Colleoli, Tuscany, Italy
Salute Milano !! Time to move on a little bit south into the Tuscany region. Our travels mainly by train.
Breakfast then off to Milan Centrale to catch the 1020 hours train to Firenze (Florence). After paying the tourist tax of 8 euro each we marched off to train it. Milano Centrale had become our central travel hub to this point, so we were expecting a smooth transition onto the train etc.
This turned out to be the case: onto RV9591 to Florence. A comfortable 1 hour 40 minutes trip (via Bologna): sometimes reaching 297 kph !! I was willing the train to get to the magic 300, but it fell short:t is fun looking out of the window to watch stations come and go within a second or two: leave the vehicles (generally travelling on a nearby parallel raod), for dead, gives a sense of arrogance. Certainly there seems to be need for such a facility in Australia. The trains open up travel, obviously speeds it up and consequently are very well patronised. Not too many seats left vacant.
Our trip to Bologna was mainly through a rural scene with many farm houses dotting the landscape: too many vineyards though.
The farms seemed to be into more cropping of seed crops. This changed dramatically, once we passed through Bologna. Almost the entire trip one hour to Firenze was through tunnels: occasionally “coming out for air”, only to within a few seconds, enter total darkness. A major engineering feat it seemed.
Into Firenze and to our shock and horror, the train was some 5 minutes early. I felt “short-changed”. Apparently, on this occasion we were lucky as there appeared to be chaos on some other lines due to “inappropriate personnel interfering with train’s operation”.
I agreed that we would get off the train but felt we needed to walk down these very long platforms protesting. I visualised doing a “what do we want ?”, “when do we want it ?”. Fred reminded me that this would only draw attentionze to myself, as the Italians probably wouldn’t understand anyway. I hate logic !!
So our entry into Florence Centrale, was uneventful: besides we had to change trains and catch a local double decker train to Pisa. Not built for travellers: nowhere to put your bags, of which we were very conscious as we had to place our bags on seats.
With the train full, I suggested that we just keep looking out the window for the next 60 minutes until we reached Pisa.
Pisa was one location I was anxious about. We were to pick up our car from Galileo Airport in Pisa. It was after all a Sunday and we had doubts about the Europcar office being open: it is that on a previous trip we had the odd car pickup - dropoff issue. This was to be not an an issue, as when we arrived at Pisa Centrale, we transferred to the airport via the nearby monorail
Our small car was waiting for us: now the challenge of getting out of Pisa and into the Tuscan hills. I always fell a little anxious initially until I get my “sea legs”. This time it was smooth, as straight out of the airport onto the major freeway.... for a short while until the GPS started to take us on a few small country roads that were obviously used by local farmers. Fred’s Samsung assured us that we were heading off into the hills in a correct manner. Our driveway at home was wider than many of these roads !! Not an issue until you hit oncoming traffic and needed to pull off the road or get to as near as possible to the roadside trenches or walls.
Many times we had to stop and crawl past the oncoming vehicle. The latter generally treating this “meeting” in a confident manner and moving past us in a much more rapid manner.
“Crazy drivers over here”, was our initial summary. Still, I don’t think Fred saw a lot of these, as I think about 30 minutes into our 45 minute road trip, she was on her “are we there yet ?”, not game to remove her hands from covering her eyes !! Brave woman my wife, eh !!
We made it to the small village of Colleoli, but initially couldn’t find our villa. Not there there was much to drive around, but the accommodation’s location was a mystery. In total the village had about 4-5 buildings, perched on the top of a ridge. After some forensic back tracking, reversing out of (obviously) farm entrances - driveways, we managed to find our rather large, elegant and totally (recently) renovated Borgi Di Colleoli.
Wow, this looks some place. nto room 104 with Tuscan drawings - artwork on the walls, 5 metre ceilings etc. This looked good. What a location, up high, with olive groves all around us, interspersed with small vineyards.
More about this later, as there were more things to prepare for
The villa was to have their regular wine and cheese night. Invitation extended to us to attend: I think Fred was a little reluctant to attend, as she took a nanosecond the respond “Ce”. A great night meeting others staying at the villa, with the manager continuing to bring out local wines for the next 4 hours !! Fred and I dutifully agreed to assist with the process of emptying the contents of the bottles. Most of the wines were local Chianti styles and nice and yummy. I think the other 6-8 people at this function, also enjoyed the “vin-ordinare” as well. All supplemented with some cold meats and cheeses. It was a great way to start our Tuscan experience.
Lots of chat with the other guests: who were from many parts of the world. One particular couple from Malaysia was a focus as we could chat with them about our upcoming trip to Kuala Lumpur. Zohar and Nic, were good company and eager to give us some local Malaysian advice. We were sure that we would catch up with them further.
We also met a retired couple from Perth in Scotland (Shiela and David). They seemed to have a lot in common with us. Again to hear them talk about their long 3 hour trip to here was a little off-putting. Although many were sympathetic with ur some 28 hour trip to Milan.
Our little function was in the library !! This was immediately across from our rather comfortable room, so no issues as to how to get home, just the issue of lining up the key with the lock at the end of the evening. Well, Fred had that issue; I was able to rescue the situation after my 5th attempt.
Tired and satisfied with the experience, we decided to hit the sack. It appeared that we were about the last to leave. Do you think that it was a hint frm the host to leave, when he fell asleep on the lounge ?
Ciao
Neale Parnaby
2019-04-04
I must say I’m a little disappointed in that you are in Italy and you haven’t taken any photos of spaghetti farms
Jonelle
2019-04-05
Of course your were last to leave.
The Convict
2019-04-05
Did you have the right door? Good to see that you are safe and still together on your journey...Fred has some thick skin!
Slim
2019-04-05
Hope Gay is handling the bath showers no falls i hope
Annie Crouton
2019-04-05
You sure are having a great time. Colleoli sounds like a quant Tuscany village, Italy sure has amazing history, the meals and wines are just devine, the hangover the next day is not that pleasant. The Italians are also great hosts. We did a 6 day trek that included nightly meals and fine wines at each of our nightly destinations, these nights were a highlight of our Umbria trek, and I think your night will be memorable.
Neil Rutherford
2019-04-12
Sorry but we went out with George in Como