First off, Ann has a cold and cough that sounds more like noise coming from a tuberculosis ward of active patients. She is a trooper but not her sparkling self. Why now?

Second, we get to the Seattle Airport to find we have reservations for the SAS flight but with booked seat assignments only for the return leg NONE for the outward leg. I made these reservations in December! Who only gets seat assignments for the return? I think this is a rare case where I am not a fault. This means that instead of the aisle-window configuration I booked months ago we will now be sitting in different rows of five across seating between burly people who do not feel it necessary to use deodorant since they will only be sitting for nine hours.

But wait. The manager of SAS check in comes over and pounds on the computer for what seems like much too long and gives us aisle-window seats together with upgrades to Economy Extra (meaning more room). Not only that but we later find out these are bulkhead seats with enough legroom to use as a dance floor since no seats are in front of us. Life is suddenly very good. Except there was no sleeping on the plane. Ann is coughing and miserable. The Denzel Washington - Jody Foster movie is only good to waste 100 minutes. I read 175 pages of my book about a comedy writer and TV producer whose wife buys a house in Tuscany. She then makes him move to Tuscany after giving up his career. I am now getting very scared. I like it in Woodinville.

Wait I have no career.

Then we land in Copenhagen and the real adventure begins. We are still in the secured area after deplaning. Going to our connecting flight, never leaving the secure area, we must go through security check AGAIN. We have a 45 minute connection to make, the plane is a little late, the line is long and the gate is miles away. Ann tells me to go ahead since her knees will need to be personally scanned due to the implants. But it is me who was delayed by having my backpack contents re-scanned. I wait; Ann goes ahead. I finally get my re-scanned backpack and race to passport control only to realize my bag feels much too light. I go back to security. Security has taken many things out of my bag and not replaced them. I yell across a barrier if my stuff is there – my lifeblood called my digital SLR, computer battery and other manner of stuff that was never replaced was being kept by them since I did not get it. They gave it back but I became angry at them. They became angry at me. Just when I was ready to continue this easily winnable argument (it was their fault not mine that I will miss the next flight) I decided to try to catch the flight anyhow rather than give them an earful and probably then be forced to undergo a full cavity search. It is next to impossible to give up on a winnable argument, isn’t it Laurel?

The next eight minutes were a blur as I raced through the terminal looking like a freaky speed walker on performance enhancing drugs. I put moves on unsuspecting travelers that an NFL tailback would appreciate. The gate I had to achieve before 2:10 (14:10 over here) was the last one at the end of the wing that was as far from our arrival gate as it could be. I arrived at the last boarding. We were off to Frankfurt! I was sweaty, tired and angry. Ann was coughing.

Let me spoil this next part. Things did not get better. Coming into the terminal from security at the Frankfurt Airport to meet the lease car representative – we didn’t. He was not there. Luckily my new European mobile phone was put to use and it worked. I was told that we had to walk another several hundred meters to the Holiday Inn Express Shuttle bus stop with all of our luggage in tow and take the shuttle to that hotel. I don’t think I mentioned the temperature was approaching 90 degrees and the humidity was certainly approaching 90 percent. Did I mention that Ann had no wind from her severe chest cold? It was now about 26 hours since we had slept. We were spent.

The pick up of the lease car went perfectly. It took two signatures and a quick tour of the car. We were off on the nine mile drive to the hotel I had booked and prepaid. The nine miles took 30 minutes (Traffic) through rural suburban small towns. We got to the hotel, BUT - the hotel was shut up with the hotel sign taken down. There was only a note on the door with the dreaded German word: Geslossen. Which means loosely translated, “Out of business and you are screwed, Parrishes.” Orbitz.com is not on my good list at the moment but they will give me my 57 Euros back – I hope.

We drove back to the aforementioned Holiday Inn Express, rented a room there for less than the price of the closed hotel (because we picked up the car there – a discount program I was not aware of existed) walked to an Italian restaurant, had mediocre German Pizza, came back and fell asleep.

It is now 4 am – thanks jet lag. I am wide awake and pleading with the clock to get it to 5:45 am so I can go down and get some coffee. We both snickered at check in last night when the clerk said that breakfast starts at 5:45.

After a morning of seeing in this beautiful Baroque city, virtually unchanged for centuries, we bought lunch at the supermarket below the Square of the Republic and brought it home. I am eating a prepared sandwich of various sausages and cold deli type meats of unknown origin from a pig, steer or who knows what animal. To accent this there is a generous helping of mayonnaise. Also an asparagus spear, a broccoli floret and some red bell pepper were present. There was also a small dill pickle in there somewhere. My side dish was a bag of Lay’s potato chips – bacon flavored. Fortunately it is all being washed down with a half liter of Pilsner Urquell (for $0.95). How Eastern European does that lunch sound? Just like Pacific Northwest Fusion cuisine, right?

The weather has degenerated. Last night it poured for a while. Today it is cooler, windy and rain threatening. Temperature yesterday approached 90; today it might hit the low 60s. Guess which one of us is happy about that?

Ann is not able to make the train trip to Podebrady today. After walking across town to meet Zdenek she was completely exhausted and coughing up a lung. We rescheduled the train trip until tomorrow and I took her back to the apartment. The sick and tired lady then slept until the next morning. I ventured out on the town during the afternoon. I went through the town seeing all of the sights I had seen in my previous three times in this city. Doing this I realized Ann was not missing anything and the reason for stopping here was to see dear Zdenek again.

I met Z for dinner at 6:00 sans Ann. I returned back five hours later. We had a great evening. We walked around town with Z giving me a historical and personal perspective of his city. We stopped in at an underground pub for a velky pivo [large beer] which was $1.25 so Z would drink there. With the use of a Czech-English dictionary we were able to converse quite nicely. After the Pilsner Urquell we went to dinner at U Medvidku which means “At the little bear” – I don’t know why. We both had what was translated as Granny’s Sirloin. Now with the “beef is expensive in this country” attitude the meal consisted of two small medallions of beef about ¼ inch thick on a plate of gravy with five knedliky or dumplings. On the beef was a thin layer of cowberrys (I don’t know but like sour cranberry sauce), a little lemon curd with a thin sliced disk of lemon then a whipped cream dollop on the top.

