We Travel Not to Escape Life, But For Life Not to Escape Us

            There are certain people in your life who challenge you: to be smarter, to be stronger, to be better. To think differently and to laugh more loudly and to feel more alive.  These are the people you should aspire to meet on your travels, but they are also the people you should aspire to travel with.  This week, I was lucky enough to have one of my best friends, Ashley, visit me in Florence.  For me, she is precisely one of these people.

            The first night she got here, we went out to dinner so I could show her a true Italian meal.  We caught up for over two hours over my first Italian lasagne (delicious because it came out of the oven still boiling), and then got drinks at Colle Bereto, a bar I’d visited on my first night.  We went to bed early because the next day we were getting up early for a Chianti wine tour… in Tuscany at a family-owned wine vineyard… on FIAT 500s.

           

In November, Florence experiences tourist off-season.  I have found this time to be my favorite.  Had I done this tour another time, it would have been hectic and chaotic and stressful.  As it was, Ashley and I arrived at the train station at 8:45 Sunday morning to find that we were the only two people on our tour, accompanied by one older Italian man, Ducco.  We’d requested a FIAT for just the two of us, so we could enjoy the rolling Tuscan hills and the fall colors in our own solitude.  This was before we found out the car was not automatic.

            Neither Ashley nor I have ever driven stick.  However, our guide seemed (perhaps unrightfully) confident that we could do it easily.  We drove out to Siena where we were introduced to our FIAT – a little rustic orange car that was at least 30 years old with an old suitcase strapped to it’s trunk.  Not only was it clown-size tiny, but it was beautifully antique and old-fashioned, with an old-fashioned radio and speed meter and roll down windows and black leather seats.

            Ashley nominated herself to attempt to drive first.  I was glad to take backseat.  Turning the key, she put the stick into reverse and we lurched to a stop.  Driving a stick is a careful balance, but the trick is figuring out that you don’t need to quickly take your foot off the clutch as you press down on the gas – you just need to do it, as slowly as you want.  This took a while for me to understand.

            After a few more faulty starts, we slowly drove out onto the road.  I hadn’t realized until a couple minutes later that the man believed this was our test-drive… driving on the open road in direction of our next destination, leaning a little more to the right when a tiny Italian car came whizzing at us in the opposite direction, slowing down when we picked up speed going downhill and clutching the seat because we expected to fly off the side.

            Somehow, miraculously, the man was right.  We figured it out.  We talked casually as we drove, and from the back I was able to marvel at the beauty of an Italian countryside in autumn: the reds and yellows of the trees look different here, like they’re from a different time period.  They match the yellows and the greens of the wide-open fields, fields that are so squared-off and organized that from a distance the countryside looks like a checkerboard.  As Ducco said later, as we looked out at the great expanse before us, “it’s just so geometric and coordinated, isn’t it?”

  We arrived at our first destination, a small town outside Siena where some who live in Florence now use as a second-house vacation spot when living in the city becomes too overwhelming.  During medieval times, when Florence and Siena were rivals and fighting for more Tuscan land, Siena built this fortress on a hill; when Florentine soldiers were arriving, they would see them from the tower and let out a smoke-signal to alert Siena of the intruders.  Now, it’s just a beautiful and quaint town to walk around.  Some even walk long pilgrimages, from Barcelona to Siena, for example, and stop in this town to rest and get food.  This pilgrimage used to be a necessity for travellers; now, some who are battling cancer walk the path to show they can overcome any obstacle. 

            He gave us 20 minutes at this spot, so it wasn’t much time to do anything.  We walked into a few small shops.  Ashley bought a leather-bound journal; I bought a 50-cent bookmark.  Then we climbed to the top of the fortress tower and took these pictures:

         After, he took us to another town on top of a hill – it was pretty inconsequential.  Most of the shops were closed because it was a Sunday, so we just got gelato (Ashley’s first!) and walked around for our 20-minute stop.

            Finally, we pulled up in our little FIAT to a family’s wine vineyard.  We walked in between the rows of grapes to the top of a hill where a cabin-esque brick building was located.  We were greeted by a 45-year-old man who escorted us away from our guide and into the rooms with the large barrels of wine. 

            There wasn’t much I learned during our information session that I didn’t already know about making wine, but it was great to see someone’s small and humble family-owned vineyard.  He then brought us to a small table upstairs in the middle of an entirely empty restaurant.  It was set with wine glasses and a white tablecloth and a breadbasket in the middle, ready for us.  He told us we were lucky: “during busy tourist season, this place is so busy.  Up to 4,000 people visit us.  Now, in November-December, it’s basically empty… so this is the best time to come.”  

Clearly, he was right.  They were great hosts.  They gave us pieces of bread with toppings like oil and salt, sundried tomatoes, and anchovies.  I loved it.  Then they gave us our “first” course (in America, it would be our main course), of ziti pasta, tomato sauce, and cheese.  Of course it was delicious.  I haven’t had this experience so far in Italy, but following our pasta we were served the most delicious plate of different types of cheese and different choices of dip: a sweet and thick honey, a balsamic vinegar that was 20-years-old and so sweet, or a red jam.  This was my favorite part of the meal:  

Accompanying our food, of course, were various wines.  We were given 6 different wines throughout our meal – two white (except one I don’t know if you can call white… grappa, which was really more like rum), and 4 red.  I am not a red wine fan, but I enjoyed tasting the different types of wine, especially since some of them were older and we could taste the difference between younger (lighter, sweeter) and older wine (bitter, stronger).  Ashley, a wine connoisseur, loved them all.  We dipped biscotti in grappa, and although grappa was (in my opinion) disgusting, it wasn’t as bad with the biscotti.   

