Now this day started out a little less chaotic than our last driving day. I was still a little apprehensive about getting behind the wheel, but I knew once we were out of Florence then things would be pretty straightforward. We got the car, and loaded it up with all of our gear, and headed out. I tried the same trick that I did in Rome - i.e. figure out how the taxi drivers got through the center of town and follow the same route. Hmm. I guess maybe that wasn't the best idea. As we were doing that, we quickly realized that a couple of the main streets we were planning on using were actually reserved for taxis only. Whoops. Oh well, I (not we) decided that I could just play the ignorant Canadian card and go anyway. So we did. And, 10 minutes later, we were out of the historic center, and on the road to Panzano in Chianti. This will be the first of many little towns that we visited that we had never heard of before the trip. For this one, I really wanted to go to a famous butcher Dario Cecchini at the Antica Macelleria Cecchini who specializes in the meat for Bistecca Al Fiorentine. It was a nice drive - very windy, very typical of what you would think of when you think of driving through Tuscany.
We got to the butcher without incident, and had quite a nice visit. We entered the shop and he was there, carving up a huge (think like 50lb) chunk of steaks. They had bread laid out on a table, and the woman in the shop handed us 2 glasses of wine just as we walked in. After looking confused for a while, the woman asked us, in English, if she could help us. Turns out that she was originally from California, was married to Dario, and had lived in Italy for 20 years. We had a very nice conversation, she told us about the 2 restaurants that he runs, how they work, and talked about the meats. We ended up not being able to purchase a steak, because you have to reserve it in advance (I knew this going in), but we did buy a different slab of beef, as well as some seasoning. We planned on trying to come back for one of their dinners, but as the trip evolved, we were unable to do so. But we have decided to put that on the agenda for our next trip to Italy.
After that we were on the road, next stop Greve in Chianti - supposedly one of the most famous market towns in all of Italy - and also the birthplace of Giovanni da Verrazano, one of the first Europeans to explore the North Eastern US, and the namesake of the Verrazzano-Narrows bridge, mile 1 of the NYC Marathon. This was our first real experience of driving through one of the many small towns. And it was interesting again - mostly because we were running without maps, and so whenever we got to one of these towns we sort of knew where we wanted to go, but not specifically, and parking was always tricky, add to that the myriad of one way streets and we quickly learned to add 30min to any plan to account for arriving, parking, and locating our destination. But we pulled it off. The market was pretty cool - although coming from Seattle with our wealth of farmers markets even I had to admit it didn't quite live up to the hype. Not sure if it was the time of year (August?) or what but in what was a huge public square, there were maybe 5 or 6 vendors selling produce, 2 selling meat, 1 selling fish, 1 selling cheese, and like 25 selling random goods - shirts, towels, underwear, kitchen utensils, socks etc. It was kind of a cross between a flea market and a farmers market - or maybe more like Fred Meyer with individuals running each department. That said the produce quality was great - and we had our first (and best) taste of porchetta from the porchetta truck. It's kind of like a taco truck, but instead of tacos they have a whole seasoned/roasted pig that they slice pieces from and serve on a roll - yum. L loaded up on veggies, I bought some wine, and we were ready to go.
After skirting Sienna we were on the A1 south, headed for Narni. About 45 minutes north of Narni, we stopped in a roadside service station, just outside the town of Fabro. Now, I need to preface this story with a couple of additional points. First off, I drive a diesel car at home. Second, we've watched the Amazing Race, and watched them put unleaded gas in a diesel car - and understood the problems it could cause. Third, while driving up to the gas station I was acutely aware of the fact that I could be driving a diesel, and wanted to make sure that it took unleaded. Fourth, as I was driving up, I was specifically listening to the engine to see if it sounded like a diesel (it didn't, much, really). Fifth, in the US full serve is far more expensive than self-serve, so I naturally pulled into the self-serve islands. Sixth, as I got out of the car and opened up the fuel door, I specifically looked at the fuel cap to make sure it didn't say diesel on. Seventh, as some of you know, I'm kind of tall, and it means that sometimes I don't see things as I'm looking down on them, based on the angle of the overhang (e.g. I often miss things on the top shelf of the refrigerator because I'm at a bad angle). Eighth - I have had an incident where I drove away from a gas station with the gas pump still in the car (they have a breakaway mechanism by the way). Ninth - I'm not very subtle when it comes to foreshadowing.....