Oddly it was spectacular and it was not just because we had two more large beers at the restaurant. These beers were Budweiser from Budweis. The #2 beer in the Czech Republic, much lighter and sweeter than Pilsner Urquell and is, in my opinion, not as full flavored.

Upon arriving back at the apartment, Ann was still in bed but hungry and wanted me to get some food. She noticed immediately that I did not have the black waterproof wind shirt I had when I left. So, back on the metro to again ride the rails. Once more with no ticket since only coins could be used to buy tickets from the machine (I did not have enough coin money but plenty of bills), no ticket seller was open and no store would make change for me. At the restaurant the wind shirt still lay on the bench next to the couple with whom we shared the dinner table. They were on their fifth large beers by my reckoning. Impressive. On the way back from the third metro ride in an hour (without ticket again) I had now beaten the “system” out of 14 X 3 Czech koruna (about $1.10) and risk fines of $100 each time. Who says I don’t gamble. I stopped at a pizza restaurant near our apartment as it was closing and got the dear sick lady some grub - a pizza with a fried egg on top.

We awoke to blue skies and warm temperatures. I got Ann and me a cappuccino and croissant to-go at the bakery downstairs and brought it up to the apartment. I met Z at the appointed tram station at the appointed time and off we went to get the car. The car was there undamaged. We paid the reasonable rate and started the car.

Let me digress. In Prague and in the entire Czech Republic car lights must be turned on 24 hours a day while driving. On Thursday on the way to the car park Z had me turn them on. Can you fill in the rest of the story?? Let me just say that the car does not have automatic headlight turn off. To say the battery was drained would be kind. Turning the key produced not a sound.

Fortunately that same sinister Eastern European guarding the cars had jumper cables. In the Czech Republic one apparently cannot just ask another person if he has jumper cables and could he please jumpstart the car. A meeting of the minds had to occur between Z and the sinister looking Eastern European. I guess much had to be discussed about the relative position of the jumping car, the fact that the car was French, the fact it was a diesel, etc, etc. FINALLY off went the sinister Eastern European then to get the other car. It took a full 15 minutes before anything on the dashboard would even light up then another 20 minutes of charging before car would actually start.

All turned out well. We got on our way and the sinister Eastern European got a tip big enough to take his family for a very nice dinner; He was so nice and helpful. He wished nothing in return for his troubles but took the gift reluctantly. Parking the car for three days cost $15. I gave him $13 for his work. Never was money better spent.

Z and I got back to the apartment fearing stalling the car with the standard transmission would initiate our problems all over again. (Can you push-start a manual transmission diesel?) We picked up Ann and the luggage at the apartment, drove Z home and we were on our way to Vienna.

We stopped for lunch at a lake in the southern Czech Republic. It was Sunday afternoon and families were having their afternoon supper on the terrace overlooking the lake. The warm sun, the lake, the families with little children and the complete lack of English made this a delightful meal. We had Czech money to spend before entering Austria and ate soup, the most expensive entrée, wine, desert and espressos but could not spend over $24. This reminded us of 1971 when we were forced to buy Czech money at the border but paid for our stay with the family of Z’s friends in hard currency. Then, too, we had to spend like “Americans” although this time we could have exchanged the currency.

We arrived in Vienna at Josef’s apartments where we had stayed two years ago. I happened to make reservations for October not September by mistake. It had to do with using the American sequence of dating rather than the European – 10/09/2006 and 09/10/2006. Joseph had one apartment available anyhow for two of the three days so we were saved from my idiocy again! Well saved 2/3 of the way.

This evening is a quiet one – finally. I went to an internet café to reacquaint with my long-lost American friends. Still full from our enormous (for us) meal at the lake, we will sleep long and hard tonight. Oh and by the way, I had Goulash soup and pig’s knuckle for lunch this afternoon. Only in Eastern Europe does that sound the least interesting. No dinner needed tonight. Guten nacht.

Vienna sucks. As much as I hate to say this and as much as I have tried to like this city, Vienna sucks. It seems that each time I have been in Vienna I was in Prague just before. It is just not a fair comparison. Prague is so delightful and Vienna is so full of busy people running around madly. After a couple of palaces to be viewed, there is little to see. The cathedral is second class; there is no castle. It is just a city restored after WWII. Baroque, yes but after that what else is there to see?

The final straw for this anti Vienna tirade was the morning visit to the Belvedere and the Karl’s Kirche. Seemed like a nice morning. First the Kirche was in the process of restoration but there was an elevator up into the cupola which we could use. It cost $8 each to get into the church. When we entered this supposedly beautiful baroque church it looked like an erector set was set up inside. The elevator took us to the cupola and I went up another hundred feet on the scaffolding stairs to the very top to get the advertised fantastic panorama of the city. After reaching the top the view was through little portholes with no real view. Good cardio workout anyhow.

We left without being able to see the church itself or the panorama. I suppose we helped pay for the restoration with our $16 “donation”. Then we walked for unending blocks to get to the beautiful gardens of the Belvedere. The grand view between the palaces was what I had looked forward to seeing. It was completely torn up with chain link fences and large piles of dirt to prevent any views of this disaster. We got back to the hotel where I was looking forward to the free wireless internet I was promised. Well, apparently “free” means you have to sign up for a TMobile account and pay twice as much as at an internet café. Vienna really sucks.

For dinner we went to a Russian restaurant that we had seen advertised on the wall of a building near the hotel, Wladimir’s Restaurant. I was not really interested since, you know, Vienna sucks, but Ann picked a winner here. After we each ordered 0,4 cl of Stoly I warmed to the restaurant - literally. We were the only people there. The owner, Wladimir, took us through the menu which was written only in German and Russian with reluctance but Ann insisted. He warmed to us when he and Ann began discussing what the entrees were and how they were made. The meal was outstanding. After dinner he suggested a digestive wine which turned out to be the same Medevina wine made from honey (English: Mead wine) which we had tried in Podebrady. He asked if we were both teachers and even told us a joke he translated from Russian. Wladimir is from Byelorussia and had been in Austria for 16 years. After dinner he asked us about how he could better promote his restaurant and how we found him. Ann has taken this as her personal challenge, using the internet, to let the world know about Wladimir. The night became truly delightful.

