I’M DRIVING IN ITALY!!

What an amazing day!! Our motto for this trip is: “MAKE TODAY SO AMAZING, YESTERDAY IS JEALOUS!” Cathy saw this on a mom wearing a t-shirt with this saying on our first day in Italy in Milan. She keeps repeating it each day as they keep getting better!

I was a bit nervous about renting a car and driving here in Italy. The last time I rented a car on a trip was in 1997 when I visited Doug living in Dublin. Cara and I drove all over Ireland, with me driving on the left side. Also I haven’t driven a stick shift in 20 years! It’s like riding a bicycle; came right back!! I do miss it! I tried to find a Honda with a stick when I bought mine in 2005 but no luck! This is a wonderful and so freeing way to see Tuscany! You just can't reach easily these hillside towns without a car. So we all agreed it was a good choice!

Our hostess Elisabetta had ordered a taxi to pick us up at 8:30 a.m. to drive us to Hertz. We were packed and outside by 8:15! We’re getting this travel thing down!! Unfortunately, there was a lot of rush hour traffic. At first our driver took us down TINY streets with NO cars! to avoid traffic! But then crossed to the other side of the bridge and we got stuck for a bit. I think he did his best to avoid the traffic but the timing wasn’t great. 

However, we were first in line at Hertz so our guy was able to spend time powering up a GPS for us to add on. We were able, with the use of 1/2 of the back seat to get our 3 suitcases and 3 backpacks in. We had to call our guy back out as I couldn’t figure out the reverse to get out of the parking spot! Good start, huh? I used to push DOWN to get there; now you pull up! I drove about 3 times around the parking lot to get the hang of it before venturing out into traffic. Cathy was a great navigator with Angie in charge of the GPS (I don’t use one!!) from over my shoulder. 

Once out of town we were on the no-pay Autostrada heading to San Gimignano, a hill town on the way to Volterra, our destination for the night! Easy Peasy!! I stayed in the right lane mostly (later got brave and passed a few!) until we saw the turnoff sign. 

Countryside driving along outside Florence

San Gimignano in the distance with 14 towers

Hilly Tuscany

Wine press

This was a hill town, very popular for day trips from Florence, with 14 Medieval towers (there used to be 72!!). It’s high on a hill on the site of an Etruscan (pre-Roman) settlement dating from 3rd and 2nd century BC. Hence, the name of Tuscany for this region. It was in the 7th and 8th centuries on the Via Francigena, the pilgrimage road from England to Rome! It once had an alliance with Volterra but soon fell into decline. Now it is a top tourist hilltop site! Very touristy and filled with tourists but still fun!We aren’t allowed to drive in these towns so parked outside the city walls and walked up and took an elevator part way. First order of business was an ATM and bathroom. With those accomplished and feeling flush again, we stopped for Angie’s cappuccino and some bruschetta for me! Then we wandered to see the view. We stopped to admire some paintings of an artist on the street. Turns out she was from New Zealand, had lived here for 27 years. She directed us to an overlook where we found a UNESCO winery site and I sampled some local Chianti while taking in the great views!

My bruschetta snack!

Cathy and Angie goofing off!

Sampling Chianti

Then we headed to the one tower you can climb. Angie and I did the 219 steps (the last few were a metal ladder where you had to duck! But we made it, for some spectacular views! Climbing down was easy! We’re averaging about 15,000 steps a day!! Today because of driving we didn’t quite make that. 

Angie climbing the tower

Piazza view from top of tower

Amazing view!

We headed off down a windy lovely drive for another 1/2 hour to Voleterra. Curio, our airbnb host here had registered our license plate with the local police so they wouldn’t give us a ticket when we drove in to his street to unload the car. Our Italy driving rules say not to leave visible things in the car (we were going to take only backpacks for the night) so we unloaded in front of his apartment. He came out, was very charming, and said we could park for 10 minutes while we took everything up. We have a lovely two rooms on the 3rd floor (MORE steps!) with a tiny kitchen and bath. 

Curio went with me then to find the outside-the-walls parking area and walk UPHILL back to the apartment. We wandered around town (we have a 3 hour tour, recommended by Rick (Rick Steves, my travel guru!) named Annie for 10 tomorrow. We only check out a couple of restaurant for later, had my daily gelato and headed back for a bit of a rest (Susan was REALLY tired as I had been awake since 5:30 a.m. and couldn’t go back to sleep). So at 6:30 we went to Curio’s recommended Trattoria and had a wonderful veal dinner (for me), gluten-free spaghetti for Angie and lasagna for Cathy! Today will be jealous of tomorrow!! We’re only one night here - then on to Siena after the tour.