So we gassed up, and, I guess because self serve isn't very self serve, we paid the attendant and were ready to leave. Just as we started the engine and were about to pull away, the attendant started banging on our window. I panicked a little - looking back to make sure the pump was still intact (which it was!). But he kept banging - so I stopped the car, and rolled down the window. He just kept saying "Senza Piombo" and "Gasolio". Well, as you may have guessed, after many gestures and a lot of no progress, we finally figured out that I had put Senza Piombo (unleaded) into our "Gasolio" (diesel) car. Crap. At least we hadn't left the gas station and weren't stranded on the highway. But we're at a service station right - no problem - I'm sure they have some kind of machine that can just suck out the gas and we'll fill it up and bang. Nope. Note to self - building a machine like that, and selling it to gas stations, would be a killer idea. So he uses my cell phone to call a tow truck.....
Now I'm getting worried - it's Saturday afternoon, we're in the middle of nowhere in Italy, we are supposed to be checking into our villa in an hour, and I have no idea what is about to happen. Just so I don't have to repeat myself, over the rest of this ordeal this is all I could think about - how long is this going to take, is this going to take multiple days, are we going to need another car - etc etc etc. Eek. In any case, 45 minutes later the tow truck shows up (takes a while, because the exits are all so far apart on the A1). I'm thinking great - mechanic arrives, he'll have the special machine to siphon the fuel and we'll be on our way. Mechanic pulls up - talks to the attendant, and starts readying the truck. OK - where is this going. He keeps pointing at the trunk - again, after some machinations, I realize that he needs the little tow hitch from the spare tire compartment to screw into the front of the car. Check. Then he tells us to put all of our luggage in the trunk. (Tells is a stretch - I speak more Italian than he does English - and I speak no Italian beyond please, thankyou, and my three new words - macchina (car), gasolio (diesel) and senza piombo (unleaded) - fortunately stupido is fairly language independent;-). Then he indicates that the girls should get into the tow truck. Again - worried. And I'm in the car. I guess there is only so much room in the cab of the truck, so I get to ride in the car, up on the flatbed. Truck loaded, we are off - to where?
First stop is the toll booth - OK that's funny - I'm sitting up on the bed of the car, and I still have to pay the exit toll for our car from the highway - what? Anyway, after the tollbooth we drove about two miles into the center of Fabro. Where there was a garage. And now, our mechanic gets busy on the car, trying to figure out how to syphon the gas. I wasn't very much help, although I think there must have been a better way. After an hour of futzing he managed to gerry-rig a system whereby he short circuited a couple of the electrical components, and had the fuel pump actually pumping the gas out of the car. I would have just sucked it out with a tube but OK. Turns out, it takes about 3 hours to pump 14 liters of gas out of a car in this fashion. But, 3 hours, and 200 euros later (plus another 50 euros for a new tank of gas), and, thankfully, we were back on the road. Through the course of this I had the pleasure of calling the folks we were renting the villa from about 3 times, trying to describe what had happened, where we were, and when we would be there. That too, had it's moments.
As we got close to the villa we had all of the same fun driving issues with Google maps, lack of street names, and general weirdness, but frankly, if you've read this far, you got the point. Suffice it to say that we were very, very happy to have arrived at the villa, and we were looking forward to just chilling out, and getting a decent night sleep.
I will re-echo here that the girls were incredibly patient during this whole ordeal - it was a major, major pain for everyone, but it all turned out OK - and hopefully at least some of you got a chuckle out of it. If I can bring some humour to the world through my foibles, well, then it's been a good day....
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