Today we walked to Salzburg Castle and took the funicular up to the top. The day was beautiful and hot, the views were magnificent. It was a day for taking pictures. We spent the entire morning there seeing everything. We had our morning coffee on the ramparts of the castle looking out to the opposite side of the mountain from Salzburg. That made the $3 cappuccinos a bargain. Down in the city for a late lunch I had a beer and Ann had a Sacher Torte. We were both happy. After a cruise on the Salz River we stumbled back to our Hotel Mozart after 4 pm dead tired from the heat and humidity and fun.

I went to the store to get wine for me, Coke Light for her and chips for us. [You can take the boy out of America but you can’t take America out of the boy] I bought chili flavored corn chips. Now here is a lesson on European chili flavored corn chips. It is better to bring the Tostitos from home. But in a crunch, a chip is, in reality, a chip and good.

My cold is now descending upon me in earnest. My throat is sore and I am beginning to cough. This is much like the Plague in the Middle Ages (I won’t die, though). I was waiting to “get it”. I “got it”. In two days we will be in our apartment for four weeks and can take a vacation from our vacation from retirement.

For dinner Ann found one of the oldest continuously serving restaurants in Europe. It was originally a dining hall for the monks of the St. Peter’s Church and served travelers. The first meal was placed in front of a customer in 803.

Our bathroom is 6 feet square with a completely tiled floor and walls with one large window. There is a toilet and a sink. In the corner is a shower curtain around a flexible-hose shower head. The floor of the entire room is continuous with one drain in the middle if the floor. Now showering requires a fixed shower head so TWO hands can be used for soap and cleaning of ones body parts. With one hand on the shower head and one hand with soap there is no other hand to be found to use. I am one hand short. Plus, losing focus on the shower head in my hand while soaping (with my one other hand) the water shoots everywhere even beyond the curtain and the entire room is soaking wet. I then must dry off with a towel that makes a postage stamp look huge. By the time I finished showering I was exhausted and wanted to go back to bed.

After breakfast we went to the Saturday market behind the Cathedral two blocks away. Ann was in heaven. A larger open air market of fantastic fresh fruit, vegetables, meats, nuts and just about everything in season I had never seen. She did not miss her weekly trek to the Redmond Saturday Market back home. Ann had $20 worth of Slovenian SIT and after loading her bag with fresh stuff she was hard pressed to spend all of the money so we bought two sandwiches for $2.50 and that used all of our funny money. We filled up on groceries because we would not arrive at our apartment in Montepulciano until late Saturday and on Sunday everything is closed.

I was so sad to leave Ljubljana. We both agreed that this place is on the “come back list”.

We entered Italy to a new excitement that our vacation was now officially beginning. After a seven hour drive which included a dead stop of over an hour waiting for no apparent reason in a mass of lines to go through a toll plaza and several other complete turn off your engine stops on the autostrada for no apparent reason, we knew we were in Italy. The total toll on the autostrada was over $25. Yipes!

We did not know it at the time but our adventure for this day had not even peeked its head above the horizon as yet.

What I am to say now can never be repeated. I mean this. Ann and I managed to take stupid to another plateau that even I did not know existed. Now, Ann was only a minor player in this drama but she did contribute.

The rain on the road to Montepulciano was torrential at times. It made Florida downpours look like a Seattle mist. Italians parked on the side of the road to let the tropical depression pass. Not us but that was not the problem. Until we missed our turnoff to Montepulciano where our apartment is located due to not being able to see two car lengths ahead, we were looking good. After missing that turnoff our luck soured – dramatically.

Coming in from a different direction than I had ever used before, we got to the town and followed the map to our apartment. We could not find the roads since there really is no such thing as a street sign in the entire realm of Italy. We drove around lost. Then we drove back to the main gate and started over again. Still lost. Nothing was right. Ann called Giacomo, our landlord, and told him we were in Montepulciano. He said forget about the map and just drive straight through the old front gate of the city and enter the old center of town where cars are not allowed. If you are stopped just ignore anyone and continue up the hill to the apartment. We tried this twice never getting stopped but never finding the roads to the apartment. Ann and I were not happy campers at the moment and I think the word divorce may have been uttered at some point by one of us! Ann then suggested the impossible. I commend her for even daring to mention this aloud to me. I swear this is true (Remember the never tell part? OK? Then read on). She asked if this was the right town. Damn! Damn! This was not Montepulciano but another hill town, Chianciano.

We were only off by 8 kilometers! It was raining, you know, poor visibility and all. So we drove to the correct town, sheepishly. All Tuscan hill towns look alike to dumb Americans but I had been to our town TWICE previously.

I would like to say our fun was over for the (now) evening. But I cannot. We had the directions up the back way (legal way) to the apartment but decided to go the easy way, the illegal way, because Giacomo said we could. Montepulciano cannot be entered by car unless a resident with a permit or commercial deliveries. Noone else may drive in this pedestrian town. Well, we got about one block up the main street before a policeman in his car blocked the road and shook his finger at us. Ann tried to explain but he would have none of it and got out of his car and came toward us. Dear Ann masterfully confused him to the point of his saying in Italian something like, “Follow me you idiotic Americans”. He then led us in his police car to the front door of our apartment!

The landlord’s agent, Maurizio, met us in front of the apartment as we arrived. After many thanks to the officer he left. Ann said that the policeman was her new best friend. To which Maurizio, curtly said, “I don’t think so”.

All is well that ends well some famous writer once said. We are in the apartment (It’s perfect). Ann cooked her first meal (It was perfect). We are exhausted physically and mentally. It’s time for bed. We are here! Buono Notte.

For lunch in Montalcino Dear Ann wanted me to try a roasted pork sandwich which Italians get from the sausage/dried/cured meats shop. It sounded good to me. The meat was carved off the huge body of roasted pig with spices inside the roast. Now, what I got was a pork sandwich with nothing, I repeat, nothing, on it. Just pork and bread (good foccacia bread, I must admit). From what I understand the “skid grease” as my father called it, ie, butter, mayo etc. anything to help the bread and all go down properly was in this case the pork fat. There is a lot of “skid grease" here. Another word for pork fat is, you guessed it, lard, or lardo in Italian. After a couple of bites of this lardo sandwich with some porchetta (pork), I was done.

