour for us at 12:30pm, an hour after the other tour. I asked her how much the tour was, including lunch. She said its 17Eu, it is just a light lunch with some cold cuts, cheese, pizza and salad. We said no problem, please book us in and we will see you at 12:30pm.
When we arrived we did not, in fact, hold up the tour of 40, they were happily eating their lunch. Chiara gave us a tour of the facility, which is stunning. Its been passed down from father to son for two generations now (but the current son has no children, so may be a problem unless another family member wants to carry on the tradition).
Balsamic comes from grapes in the Modena region of Italy. In Modena there is natural bacteria in the soil and air that allows the balsamic to age naturally and ferment in such a way that the bacteria works on the alcohol content and makes the vinegar. Each balsamic is made to a recipe by the Master, in either a single type of barrel (oak, acacia, cherry, juniper, ash, chesnut) or a combination of barrels in a specific order for a specific length of time.
We tried 3 balsamics, a juniper (tastes a bit burnt), cherry (tastes like cherry) and a blend that was 100 years aged (tasted similar to the juniper). They were all very thick and very dark. The balsamic vinegar that we think of for salads and breads has been cut with wine vinegar to make it loose and liquidy. These were more the thickness of a balsamic glaze without the sweetness. You know a good balsamic by one of two labels, DOP means that it has been tested by the consortium and passed muster and Condimente means its the exact same recipe as the DOP just hasn't been sent for approval (much less expensive but exactly the same).
When the tour was finished Chiara led us to a small dining area where they had set up a table for us, it was a beautiful table with meat, cheese, pizza, a sparkling red wine, salad, etc. I turned to Jay and said "I wonder if she said 70 Eu pp not 17?" Nope. 17Eu pp, our most economical event so far!
When the tour was finished Chiara led us to a small dining area where they had set up a table for us, it was a beautiful table with meat, cheese, pizza, a sparkling red wine, salad, etc. I turned to Jay and said "I wonder if she said 70 Eu pp not 17?" Nope. 17Eu pp, our most economical event so far!
We have about 2 hours left before we are in Siena, we didn't map it out and didn't realize when Monica said that this was on the way that it was actually 30 minutes out of the way so added an hour to our drive time. The good news is that now we will arrive about the same time as Sarah and Anthony who arrived in Rome and are driving up 3 hours to meet us today. I said to Jay in the car, I never touched our tour guide but my hands smell like her perfume. Weird. Also, the smoke here is killing me, a lot of people smoke, though not nearly as many as last time I was here. I have the phantom smoke smell stuck in my nose and it will be there now for about 2-3 weeks after we get home, all I can smell all of the time is cigarette smoke.
Jay was starting to get tired as we were coming up on a change in highway. I said "That's fine, but if I drive you still have to stay awake to be navigator. If we merge onto this next highway and it says we are on it for 80km you can take a nap". It said 70km so he pulled over and I drove the rest of the way. He napped about 45 minutes.
When we arrived in Siena we had to drive to Garage Busi, we have the cars parked in a valet lot close to the apartment. The valet says that the lot is full, a couple of times, I say we have a reservation through Gianluca - Palazzo Nannini "ah, ok, In In". Sarah and Anthony should be about 10 minutes behind us so I text Gianluca and tell him that we're here and that we'll just wait for them and then come to the house. Sarah forgot that I told her she had to go to Garage Busi first, she's put the apartment in the GPS but its in the no traffic zone where you can't drive and so gets all turned around. At one point they were 200M from the destination but in the traffic limited area so we’re turned around by the Police! They must be SO tired having flown to Rome and then driven to Siena and now they're lost in the maze that is Siena and they don't even know for about 20 minutes that they're trying to get to a place that they just can't get to. Finally Jay asked Anthony if he is trying to get to the house or the parking garage and they get the garage locked and loaded into the GPS and arrive shortly after (a little less than an hour I would say from when they were supposed to). We are not suprised that they received an Or Similar car as well, in fact the exact car we have, down to the colour and the damage. lol. Gianluca has arrived in a car to take our luggage to the door for us (he must have a special permit to drive in the traffic limited zone as a resident, there are vehicles here but not many). He packs up the car and we walk to meet him.
He walks us through the whole house, its so Italian. I feel like we had to stay here when I saw it on AirBNB. Its just inside the walls of the city and close to everything. Its 2 bedrooms, 2.5.5 bathrooms (yes, Jay went into the bathroom by the kitchen only to find its just a sink and shower, no toilet - and it had been designated the #2 bathroom..so then the other bathroom that is just a toilet and sink had to be designated the #2 bathroom).
He has left us a bottle of wine, pasta, tomato with meat sauce, oil and some cookies. As well as some water, milk and orange juice in the fridge and a nespresso machine with pods for coffee (I mean really, we're in Italy..nespresso?).
While Sarah showers Anthony and I sit in the living room and chat and he opens the bottle of wine. I said it should probably breathe, Anth poured 4 glasses to the top. lol.
I went to take the photo and he turned the label to make it a good photo - that's when I noticed it was a Chianti. A 2017 Chianti. This should be interesting. Bad interesting. Maybe it will surprise me. No one wants to try it so it "breathes" a long time. When we feel like we must drink the wine we do. It doesn't disappoint. Its horrible. This is a photo from about 5 hours later.
Anthony gets up to FaceTime Maddy and comes back, we often raz him about having a Samsung (which is why we WhatsApp instead of iMessaging) and he came out to admit he picked up his phone to FaceTime and can’t. So he went to get Sarah’s phone and I can here him “Ugh”..what are you having difficulty with? “iPhoning” haha.
