Towards Tuscany

Today we picked up a hire car (Fiat Cromo) in La Spezia to drive into the heart of Tuscany. Well, wasn’t that an experience. Dad braved the right side of the road, complete with complicated motorway toll systems, and Italian drivers who consider red lights and pedestrian crossings to be points of discussion (“maybe I’ll stop…convince me you really need me to”) but eventually we safely arrived in Greve-in-Chianti, in the centre of Tuscany, not far from Siena. But not without a little drama, of course. Wouldn’t be a Browne family outing without it.

Our GPS stopped functioning after a petrol station stop. We had no maps, and only a general idea of the direction we needed to head in. Our GPS was our security blanket, and the battery was dead and it wasn’t drawing power from the cigarette lighter in the car. After a few moments of wishing Fil or EnWiki were with us, I realised there was another solution. Never fear, I travel with my laptop! So we connected the GPS to my laptop to power it that way. Both my parents had been on my back about travelling with my laptop… “you don’t need it, it’s unnecessary weight, you and your mod-cons, leave it behind!” had been the exclamations up until this point. All of a sudden their attitude changed…”I’m SO glad you have your computer! What would we do without it? You know it was really very smart to bring your laptop”. It navigated us to a road that was closed because the bridge over the river had been pulled down. Well done GPS! Anyway, we drove around a bit until it picked up an alternative route, but this was the cause of some anxiety, as we had a strictly calculated time-frame within which we had to arrive at our destination, based on how long my laptop battery would last. We made it with 7 minutes to spare.

We are staying in a farmhouse on a family vineyard (now in the hands of the third generation, and our host Elena is a delight) that overlooks the small town of Greve-in-Chianti. The town has a pretty piazza, a few trattoria, and lots of smallgoods stores, all within walking distance. This afternoon we wandered round the farm and the town, and brought back to the house some local salami, cheese and bread for dinner, and enjoyed it with some sangiovese wine produced here on the farm. We watched the sun go down over the town and the Tuscan hills. Stunning. I couldn’t believe I was really here. In a moment of solitude with bread in one hand and red wine in the other, I had my own private moment of communion and prayer, remembering Jesus’ sacrifice for everyone, even the people of this town, so far from anything I know.

Being in this secluded town, sprawling countryside, and surrounded by liberal but nationalistic Italians has really made me feel very far from home this evening. So far from anything familiar, with the exception of the company of my parents, which is perfectly pleasant, but I’m starting to miss friends. Hello friends.

To comfort myself with some familiarity, I picked up an international version of the New York Times (the Herald Tribune) to read about the news…which I hadn’t seen in over a week. I read about Obama’s VP choice (interesting…), the Beijing closing ceremony, and the youth of Britain getting themselves a bad rep in holiday destinations in Spain. After some time on my own buried in the news I felt much better, and have come back to the farmhouse to browse Italian TV…an Western from the States dubbed in Italian, some Olympic highlight re-runs, and something that looks like Italian Idol…maybe X-Factor (Nicola’s favourite!). Sounds much like Eurovision to me!
To finish, some good news from home…the Beavans have JCC’s room ready, but JCC is hanging in there, determined not to come into the outside world until I return. Hold on tight JCC, I’ll be home in a few weeks!