We went to the Super Mercado today. I would call this a Safeway. Just to make shopping for groceries a tad more interesting, the store closes at 1 pm and does not open again until 4 pm. When did we wish to shop? 2 pm. That was not a problem though since we could not find one. Anywhere. We knew they existed but even if we knew the street address it would not have helped. Remember the no street sign "rule" in Italy? After wandering in the car basically aimlessly we literally stumbled on one on the outskirts of Montepulciano. It was 4 pm. Lucky for us it took two hours to find one because now it was opening time. We shopped like our lives depended on it. We bought produce, bread, meat, wine, milk, hot red peppers for spicing stuff up and pasta. We were loaded and spent less than the previous night’s dinner. Ann commented on the low prices for food here. That made me happy since Euros were flying out of our hand like, um, dollars do.

I went to the internet café this evening before dinner; the only internet café in the entire town. I spent $2.40 for 20 minutes of time on my own computer. To make this robbery worse the café is at the bottom of the town by the main gate. We live up at the top of the hill (Read: Mountain) by the old fortress. I admit I am a wimp but this hill is a cardiac workout coming back and I prefer escalators.

Now let me vent about the apartment. In America we are guaranteed, in the constitution, the rights of life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, a dish washer, a garbage disposal and a dryer. Certain rights are not universal in Italy especially the last three.

Without a garbage disposal we are required to eat EVERYTHING on the plate so there is less to scrape into the garbage can so nothing goes down the drain (where the garbage disposal is supposed to reside). Yes, it is me who does the dishes and cleans the kitchen after Ann’s gourmet meals. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday I take the plastic draw string garbage bag down stairs and set it next front door where it is picked up at 8:00 magically.

About the dryer issue. Ann did several loads of washing the first day we arrived. Yes we have a washer. The laundry then needs to be hung to dry. Remember it rained the first two days we were here? It took three days of stooping through doorways and stepping around hanging light fixtures before some of the garments began to dry. Today, for the first time we can walk not like Neanderthals through our apartment. We have no outside line to hang the washing.

Vent over. I will survive though.

Ann and I went to the Chianti region town of Greve today to taste wine. In this delightful little town is an enoteca (wine tasting shop). This is not your ordinary wine shop, though. It serves over 100 different wines in a high tech fashion. Around five kiosks are 20 bottles of wine each. There is a card slot in each kiosk and one button for each of the twenty bottles of wine. You purchase the amount of money you want to spend tasting and the card is loaded. Each button dispenses a tasting of wine (about the same as in the US) with each taste costing between 45 cents (There is no “cents” key on a computer!) to $11 depending on the price of that particular bottle of wine. The $300 bottle of wine was the $11 tasting. No, I didn’t.

We also tasted olive oil from different producers and of different ages gratis out of the same type of kiosk. Here is a Tip from Bob: Wine tasting is so much more enjoyable than oil tasting.

We loaded $25 into the card and got loaded ourselves. We then had lunch in the main Piazza at an outdoor restaurant. Sober after a long lunch (with no wine to the horror of the waiter) we drove home.

Today we went to one of my favorite little hill towns, Montechiello. It is picture perfect: tiny with no cars on the six or seven streets all enclosed inside the walls of the city and immaculately cared for by the town residents. Each doorway is emblazoned with pots of red geraniums and other plants to create a miniature garden for each entry.

In this little picture of Tuscany idealized we read of an incident in the town in 1944. The Germans, fighting rebels in the area, were told by a local citizen, a Nazi sympathizer, that the resistance leaders were in the town. The Germans occupied the town and lined the entire populace against the front wall of the city for execution. Only the pleadings of the German wife of a farmer and the town priest saved the townsfolk from certain death. I could not walk past any of the residents over my age without thinking about it. The plaque memorializing the incident and small metal artwork at the spot at the wall is understated yet dramatic.

Tonight we went to dinner at a restaurant that was recommended to us by our neighbors. I had issues there unfortunately. We had reservation but after we were seated another couple (locals) wanted our table. As tourists we were dispatched to another table near the bar. That is ok but not cool. The menu was in unintelligible, hand written Italian script, making it nearly impossible to read. We know the words for food and we know the dishes but this menu made no sense. When the waitress came over to take our order we didn’t have a clue. She said she needed the menus for other tables so we must order now. We still had no clue what was on the menu. Ann asked her to tell us what was written. A more condescending, surly Italian woman I have never met (Ok, I have). She quickly went through the menu and stood there tapping her pen on her tablet waiting for us to order so she could give the menus to another table (Perhaps printing more menus would be beneficial?). I had had enough of the way she was treating Ann so I walked out with Ann following amid protests from the other “nice” waitress that we could order when we wished, no hurry. Too late.

We went to a nice mom and pop trattoria (Gino e Betti) down the street and had a wonderful meal much to our delight.

We spent four hours there and drove the 45 minutes back to the apartment. Today is Sunday so only some restaurants and tourist shops are open. The afternoon is deservedly spent recharging our body batteries for the attack of Tuscany week 2 beginning tomorrow.

This is the night Ann met Guiseppi at the Hotel Corys in Cortona. Our dinner reservations were at 7:30. Our one hour trip there took longer because one little town was having a festa so important that the streets of the town were closed so we had to alter our route (with no help from detour signs, of course). Same thing occurred in another town with some kind of motorcycle race going on. We did make it.

Guiseppi is all everything in the restaurant except chef (that duty falls to his wife who is the daughter of the manager of the hotel, Renate, whose wife is the grandmother of Guiseppi’s children and takes care of them while Guiseppi and his wife are at the restaurant). Is it a family business or Italian nepotism? Or is it that same thing?

Guiseppi remembered me. Ann talked food with him while he served us a wonderful two-and-a half-hour, four course meal of HIS choosing. Fresh porcini mushrooms were in season for the short season they have. Ann received a Porcini Seminar from him about these fungi complete with a porcini tasting menu for dinner. The dinner was a multi-table experience. The folks on one side of us in this tiny restaurant were from Houston and the ones on the other side from Montreal (French speaking, of course, but English, too). The main topic of conversation was about this jewel of a tiny restaurant and seven room hotel. I understood because I spent six days there 18 months ago and loved the experience: attention to detail, exceptional food, true care and concern by the staff and a smile from everyone that works there, always.

