Under the Tuscan sun

08 JUNE CREVALCORE—The weather here has cooled off a bit and has been quite pleasant, grazie a dio. The fan has remained silent for which Stefania is eternally grateful.

Last week we took advantage of the long weekend because of the Festa della Repubblica, the day celebrating the founding of Italy’s first republic in 1948, to take a day trip to northern Tuscany. Stefania had Thursday through Sunday off so we decided to drive down to Montecatini on Thursday then meet up with her parents at their place in Cesenatico for the weekend.

Montecatini is in the northwest corner of the region of Tuscany between Pistoia and the walled city of Lucca. I’ve been wanting to go to Comacchio to the Parco del Delta del Po, the big national park in the Po River Delta, but figured that this particular weekend it wasn’t worth it due to the fact that half of Italy would be heading to the beaches. So instead, we took the always beautiful A1 Autostrada from Bologna to Firenze (Florence), then broke right towards Pistoia once we were in sight of Florence’s Duomo. Driving through the suburbs of Florence isn’t the most beautiful spot in the world. It is a see of newer row houses and red-tiled roofs and mini-cranes where they are building new ones. Furthermore, the road to Pistoia is a two-laned highway dotted with rotundas or roundabouts. Along this road we came across a police car driving at about 30 km/h trying to trick people into rushing past him. Since I was at the controls of the ever powerful Micra, I steered clear and kept my distance.

This obstacle course of road furniture led through many Tuscan villages in this flat area of the region at the foot of the Apennines. Tuscany is a surprisingly diverse region. The Apennines curl east to west along the Emilia-Romagna-Tuscany border then dive southward towards Florence and Arezzo. The area in the triangle formed of the cities of Florence, Sienna and Arezzo comprise what most Americans think of when they think of Tuscany. This is the famous Chianti region and has the beautiful gently-sloping cypress-topped hills dotted with picturesque villages and vineyards. And let me tell you, it looks just like it does in the movies. To the south of Sienna are the Crete Senesi, an area of denuded hills that look much like the Flint Hills of Kansas. The area along the Mediterranean Sea where Pisa and Livorno are located is much flatter. The spine of the Apennines that run down the border between Tuscany and the neighboring Marche region is notably steeper. Hilltop towns such as Cortona, can be found in this area south of Arezzo.

As we approached Montecatini we got closer to the steep hills of the Apennines. Montecatini is another Roman town founded around thermal baths. There is the big town of Montecatini in the valley and Montecatini Alto, a hilltop village that can be accessed by car or a little train that runs up the steep hill. Hilltop towns such as this were of extreme strategic importance by the Middle Ages. Montecatini controlled the Via Cassia between the Apennines and Pistoia and thus the trade.

We chose the car route and drove the switchbacks past lavish villas sporting impressive iron gates surrounded by Italian cypresses and date palms.At the top of the hill lies the ancient village. We parked the car in a small parking lot for tourists and made our way along the road that ran along the ridge of the hill. It offered a scenic view of the valley to our left and allowed me to take some nice shots of the town to our right.

We were lucky to have come during the Festa della Repubblica because the whole piazza in the center of the town was decked out in the red, white and green Italian flags. The only people a round on this day seemed to be us and a bunch of other foreign tourists. I heard some people speaking behind me and it took about five minutes to realize that they were talking in English--They were from Scotland!

After poking around the village and firing off a few pictures we decided to have a snack. We were unlucky enough to pick a caffe’ with possibly the dumbest, spaced out waiter of all time. He forgot our order. He forgot our napkins. He forgot our water. Then when we went to pay, he had forgotten what we ordered. We could have told him that we had a Coke and gotten away for almost nothing. It wasn’t as if he were busy. There were two other tables occupied in the whole place.

On to the rest of our day trip. Stefania suggested we head out towards the northwest where there were some picturesque towns along the national park in the Apennines on the border with Emilia-Romagna. This turned out to be a blessing and a curse. The scenery was magnificent. The temperatures had cooled as we drove through scenic valleys along a rushing river. The sun was out and headed westward. The problem is that we should have turned back towards Modena earlier. We were now so far into the Apennines that the only way home was to drive over the Passo dei Radici near Montecimone. This was an absolutely beautiful road. No traffic. Perfect asphalt. Setting sun. The canopy of the forest closed in on us near the top in an amazing cathedral of light and branches. Stefania had had a headache all day and couldn’t get any aspirin because, of course, the pharmacies were closed. Only pharmacies can sell aspirin and the like because they are classified as drugs. And, again, there is no such thing as 24-hour quick shops or supermarkets. There are 24-hour pharmacies in big towns but we weren’t driving back to Pistoia or Florence for some Tylenol.

This proved to be a killer decision. For on the descent from the Passo dei Radici into Emilia-Romagna and back towards home, there were literally dozens and dozens of switchback turns. Stefania had been driving and had to ask me to takeover. She was getting nauseous and she still had that jackhammer headache. I started off like Michael Shumacher but she begged me to slow down. Still 57 km to Modena. We finally made it out of the mountains and back on to the plains but we were both really tired from all the driving by the time we got home at 10 that night.