Our apartment mates left today, Sam and gang (4 of them from New Orleans) and Virginia and gang (5 of them from Wisconsin). We were able to look into their apartments after they left. All three seem nice; ours is the smallest but there are only two of us!

Serendipity:

We (Read: Ann) wanted to go to a Saturday market today since it had been a whole two days since we visited one. Her pre-trip research told us that Buonconvento had one. This is a little town about 35 minutes from here but nothing special for a tourist. After buying vegetables for next week’s meals at the market Ann saw a poster that told of a Sagra this week in this town. We had read about them but most were before September 15th. A Sagra is a festival celebrating something, usually from the 1300s or so. This one celebrated the bringing the cattle into town for the farmers to sell. Not only is there a festival but usually also a competition between the districts of the city (Again, along medieval city divisions).

There are four city areas each with a flag and nickname. Each one was having a dinner sponsored by a different restaurant in the open air in four areas of town. Ann asked one of the men helping set up the dinner at the city division called Rana (Frog) to explain. She got the entire history and menu in broken English. There were two sittings lunch and dinner. It was 11:00 am so we reserved for lunch at 12:30.

In the open air under large tents sitting on long benches and tables of this tiny piazza in this little town, we sat down with the locals, old, young, children, male and female. Everyone knew each other except us. For 16 euro or $19 each we were treated to a fantastic four course meal with a bottle of wine for the two of us and vin santo with dessert. We had watched the townsfolk making the fresh pasta, cutting the onions and tomatoes, etc in buildings adjacent to the piazza earlier in the morning. Real down home food prepared perfectly.

We drove home. Ann is asleep. It is 3:09 in the afternoon.

Lesson for Day 19: Don’t Sagra and drive.