Lucca - Yuck. Lucca had way too many tourists and our hotel was full when we arrived so we ended up in an extremely smoky room. Bah. We did find a nice dinner after most of the tour buses left & the shoppers started to dissipate. Derrell got a good ravioli that looked a bit more like pot-stickers in the way they were formed. He was very, very pleased. And we were surrounded at dinner by 20 and 30 year olds, the first we had seen in weeks, so it seemed. We realized that we were getting used to the white-haired old lady, tour bus circuit, and that sort of scared us.
Volterra - This town was also busy during the day, but rolled up after the tourists took off in their tour buses. We stayed in a hotel with a pool, but the pool was too cold to consider, and as it had autumn leaves starting to drift across the surface, we got the idea that autumn was actually still with us. In general, we walked the town and took in the views, nice enough place with very low tempo. We placed ourselves at dinner with a family of loud Americans behind us. I suppose it was good that they were loud, though. Derrell came down with an allergy attack during dinner. We were surrounded by blooming things in this town, and one of them didn’t agree with him at all.
San Gigminano - We headed towards the slightly bigger town of San Gigminano, and found 50 gigzillion tour buses and tourists, more than half of them from America. What a tourist trap. The best part of the town was the walk outside of the walls (away from the tourists). The views were stunning, the weather excellent. You know, all that good stuff that nature can deliver, and not even a tour bus can take it away. (Well, unless the tour bus manages to park next to you.) We rented a nice guest room in the attic of a Tuscan house with old wood beams in the ceiling and a fine tiled floor. The room was much better than the town.
Montipulciano - We stopped in a couple of cute towns on the way to Montipulciano, at Perucia & Monteciano. In the latter, we had a nice lunch with bulgur salad with some great balsamic vinegar and ribbollita (a Tuscan bread soup), served up with a sampling of the local Barolla wine. The day was perfect weather for outdoor cafe dining. Montipulciano ended up being a steep town, again filled with a billion tourist buses. We ended up at a mediocre meal after walking in circles up and down the hill through the city looking for open restaurants. This may go down as one of the worst guest rooms we’ve rented. The bed had a plastic sheet for the base sheet, and you don’t realize just how much you sweat at night until you lay down on one of these horrible, horrible things. Ah, that’s what happens when you roll the dice by getting a room from the Tourist Information office. They usually work out… but not always.
Gubbio - Now this was a quiet town, and we felt a bit removed from the crazy tourist scene that we had just experienced over the past few days. We landed a few good meals and one absolutely insane French meal with a horrific waiter. Our French dining experience involved watching the waiter make the genteel older couple next to us move mid-meal to place four patrons at their two person table. The waiter was acting as flighty and gay as a jaybird and was actively insulting every table in the vicinity. We were searching for some Monty Pyton humor, but we just couldn’t justify the guy’s behavior to anyone. Mind you this was a Michelin starred restaurant, but it wasn’t due to the service. We still can be happy with the kitchen, although, I would never recommend this place to anyone but a sworn enemy. We managed to get out of the kitchen, some grilled veggies, parma ham layered on a fried crisp of thin cheese and fresh tomato bruschetta for a starter, then followed it with truffled capon with flakes of pecorino cheese for an appetizer, and then a pumpkin ravioli in butter sauce came out, and finally, the main course of duck that melted away in a rich dark wine sauce. We were impressed with the kitchen, but we were ready to strangle the waiter with the strangiprezzi pasta that we had with wild boar ragu sauce from our earlier lunch down the street. Ah, people do come to Italy to just enjoy the restaurants, don’t they?
Trento - We drove out of Gubbio and ended up in the Italian flat lands. It ended up being a tough smoggy day of driving. We originally thought we wanted to stay in Modena.. but it was too smoggy. The air was looking orange. So, back to the highway we went and headed north to get out of the smog. We stopped in Trento where the air was clear. The town was showcasing the regional artisan food specialties over the weekend at a Farmer’s Market style set up. It was one of the more likable towns. There were university students and the level of tourism was just a distant backnote against the business of the town. Although, we were sad that we were starting to see the end of Italy transition back into the Germanic world, the flower boxes were looking good. We ended up staying at a place called Hotel America, which seemed like one bedroom apartments complete with patios had been remodeled into a hotel. Not much to say about that hotel other than the shock of the size of the place after the past few small rooms we had rented, and, well, hey, no plastic sheets!