We all knew we had found a “home” in Italy and we would be treated as family when we returned in future times with hugs and smiles, and we all will return. The Montreal couple spent three days at the Hotel Corys their last time and are spending six days this time. Guiseppi runs the restaurant as one large family dinner even if we are each at separate tables ordering separate meals. He loves his restaurant, the food he serves, his knowledge of the dinner ingredients and his thorough understanding of Italian wines. He speaks Lebanese, Italian, French, English and passable German. Every person is his friend and wishes them the best meal he and his wife can produce.

After hugs and kisses from Guiseppi, we left. So lovely. So full of food. So far back home on dead dark, no moon, winding, narrow, very rural roads. Thank goodness we only had a half bottle of wine with dinner.

Since we had seen the town before, Ann’s desire was to visit the museums this time. We did. Now there are museums and there are museums. In this little town in Tuscany, the artifacts I saw were amazing. There was a 6 foot tall wooden sculpture of Jesus on the cross dated from the early 1200s. Now that is old! More interesting it was not behind anything. I can now say I touched a wooden religious artifact that is almost 900 years old. Ann was horrified but I did only touch the back at the bottom and no alarms went off. We wandered through this wonderful passage to the past – up close and personal.

Now, about my rant yesterday concerning Catholicism, today we visited the cathedral of San Gimignano. The church dated from the 1100s. This was a completely frescoed church interior. The right walls depicted 26 scenes from the Old Testament and the left walls showed the same number from the New Testament. This was not decoration. These frescos were the story of the Bible in picture form for the illiterate members of the church to “read”. I liked this cathedral. No excessive frills or display of gold, silver and jewels.

We drove for four hours today. The car now shows 3700 kilometers (2100 miles). We are half way through our adventure.

In the early evening I went out to get an English newspaper for my passaginata. In front of the apartment I met up with Maurizio and Natasha – who gave us the keys to the apartment when we arrived. We talked long and passionately (as Italians do) about every topic under the sun. I found out that Natasha was not from Italy (hence the name). Maurizio met her while he was on holiday in Kiev. After several trips there they married and she moved to Florence with him. They were married in Kiev in a civil ceremony then again in Italy in an Eastern Orthodox Church. Maurizio said that the Eastern Orthodox priest had no problems marrying him, a western Catholic, as long as he provided enough money! Interestingly, Natasha could speak no Italian when they met and Maurizio could speak no Russian. They conversed in English. Ah, apparently Italian is not the true language of love but English is. Then Giacomo came out and I got the story of how I booked the apartment with Giacomo but Maurizio was our “landlord”. These wonderful, delightful people provided the perfect passignata.

Today we went to Florence on public transportation and utilized it the entire day. We were as green as Kermit the Frog. The environment loved us. The things I noticed immediately: It took 30 minutes to get to the train station in the car going in a direction - not toward Florence. We parked over 500 meters away from the train station and were lucky to find a place to park at all. It cost $33 two person, round trip for the privilege of using the train. It took 1:40 on the train plus :30 to get to the station. That is 2:10 each way or 4:20 for a 2:30 trip in the car. But remember, the environment loved us.

We left at 7:15 am and got back to the apartment at 7:45 pm. In that time we saw two churches, had a nice lunch and visited the Piazzale Michalangelo – a park above the city with a fabulous view. THAT’S ALL FOLKS. But remember, the environment loved us.

Now for the bus to Piazzale Michalangelo: After being told the wrong bus number by Tourist Information, we adapted and got on the old #13 bus from the Santa Maria Novella Train Station. Although the sticker inside the bus said conditione totale, there was no air conditioning, total or otherwise. The day’s mid 80 degree temperatures cured several of the riders very nicely and the bus was full to the gills and aromatic. On the way back I also realized that if there is traffic the bus actually goes slower than the cars. But remember, the environment loved us.

On the train ride home let us just say “filled to the gills” did not apply here. Actually it is more like a South American bus where the locals ride in the bus, on the running boards, on the roof and every imaginable hand hold is utilized. This train was nice, smooth and quiet but people stood in the aisles and sat in every nook and cranny available. But remember, the environment loved us.

The day in Florence was lovely as Florence always is and the day was filled with a warm cloudless sky. The density of tourists was much reduced from the summer months. We entered two Churches, Santa Maria Novella and San Lorenzo. Both had entry fees with sections that we also wanted to see requiring another entrance fee at which we both balked.

Some day, many years from now, all of the important Medieval and Renaissance structures of Europe will have had their facades cleaned but now it is a question of which areas of each structure will be wrapped. Today in Florence it was the entire façade of Santa Maria Novella, the dome “nipple” of the Duomo, and the bell tower of Santa Croce. The cleaned areas do look amazing.

For lunch we ate at Trattoria Enzo e Piero, a wonderful family owned restaurant that we stumbled upon in 2004. The daughter/granddaughter waited on us again. The food was excellent sitting in the outside eating area. Ann and I finished off a liter of sparkling water and a half liter of vino rosso di casa. We didn’t have to drive home – and Italy loved us for that!

Almost four weeks of being on the go and away from home finally hit us as neither one of us wanted to get out of bed to make the espresso this morning. It was decided (After Ann made the espresso) that this day would be spent close to home. It was Saturday for heaven sakes.

When we finally did get out of bed we went to the town of Montepulciano Stazione for their version of a Saturday market. We did need fruits and vegetables. The market was ill attended at closing time when we got there. We got our fresh products and decided on a classy lunch.

We had heard about a restaurant in Nottela between the market town and our town. Nottela is not a town actually but one fattoria or farm that includes a restaurant and a retail outlet in the stone buildings near the road at a crossroads out in the country. If you did not know this restaurant existed you never would have seen it.

Nottela grows, produces and bottles their Nobile di Montepulciano wine. We are now in the season of the crush and Sangiovese grapes were being harvested for crushing and the beginning of fermentation. This is something Ann wanted to see when we knew we were going to be here in October. Wandering behind the restaurant waiting for it to open at 12:30 pm, I followed the smell of newly crushed wine grapes and timidly entered the cantina building. A cantina is the wine making building – not like a Mexican Cantina in Tijuana. As I poked my nose in I was welcomed by two workers motioning me to come on in. I did but knew I would be in huge trouble if I did not get Ann first. I rounded her up. She was watching the grapes coming in on little motorized carts with trailers. We were treated to a tour of the winery by workers who spoke only passable English. Wow, did they enjoy telling about their winemaking.

