If living in Italy has taught me one thing it is that there are two ways to experience travel: one is to default stumble between the tourist map landmarks like there is some hidden track under it all to which people innocuously attach themselves; the second to freehand your own map, burn the rail tracks, and drink in the moment. My weekend on the Tuscan hillsides was a lesson in the latter.
Travel companions are key and I had three stellar ones along for the ride with me: John (the Desert Violinist), James (the Boston Heartbreak), and Tami (the Toledo Artist). Our journey began early Thursday morning with a casual train ride to Siena. One of the more interesting things about Italy is that at one point in time many of the great cities we know today were actually the crown jewels of powerful regional kingdoms. Siena was at one time the capital city of these ancient kingdoms, this fact was made perfectly clear from the moment I stepped into the city. Crumbling walls surround a proud city boasting Europe’s oldest bank and one of Italy’s most extravagant cathedrals. Yet, as beautiful as Siena was this was only a pit stop on our Tuscan tour. We jumped back on the train and made our way to Pisa, home of the world’s most famous tilted tower.
Conveniently, the Pisa Central train station is not far from the city airport which was our next destination. We needed the airport though not for a plane but in fact a plain old car. Earlier in the week we had been told that our weekend accommodations at the Tuscan vineyard farmhouse was not accessible by public transportation. So I had arranged for a rental car in Pisa. When we picked up the car we were met with a little disappointment. I had found a good price on line but when I went to actually rent the car the people told me that they would charge us an extra fourteen euro a day because I was not twenty-five and on top of that we had to pay a lot of money for insurance. So we swallowed the bitter pill, grabbed the keys, and climbed into our little compact Fiat Panda. The drive that followed was unreal. I was the only one that could drive stick, although Tami could but she did not have her license, so I just enjoyed cruising down the autostrada and gliding, winding, swerving along tumbling Tuscan hillside roadways. Honestly, in my opinion there are few more liberating experiences than sliding in behind the steering wheel of a car all your own with the full knowledge that boundaries are now a laughing matter to which my voice ignites and bursts into bouts of hilarity. Acculturate in 1st, hear the engine wind and drop it to second, pull tight and tighter still till the wheels whimper a bit and I know its ready for 3rd, once comfortably in third I instantly begin itching through my skin for the freedom of a faster 4th, it’s easy my foot punches the clutch with a simultaneous pull of my arm and the road knows no rest. 5th is for the weak of heart and this was a rental so needless to say the upper gear was ill thought of and seldom used. I was almost sad when we reached our destination that night. Well that is until I saw what we had arrived at.
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