Saturday was travel, in our black BMW we hurtled along the A1 with Brendan Schumacher grinning as he cracked the imperial ton with MaryAnne screaming “Slow down” from the back seat, Elaine dropping bon mots of advice (also from the back seat) and Mick hunched in concentration over maps, strip charts and sextants in th co-pilots seat. The highlight was “doing” all four leaves of the clover-leaf as we joined the ring road – it worked and when we got back to the start we knew exactly what to do!
Afer an hour we left the autostrada and headed for Cortona, a delightful hill town of Etruscan origin, for lunch. Wonderful to be able to wander about (we ate our own lunch in an ancient courtyard) and climbed to the village church where we saw yet another piece of the true cross! (Our fourth for the day as we began with Mass at Santa Croce in Rome).
Then followed a delightful cross-country drive (Mick missed a turn!) through amazing scenery to our domicile - il Paggino at Radda in Chianti. Radda is a hilltop (of course) medieval village and il Paggino is a converted farmhouse half a kilometre away, We have a two bedroom apartment with kitchen and outside lounges etc. Most appropriate!
On Sunday your faithful scribe was laid low with a bad migrane (the result of single-handedly guiding the party through the perils of the journey, some local red and a restless night). Elaine spent the Sunday alternating between nursing the sick and playing Mary Moody reclining on the chaise lounge in the sun, reading. Brendan and MaryAnn explored Radda by climbing a steep and ovegrown track from il Paggino. They found another delightful place with great coffee. They returned with wildflowers for the sick!
We all rested later in the magical day with drinks (not Mick!) pasta for dinner and bed around 10!
Bellasimo multo!!
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