We walked across the gravel path to another stone building on the property and sat at the outdoor terrace to have lunch. We drank a half bottle of their own Vino Nobile di Multipulciano wine (Excellent), ate a great lunch and finished it off with vin santo with cantucci to dip for Ann and a Vino Nobile Grappa for me. We usually do not spend $70 for lunch but we thought of all of those poor folks who had to settle for lunch while slumming in the Napa Valley today instead of looking out over the Valdichiana sipping some of Italy’s finest wine. That did not help though. It was still a $70 lunch.

As if that was not enough excitement for a relaxing day we were treated to three local city bands marching from the bottom of the town up to the Piazza Grande on the little road past our apartment. Each would stop to rest and play a piece every so often. I believe it was because the journey up the hill is only made for mountain goats. It was like being at the Rose Parade (with no floats). OK, not really. We followed them to the piazza and listened to a “concert” which was to start at 6:00 pm. We listened to the three pieces of music that started promptly 40 minutes late. Ah, Italy.

To do something different we drove into the heart of Umbria. Above a bend in the Tiber River (Which eventually flows through Rome and into the Mediterranean) lies the little town of Todi. This was our target for today – 75 minutes from here. The town was like all medieval hill towns but in the softer, greener Umbrian landscape. This was my kind of town. At the parking lot below the town we took a funicular to the top level of the city. The four hours of parking included the funicular and set us back $2.50. Downtown Seattle should look carefully at this rather than the $4 an hour to park in the city center. In Bellevue it’s FREE. The Todi method actually encourages shopping and creates a thriving economy.

The lunch was the high point of the visit. We ate at the wine bar restaurant, Pane e Vino. For some unknown reason we both wanted the antipasto plate. Now in America an antipasto plate has pepperocini, olives (black and green), Gallo salami, cheese slices and a pickled red cherry pepper. Not so here. First off, the cost of this appetizer was $15. We split it (Una per due as we say in Italian) and we each had a small salad. The ubiquitous wine this day was a Rosso di Montefalco. Superb.

The platter came in three stages.

First the cold meats: Smoked duck breast carpaccio on arugula, salami of duck, deer and wild boar, and other various game sausages and salamis. Second the warm platter: Crostoni of lardo (For Ann), crostoni of Roquefort cheese and honey (absolutely outstanding), fried pancetta sliced like thick bacon and drizzled with old, very thick and sweet balsamic vinegar, and warm Savoy cabbage rolled around melted Roquefort cheese. The third platter had well aged crumbly pecorino cheese with a fruit jam condiment. My salad mix was arugula, celery and mushrooms (Large sliced mushrooms) dressed with the olive oil and balsamic vinegar on the table.

These were taste combinations that I had never encountered before. Every dish was prepared perfectly. I am thrilled when something new comes my way.

Last night I knew the wind howled all night because I was awake. As a result I slept very late and we did not get onto the road until 11:30. We headed to the monastery Sant’Antimo to hear the monks chant their prayers at 12:45. This was ingrained in our heads today. Ann drove due to my delicate condition.

I must say that it was interesting watching the 10 monks chanting and singing their prayers. The church was full of tourists and when the monks arose the “congregation” arose. Fortunately I could hardly move at that point due to the back pain and deferred all further standing to Ann. Once more was it for her and she was done. Up and down. Up and down. I felt no need for standing since I am a protestant and this was a Catholic Church. Aren’t there certain protections and dispensations from offending God in a “foreign” church? Wow, I sure hope so.

Lunch was at a roadside osteria somewhere between where we had been and where we were going. That is as close as I can figure since Ann was driving. It was fabulous. It was very rustic with a stone barbecue out in front where the meat was grilled. Ann had carne ala brache (Grilled meat) and I had salsiccia e fagiole (Grilled sausages and beans. Yea, I know, franks and bean – really unique). A half liter of the wine of the house when in the Brunello wine producing district meant the $3.30 was WELL spent.

Things got interesting after lunch. Le Foce is an estate with wonderful gardens 8 km from Montepulciano. On Wednesdays from 3:00 until 5:30 it is open to the public. We paid our $12.50 each (ouch) to get in and waited in the courtyard for the guided tour to begin. Oh, did I say that thunderstorms were forecast for today? I didn’t, did I?

The first drops hit as we began our tour. Then the heavens opened up to what seemed like the beginning of a flood of Biblical proportions that lasted exactly until the tour ended an hour later. Did the two idiots from Seattle have their raincoats? No. Did the two idiots from Seattle bring the apartment umbrella with them? No. Did the two idiots from Seattle get soaked from head to toe? Yep.

Ann had only a denim jacket and no hat. By the end of the visit to the gardens she looked like an orphan left out in the rain all day – clothes drenched hair a matted mess but still that happy smile on her face. I had a water resistant windbreaker and a hat but that too was sopping wet.

I believe yesterday I mentioned the lack of sharp critical thinking.

We are now dry and my back is fine. Ah, another perfect day…

No, really I did. Hey, I am on vacation and I do brush.

We went to Gubbio today. Built on the side of a mountain, this Etruscan, Roman and now Italian city is not the easiest to traverse down to up. This is Ann’s kind of town, though. From the lower parking area there is an ELEVATOR up to the Piazza Grande. AND there is an elevator from that piazza up to the cathedral at the very top of the city. This is a total of around the height of a 30 story building. Dear Ann was so impressed with this free mode of transportation she also rode it DOWN! That, my friends, is the definition of lazy. Her rebuttal: The elevator is there to be used and if it goes up it must go down again before it goes up so SHE might as well be in it. That is logic in its purest form. Bravo.

In Gubbio we stopped into a ceramic shop in the center of the old town. There we met Signor Piergentilie Marino, the owner and artist. He is probably in his early 70s. His shop is literally under the Piazza Grande in a room with a 30’ high vaulted ceiling built in the late 1200’s. He has owned the store since 1963. Ann saw a piece of ceramic she really liked but wanted it a little different. “Si, no problema”, said Signor Marino. He spoke not a word of English. Everything he said and had told us about his shop was in Italian. Ann was able to understand and tell him how she wished the artwork and color on the piece of ceramic altered. He would make a piece within the week and send it to us by UPS. [The package arrived about four weeks later in perfect conditon. The commissioned piece was made as Ann wished it.] Perhaps listening to all of those CDs Laurel gave us of Italian Language instruction paid off. We spent many hours listening to Italian this summer driving to and from Portland to see the brand new little Eloise.

