The scenic route to eastern Tuscany (Wednesday 14th August 2013)

This morning we packed our bags and bid farewell to Siena. A stay I thought may have been one day too long turned out to be one or two days too short. We're off the trains and back into the car today. Catching the local Italian trains has been a highlight of the trip. So easy to use, so frequent and never a problem about catching one where we wanted, when we wanted. Oh, and inexpensive too.

We walked the 1.1kms down the hill to the Avis office just outside one of the gates of the old city. Everything was ready for us, I signed a couple of documents and we were away in our Fiat Punto. It's in the same vehicle class as the Clio but not nearly as well appointed or as god to drive. Kerry took over the navigator's seat previously occupied by Emily and with the CoPilot app fired up on the Samsung tablet we started off for Arezzo. The CoPilot app generally works OK but during the journey the new GPS-girl got confused on a couple of occasions and gave ambiguous or just plain wrong verbal directions. We learned quickly to rely on the graphic, the road signs and common sense.

In the Chianti Hills, not far from Siena, we took a detour to a small village called Monti. Not for any reason other than we wanted to go to a small Tuscan village. We found a “general store” and bought some prosciutto, cheese, salami, tomatoes and bread for lunch later on, then sat in the sunshine to enjoy a coffee. The views from the road up to Monti were splendid. Just so Tuscan. Ad we drove out of Monti we saw a signpost to Gaiole in Chanti. This is the town from which we hope start our Vespa tour from tomorrow. A it happened GPS-girl has every intention of taking us there so we were happy to let her do her thing. We found the scooter rental office in the town's tourist information centre and filled out some paperwork and got as much of a commitment that a scooter will be available tomorrow as the office were prepared to give.

We were still nowhere near Arezzo with lots of winding roads yet to be negotiated. After what seemed a very long time we made it to Montevarchi where the roads straightened up. We were starting to think about the long drive back to this area tomorrow. Anyway, after totally ignoring GPS-girl and just following the signs we made it to Arezzo. But Arezzo is not our destination, just the nearest big town. We reset the GPS for Caprese Michelangelo, in the Appenine Mountains north-east of Arezzo. The Appenine Mountains run like a spine right down the centre of Italy, starting near Genoa in the north and ending past Naples in the south. I remember learning about them in Latin classes all those years ago.

We left Arezzo and wound our way up into the mountains, passing thorough a number of small villages along the way. The road traveled through densely forested country until it reached open land in the higher plains. We saw the first sign to our destination about 12kms from the town. Our first stop in Caprese Michelangelo was at the first park we found where we ate our lunch bought earlier in the day. The town is quite spread out along a ridge line overlooking the valley below with the tall mountains lurking just behind. We saw many restaurants, bars, the school, a couple of churches, a sporting club, the post-office and police station, even the birth-place of Michelangelo, after whom the town formerly known as just Caprese was renamed. But we didn't see any signs to Il Vigno the place where we were staying for the next six nights.

Just as an aside, what we did see was a water vending machine – BYO bottles. Standing in the park was this little hut into which one inserted some money, pressed a button and filled one's bottle. So what, I hear you say. Well, this is what..... If you ever thought bottled water is the biggest con ever perpetrated upon the civilised world then this is your proof. In the middle of a park, in the middle of nowhere, on a remote Italian mountain-side I popped in five cents (yes, that $0.05) and filled my l.5 litre bottle with cold drinking water. Magnificent! Oh, BTW, I had a choice of still or sparkling and it's available 24hrs a day! Even before this revelation we had quickly learned that once on the Continent bottled water retailed for as little as 30 cents/1.5ltr and in Spain as low as 19 cents/ltr. Coca-Cola Amatil and Cadbury Schweppes should be ashamed and called to task. They don't make the stuff, it falls from the sky for free. They don't even harvest it, our water rates do that. All they do is stick it in a bottle. We are being taken to the cleaners in Australia! End of rant!

Anyway, back to our journey. I had reviewed where the accommodation was via the ever reliable Google Maps and StreetView so I had an idea of where it might be despite the town's streets being devoid on any signs to Il Vigno. I used “The Force” and let my sense of direction take over. Hooray! A couple of kms out of town down a winding road we saw a sign to Il Vigno off to the left just where I thought it might be. We took the dirt track (don't tell Avis!) and drove through the forest for about 1.5kms, crossed over a small creek, which later revealed some similarly sized trout to me, and pulled up outside the mains house.

Our host Julian met us and immediately opened a bottle of the local red for a welcoming drink. A very good start! He then showed us our room at the top of an old four stoery stone house. We have the whole of the floor to ourselves which offers a large bathroom-toilet (with a magnificent view across the mountains), a large lounge area, a large kitchen are and a large bedroom. The bedroom has a massive tree trunk, probably 300mm in diameter, supporting the building tiled floor and whitewashed walls. Truly rustic and very charming.

Dinner will be at 8:00pm tonight and I am looking forward to meeting the other guests and sampling some more of the local red.