            
The more we drank the friendlier we became.  Soon we were asking this older man, the 45-year-old who’d shown us the wine cellar, about his life story.  He was very interesting.  He’d lived in Italy his entire life, but had lived in different regions.  He’d lived for 10 years in Florence, and when I asked him if he liked it in the countryside or in Florence better, he said Florence.  He’d planned on staying in Florence but then his mother got sick, so he’d returned to Siena and the countryside to take care of her.  “Siena, it’s nice… but it is so boring at night!” He’d said.  Then, leaning a little closer to our table, he said, “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but my twin brother, he lives right over here…” He walked to a picture on the wall and pointed to a spot over the hill from where we were.  Then, returning, he said, “my brother and I are trying to start our own wine vineyard.  He has some great wine.  If you and your friends ever want to return and try, please email or call me, I will give you my number.”  

Of course, there’s a chance that this was a dangerous proposition – why does he want to introduce two 20-somethings to his brother’s wine vineyard with the offer of free wine and a free ride from Florence?  But there’s the alternative choice, that I choose to believe because I hate to imagine the worst: perhaps this is just how Italian’s are.  Perhaps we’ve grown up in a culture and in a generation that rightfully feels a duty to warn us of all the dangers in the world, but perhaps all the warnings and brochures and safety precautions have taken away the simple joy of talking to new people and discovering new things simply because it is enjoyable.  Perhaps Italians are like this – inclined to offer more than what is necessary, always wanting to share what they love with others, to share pieces of their passions with anyone who is interested.  (Later, on the drive home, Ducco even said, “come by my shop in Florence, I will let you ride a motorbike.” In America, an older man offering such a thing would be ridiculous, and people have taken cues and stopped making such offers because we think of it as dangerous and even creepy.  But in Florence, they do it with the (presumably) humble impression that this is just a kind gesture.)

            Anyways, then we asked our wine-friend what his favorite dessert was.  He said that he loved vanilla ice cream with balsamic vinegar.  Then, watching us for a moment, he said, “I’ll be right back.”  He returned with two small bowls of ice cream drizzled in balsamic vinegar.  Placing them on the table, he said, “This isn’t part of your tour.  I have never in 5 years offered this, but you ladies just seem so… so kind and fun and… you are simple yet educated.”  He was searching for words in a language that wasn’t natively his, so his statement was awkward, but we were so grateful and the ice cream was delicious.  

As we ate, Ashley remarked: “isn’t it interesting, how sometimes when someone is trying to come up with a word in their second language that matches what they want to say in their first, they end up saying something more true?”  I knew what she meant – at first, we’d both laughed when he’d said “simple” because we know the word to be slightly offensive – simple like basic, like ordinary (exactly terms us American’s strive to rebel against).  But really, simple is just the opposite of complicated.  And it’s true, in that sense, that we are simple.  We are in our 20’s, our greatest worries are our classes, and we are given the chance to travel and spend Sunday’s in wine vineyards.  So, he was precisely right – in his pursuit to find the right words, he found more interesting ones.  We are simple yet educated.

         After, we climbed back into the FIAT (never getting a proper goodbye from our new friend, who we probably won’t visit).  We drove further up the mountain, further away from any semblance of society.  Land stretched out before us forever.  On our drive, we passed this sign:    

    

 Ducco told us an interesting story.  He said that in the 1800’s, Florence and Siena wanted to end their rivalry.  They’d realized that they were “too modern” and “too civilized” for such barbaric fighting, something that belonged in the past.  So, they agreed to this: one man on horseback would leave at the crack of dawn from each city, and the horse would run along a road until it reached the other horse; and that would be how the land was divided.  Of course, at this time, they didn’t have timers.  So, they agreed to tell the time by roosters: when the first rooster sang at dawn, the horse would run.  Florence, being conniving and apparently untrustworthy, came up with a plan.  They didn’t feed their rooster the night before this was to take place.  The rooster, hungry and annoyed, woke up early because it wanted breakfast, so it sang before dawn.  Florence, thus, has more land than Siena. 

 We spent some time looking out at the countryside as the sun was setting.  It felt like we were apart of history, in a way.  We’d parked a FIAT 500 on the side of the road, for one.  And we couldn’t see a house or building in any direction.  We spent a little time in the last town, similar to the rest, and then we headed home (he let me drive part of the way. So much fun). It was one of the best days I've had.  

^And then, to finish off the most amazing day, we went to a Florentina soccer match that night! Also, Ashley tried her first espresso shot! 


And here is a video from the last town we visited, because I thought it might capture the mood better than I even could (the music is great!): 

And a video from a soccer game, so it is as if you are there: