Tuscany - In Advance of Steph and Nicolas' Wedding Celebrations

Steph and Nicolas's Villa

It’s time for something a bit happier. Another travel that I did was to Florence and Tuscany for Steph and Nicolas’ wedding celebrations. You may recall that it was their wedding last year, but this was the big honeymoon celebrations where Steph’s family could also come over all the way from New Zealand.

I seem to have developed this awful habit of not looking up the street map of where I’m going and it’s not a good idea. Steph and Nicolas had kindly provided directions as to how to get to the hotel where they’d booked us all in (about 30 mins outside of Florence). I got to the main station in Florence OK, then I got a bit confused about where to get a bus ticket. It was roughly at this point that I realized I wasn’t in Switzerland because it wasn’t at all clear at what point the bus would arrive or even really where it departed from had I not seen one that I’d just missed. Fortunately, due to the instructions, I knew which number bus to get.

I tried asking the bus driver to let me know when to get off, but he just confirmed that I was on the correct bus, which wasn’t exactly what I wanted to know. I sat nervously on the bus trying to work out which stop was mine. Fortunately, I knew roughly how long the journey should take, so I didn’t start worrying until 20 mins into the journey. I suddenly saw a landmark, tried to get off, but the bus continued on to the next stop before I was ready. Fortunately, the next stop wasn’t far.

Again, Italy isn’t always that logical. All the roads seemed to be named after months, but the months weren’t in order, so trying to find the road of 20th September wasn’t so easy. It turned out that you had to walk up the road a bit before you could see the road sign.

The pavements were also not what you’d find in Switzerland. It was quite a task to walk along because tree roots had pushed the concrete up into little hillocks and the trees also took up more space than was left for the pedestrians – all those bumps were not so good if you’re trundling a suitcase with you, but good exercise, I guess.

I arrived quite early and foolishly decided to go back into town again to explore. It was really hot, so before getting on the bus to go back, I stopped off for a cold diet coke. Unfortunately, this made me miss the bus and then the next one was late and then it was rush hour. And I was supposed to be back in time for the shuttle bus to Steph and Nicolas’ villa where a group of us were going to be catered for that evening by a chef. I was getting quite stressed.

I got off the bus feeling exhausted and hot and I was already late. I rushed up the bumpy, uncomfortable pavement back to the hotel desperately hoping that I might just catch the shuttle bus. Up in front of me, I saw a minibus turning down a road, which I was convinced must be my group so I ran after it waving my hands in the air and shouting (very Italian of me, I thought). It stopped and I thought they’d heard me, but then it just drove on, never to be seen again.

I got the concierge at the hotel to phone Nicolas (the concierge couldn’t quite believe that I didn’t have a phone) and he arranged for someone to pick me up, but from that point I had the reputation of being the one who was always late (which wasn’t true!).

Anyway, I got there in the end and we had a beautiful meal sitting on a long table outside looking over the Tuscan countryside and down into the local village below. The sunset was spectacular and the town looked very pretty in the dark with its lights twinkling beneath us. The food was great and it was good to meet some of the people I'd be sharing my experiences with over the next few days.

The next day, Nicolas and Steph had organized a wine tasting.  I was a bit nervous about this (despite having chosen it!) because I can’t take my drink these days. The plan was 3 wines and grappa in the morning, lunch with 5 wines, and then 4 more wines in the afternoon. It sounded lovely, but can I really handle that much to drink?

But it was beautiful. It was wonderful to drive round Tuscany and to visit these wonderful places tucked in the countryside. To my great surprise, I was able to try all the wines and remain sober by the end of it (I did not drink full glasses!). The sun blazed, the sky was blue, and it must have been 30 degrees. It was perfect.

Even better, I remained sober. I really, really wanted to enjoy the following day, which was to be the main event, and a hangover would have spoiled it. But the world was good and I was in fine shape for the next day.