Giorgio Harold Stuart, our landlord Giacomo’s father, of Scots heritage, wrote a book about the house where we are living. It is haunted, haunted by the ghost of Nicola Cerbara, born in 1796 and died in this house June 18, 1869. He lived in Rome but after Garibaldi began unification of Italy in the 1860s Nicola backed the wrong side. That side being Pope Gregory XVI and the Vatican, and needed to exit Rome fast as did the Pope. Moving to Montepulciano for safety, Nicola resided here and is still present, in spirit, in our apartment. I don’t believe it but I am watching for unexplained noises, you know things that go bump in the night as James Thurber penned, or the sounds of dragged chains or unexplained crashes or bone chilling gusts of wind on a calm, warm day. As I said I don’t believe all of this at all. (But if he wants to be here and we are in the way, hey, we are only renting and will be out this week, OK, Nicola?)

Sundays are difficult days while on vacation. Unless you are at Disneyland, most shops are closed leaving the cities appearing like ghost towns of the Wild West – especially if there are no tourists around. Today we decided to take a Sunday drive. We ventured west into an area of little tourist interest and few towns. One of the isolated places we wished to hit was San Galgano Monastery. It is in partial ruin with no roof and non functional but lonely, beautiful and serene. It is also far enough off the main tourist track to make it interesting to us. After driving on very winding narrow mountainous roads we needed gas desperately before getting to the monastery 4 km down the road. Up pops a huge, modern Shell gas station along this two lane rural road so we stopped in to get some diesel. The young lady pumping gas with baseball cap on backwards and dark glasses recognized us as Americans immediately asked in a natural East Coast accent where we are from in America. The two cars traveling together just leaving as we arrived were from her home town of Wallingford, Connecticut. They had never met before. Here we were seemingly miles from the nearest American and one pumps our gas and eight are getting gas. That makes eleven Americans total on a lonely road in the hills of Western Tuscany in October. What are the odds?

San Galgano was isolated but not unknown to tourists like we thought it would be. There were many tourists mainly of the Sunday drive Italian kind. Nothing like the summer months, though. We saw the parking lots for the full house times. Only a few English talkers were evident. The weather was amazing. This is the first “feel” of October where the sun is shining brightly but the temperatures are cooler, in the 70s, and the breezes give just a hint of the cold to come.

The streets were, of course, Medieval narrow but complicated by the immense amount of reconstruction going on with seemingly every building in the historic center. This created three problems for Ann on these one way streets. First, the streets were narrower than usual with the scaffolding. Second, the important signs were behind these reconstruction projects with covered facades for the workers. And third, what little parking was available was made littler by the reconstruction. I might add that the town was teeming with people and not tourists. Poor Ann drove up the winding streets wondering if the car would get stuck between buildings and then finding no parking wound down the narrow streets to also finding no parking places. When we reached the portal out of the old town walls we looked at each other and said that we had “done” Spoleto and we moved on.

This took us to the tiny town of Trevi, perched precariously (Well maybe not precarious since it has been around since Etruscan times) on the side of a mountain. Trevi, I believe, was closed today. The museums were closed, most restaurants were closed and it being 1:00 pm everything else was closed for lunch. Fortunately the restaurant on the main piazza (a tiny piazza) was open and we had lunch. We both had antipasto only. Ann had stuffed black celery. Black celery is a delicacy of Trevi and is only available in October. It is very dark green with a stronger celery flavor. A long rib of the celery including part of the heart is stuffed with a bread crumb and an herb mixture and heated with a red meat sauce. Ann thought it was very interesting and tasted delicious. I liked it too. I had warm scamorza (smoked mozzarella) with thin slices of prosciutto. Having specific regional Umbrian food was the best part. Even if it was Italian food…

We then came home, exhausted from doing very little. Travel fatigue is beginning to overcome us, I fear.

On the bright side, we are now seeing first the signs of fall. The leaves are beginning to turn and the green view out the windows is tinged with yellow in the trees and grapevines. The sage color of the olive trees mixed with the turning leaves makes for a tapestry of colors on the hillsides. Warm, sunny, 75 degree days continue but the lows have dipped into the low 50s.

We left our apartment at noon and arrived at the ferry port of Ancona at 3:30 pm driving across the Italian peninsula to the east coast. The ferry was to depart at 9:00 pm but we had to be in line by 7:00 pm. We changed our vouchers into tickets at the ticket office after waiting for the ol’ siesta hours to end (4:00 pm) and killed three hours in Ancona. We were back in line before 7:00 pm as we were told.

Loading was a true Italian affair. Huge trucks needed to be loaded first before the cars. After a truck was loaded there was a delay of up to 15 minutes before another one moved on the ship. Each truck loaded required untold minutes of conversation as to where it was to go and whether it was to be driven on frontward or backward. Then there was break time for the dock men to smoke a cigarette or two when everything came to a total halt.

When all the trucks were loaded there appeared to be no room for all of the cars. Amazingly all trucks and all cars fit with no breathing room between (front, rear, left or right) and what seemed like a pipe dream fifteen minutes earlier– sailing on time – occurred only 10 minutes late. I think of the ferries in Seattle and in Canada and how fast they are loaded without any discussion or delay for any truck. But that is North America not Italy. We waited in line for two hours for this once-a-day ferry and we were loaded 2 minutes before departure time.

Our cabin, certainly as Ann says not a stateroom, is functional. That is the nicest compliment I can give it. The ship is the Split 1700. I think the 1700 refers to the year it was built.

We had dinner on the ship and asked another couple to join us since the restaurant was full and we were at a table for four. The couple were Italians from Torino, yes the Olympics town and no, they did not go to any events. He owns two bearing and ring factories which supply aircraft, train, car and spacecraft parts to engine manufacturers. They had recently bought a hotel on the Island of Vis in Croatia. There they are supplementing the grapevines on the property to compliment the vines already present so they can produce and sell their wine with first bottling for sale expected in 2007.

Off we went to sleep in the bunk beds of our “stateroom”.