Sarah is done her shower and she said the system was crazy, she had to try it 3 times before she figured it out, every time she turned it on she couldn't get the spray to stay and couldn't figure out which way was hot and which way was cold, and the shower doors open in the middle, like closet doors, so the whole time you're getting sprayed while you try to figure it out. I said to her "Do you want to go show Anthony how it works?" She smiled "No". lol
After showers we went for a walk, eventually the goal is to find a place to have dinner and then get home so the Corey's can go to sleep, they're working on 4 hours of sleep in about 36 hours. We walk through the streets looking in all the shops and scoping out a place to have Gelato after dinner and pastry and coffee in the morning before our wine tour with Donatella (I did this tour with Mom last time we were here).
Sarah is done her shower and she said the system was crazy, she had to try it 3 times before she figured it out, every time she turned it on she couldn't get the spray to stay and couldn't figure out which way was hot and which way was cold, and the shower doors open in the middle, like closet doors, so the whole time you're getting sprayed while you try to figure it out. I said to her "Do you want to go show Anthony how it works?" She smiled "No". lol
After showers we went for a walk, eventually the goal is to find a place to have dinner and then get home so the Corey's can go to sleep, they're working on 4 hours of sleep in about 36 hours. We walk through the streets looking in all the shops and scoping out a place to have Gelato after dinner and pastry and coffee in the morning before our wine tour with Donatella (I did this tour with Mom last time we were here).
I looked up a restaurant on Trip Advisor that looks good and is only a 5 min walk from where we are, but when we get there its been Michelin rated for the last 10 years in a row and has no room available for dinner today or tomorrow, so we make our way to another one and decide that if we see a nice restaurant on the way we can abandon the restaurant we're looking for and just stop. We end up in a little square behind the cathedral and Sarah says "We can eat there.." OMG, my Mom and I ate here last time!
So we ate there. Our server asked where we were from and I asked him where he is from, turns out he's from Naples, so he gives us some places to go and to eat when we are in Sorrento later this week. He was great, we had SO MUCH FOOD, and we did a pretty good job of it. I didn't take any photos but this is what we had. We shared a nice bottle of red wine. Then I had a Caprese salad and a thick but thin pasta with wild boar ragu. Sarah had a mixed green salad and a spaghetti with smoked bacon. Anthony had a Caprese salad, a half pasta of rabbit in a tomato sauce and then boar stew. Jason had bruschetta, half pasta with meat sauce, then a steak dish with garlic that was delicious with a side of white beans stewed in tomato sauce. We also got stewed rabbit for the table, but we were expecting stew and it came looking like stewed chicken, only rabbit, so it didn't go very far - Anthony and I had some but not much. It was all delicious and, surprisingly, I'm not stuffed. They were perfect portions.
On our way back to the apartment Jay wanted to see if we could make it back without using the maps feature on the phone.
On our way back to the apartment Jay wanted to see if we could make it back without using the maps feature on the phone.
We went up to the Cathedral, we were right behind it, and I remembered that right across the square there was a Gelato place because Mom and I had been there and sat on the steps of the square to eat it, so we headed across the square and up the stairs et voila!
I had Cafe gelato (which is the only reason I’m up finishing the blog tonight) and asked him to fill the smallest cup as little as possible. He said usually he is trying to put as much in as he can. Sarah asked the same thing, we had a perfect little half scoop of gelato.
We made it all the way back to the apartment without the maps, it does help I've been here before.
This is our square. There is a group of girls sitting at the base but I moved to the VERY far side so I could get a shot without them in it, the angle hides them, lol.
Jay plans to get up and go for a run tomorrow morning around the outside of the wall. Sarah and I talk about setting the alarm for 7:30am so that I can shower and we can get a pastry and coffee before our tour in the morning. We just finished FaceTiming the girls, I'm going to add the photos to the blog and then off to bed, its 11pm.
Oh, I got a package delivery estimate and it reminded me. I couldn’t find my trench style rain jackets from Eddie Bauer because we moved to Mom and Dads, and it was supposed to lightly rain a lot of the time we were here (although the weather has turned and now it’s supposed to be beautiful). So I ordered 3 jackets and a sweater (with the intention to return 2 and pick from the 3) from Eddie Bauer online which were supposed to be delivered on Friday by 5pm. We were leaving for the airport on Friday at 5pm. So Thurs evening I checked Eddie Bauer and their Customer Service was open until 10pm, so I called and they said it would be shipped, looked like it was ready to ship the morning before but couldn’t see if it had been shipped and suggested I call back in the morning. In the morning I had a “Your Order has been Shipped” email with a tracking number for FedEx. Several times during the day I checked the tracking and Fedex said it would update me when the package was in transit but it hadn’t moved. So at 2pm I called Fedex and they said the package hasn’t been shipped yet that they don’t have a request from Eddie Bauer saying it’s ready (but I have a tracking number). So I called Eddie Bauer and explained - she said it’s been shipped, I said Fedex says no. So she puts me on hold for like 30 minutes and finally comes back and says they have no idea where the package is. They’ll send out a new one. I said, but I leave today that’s why I wanted it today, so can you just cancel it? She said yes, we will refund your card right now. I asked what I do with the package if it eventually arrives? She says “keep it”. Seriously?! Yes, keep it, keep the jackets. Ok, thank you. 2 hours later I got an update from Fedex that my package had shipped and would be delivered on Tuesday :) Jay said to the girls - only your Mother can order 4 jackets and get them for free! Can’t wait to get home and check them out!
Chianti - Bleck! Wild boar ragu - delicious!
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