Two gigantimongous cruise ships were parked in the water outside the harbor and were disgorging passengers at an alarming rate with seven shuttle boats running continuously. Since each of these ships holds the inhabitants of a small city we were about to be out touristed by the tourists. Yep, when we got to the town it was packed like a sardine can since the walled part of Dubrovnik is so tiny. To add to this insanity Saturday is market day in Dubrovnik. Since there is no reason for a tourist to go outside the walls, EVERYONE was within the walls of the old town.

We walked through the entire old town and at lunchtime bought two sandwiches, two Coke Lights and a small bag of chips to go. We realized that the view from our terrace beats any restaurant so why not eat at the apartment. We ate on our terrace and had a fantastic lunch.

We played hooky from tourist-ing in the afternoon. At 5:00 pm we could see that the shuttles to the cruise ships stopped. The Huge ships departed past the old city one at a time and off toward the north to Venice, most likely. By traveling at night they will miss the true beauty of the Dalmatian Coast: the islands, the sheer escarpment of the mountains rising straight up into the sky and, I might add, the winding coast road! The ships left by 6:00 pm and were only a memory beyond the horizon by 6:45 when we left to go back down to the town.

The old town was almost deserted by contrast when we arrived. We walked through town looking at each restaurant menu until I believe we had seen every one and decided on the first restaurant we had seen (of course). The meal was quite good under an umbrella outside complete with “entertainment”. This entertainment was in the form of a chamber group and choir giving a concert on the main walking street in front of us on the steps of the church. Eating al fresco in Dubrovnik at a delightful restaurant and listening to the music amid century’s old (but restored) buildings, palm trees and cobbled streets made me realize that the advertising slogan for Croatia was not mere huckstering but true: “The Mediterranean as it once was”.

With a gelato for desert on the street we came home and felt another fine day had been put to bed.

Since the day was again beautiful with blue skies and warm temperatures, the drive north along the coast was picturesque. Ann drove so I could take in the scenery this time. We traveled north from Dubrovnik to Split the opposite of three days ago. We arrived in Split at the port, around noon, parked the car at the ferry terminal and went to Diocletian’s Palace. Built in the 300s (No, not the 1300s), by the Roman Emperor, Diocletian, much still remains of the 8 square block residence in the center of town facing the main harbor. It is the heart of the old town now as a city was built within the walls after the palace became derelict in the 700s. Emigrants from the Turk wars during that time built a city upon the foundations of the old abandoned palace.

Interesting.

We boarded the ferry at 8 pm. Now let me back track and recap the ferry adventure both ways. We found out there is an Italian way to do things and a Croatian way. It may come as a surprise there is no contest in efficiency. Italy loses hands down. Getting on the ferry (boarding) and getting off (disembarking) on Italian soil took over three hours. The same procedures on Croatian soil took 30 minutes. Most mysteriously it was the same crew all four times on this round trip. I just don’t get it.

We ate dinner at a sidewalk restaurant in front of the palace overlooking the harbor rather than eating dinner on the ferry. I like Croatia. They don’t look funny at you if you need to eat at 6 pm rather than the normal Italian 8 pm as we did before boarding. The meal was excellent. We had a shared starter of spaghetti with fresh shrimp; I then had veal Cordon Bleu and a beet salad. Ann had Filet Mignon with mushrooms with cold red pepper garnish puree. Now FRESH shrimp are magnificent. Not the flash frozen Thai shrimp but “pull out of the water and eat the next day” shrimp. They have such a different sweet flavor and texture here.

Off to bed on the upper bunk again somewhat worried about Ann since the winds have kicked up greatly this evening and this does not bode well for the crossing.

I consider myself an avid map reader. When we are on vacation anywhere I know exactly where I am in the big picture. As we arrived at the Mont Blanc tunnel (A seven mile trip under the mountain) I was stunned to realize that on the other side of the tunnel was France. I did not even realize we were going to France. How embarrassing. I made the itinerary!

In France we ate lunch at a little chalet/restaurant/hotel in the ski area of Mont Blanc with truly nothing around but the magnificent Alps. Since the summer was over and skiing hadn’t started the place was deserted. We had fondue with the usual cubed bread but also a platter of smoked ham, salami and potatoes accompanied it - different. Only problem turned out to be money. We had used nearly all of our money in euros to pay the room last night figuring we didn’t need euros any longer. Switzerland uses Swiss Francs. Oops, the restaurant is in France and only uses euros and does not take credit cards. There were no banks or ATMs anywhere nearby for a credit card money transfer. Fortunately the hotel part takes visa so we could pay.

Our other issues today centered around money also. We paid $35 to go through the Mont Blanc tunnel (outrageous) and another $30 to drive on the Swiss highway (autobahn) for 4 miles after the border crossing to the airport (outrageous). It is impossible to cross into Switzerland on this highway without purchasing their vignette or road tax decal that is put on the window unless you turn around re-enter France and then re-enter Switzerland a second time on a surface road – wherever that is. We coughed up the money. I think we were held up by legal Swiss highwaymen (without masks).

Getting to the hotel we dropped off the luggage and cleaned out the car. From there we took the car to the Geneva Airport to drop it off. Now airports can be interesting to understand the first time there but Geneva’s Cointrin Airport adds another special fun thing. It is located in two countries, France and Switzerland. There is a Swiss side and a French side – and never the twain shall meet. Why two countries, you ask? I have no idea. But it is there and must be dealt with. We were in our Swiss hotel at present and had to drop the car off on the French side of the airport. We found where we were to be after going through passport control again. Getting to the airport shuttle to the hotel required traversing the border again on foot with passport control. Today we were in Italy, France, Switzerland, France and Switzerland but if we had not paid for the vignette we would have been in Italy, France, Switzerland, France, Switzerland, France and Switzerland! Our passports got a workout and so did we.

The hotel is located at the airport. Unfortunately there is no dinner restaurant there. We walked to the fancy Movenpick Hotel a couple of blocks away for food. The cheapest thing on the menu was a club sandwich for $22 each. SO, we instead had a pizza in our room interestingly from a place down the street we called on the hotel’s house phone at the front desk. There were several restaurants from which to choose and a button on the phone for each. Fortunately they took a credit card after much debating which Ann won, thank goodness.