Like this:

After our month in Rome we still had another few weeks to spend in Italy so we headed to Florence. Florence was basically the continuation of our trip with Ev and Charles and the beginning of our adventures with Owen LaFreniere, a friend of ours from S&C and Goldman.  Since Ev’s guest blog covers a bunch of stuff, I’m not going to retell that portion – I’ll just mention a few highlights. First, of course, has to be the Duomo which is a church in the city center that sports the third largest dome in the world (the first two being St. Peters in Rome and St. Paul’s in London). Here is a shot from the front corner with part of the dome but it’s hard to get it all into one picture:


And here is a shot from a hill we climbed where you can see the whole Duomo and get a better feel for its size – it sort of lords over the rest of Florence (no pun intended):


Second, behind the Duomo is a museum focusing on the Duomo and the artists that worked on it.  There is lots of great stuff in there but for some reason one sculpture by Donatello stuck with me:


It’s carved out of wood which is pretty cool and it depicts Mary Magdalene walking in the desert. Not sure what it is about it I like so much but I think it’s sort of haunting or something.

There are other things I can’t show you because the museums don’t allow cameras but you’ll have to take my word for it when I say that the Uffizi gallery is fantastic and the David is really more impressive than you’d expect despite all the hype. Here is the only picture I was able to snap in the Uffizi – I took it out the window. The bridge is the Ponte Vecchio which is a somewhat famous bridge you may have seen before:


Anyway, all good things must come to an end and Ev and Charles had to make their way back to reality.  But, as I mentioned earlier, in keeping with the theme of guest appearances on our travels, we hooked up with my friend Owen who used to work with me at Goldman Sachs and at Sullivan & Cromwell. If you don’t know who he is, here is a pic:


He, like us, was jetting around a little bit between jobs (although I think he may be working hard in Los Angeles at this point).  So, we hit the sights together in Florence and then decided to rent a car and check out the Tuscan countryside, a.k.a., wine country. Our first stop was supposed to be Montalcino where they make some of my favorite wines – Brunello Di Montalcino and Rosso Di Montalcino. We headed out not knowing where we would stay and without directions and put our faith in our trusty GPS unit. The Tuscan countryside was amazing and around every bend you see something beautiful. It was one of highlights of Italy.  Here is a pic, although I could post a hundred without getting the point across:


Of course, it was not without its little bumps in the road. Literally.  The thing with GPS is that sometimes it doesn’t send you over the best roads – just the most direct. Montalcino is on the top of a mountain and, as we approached, our trusty GPS unit directed us onto a dirt road which began going up the mountainside. Initially, we figured that it would turn into a paved road and flatten out a bit as we went. Unfortunately, our rental car was very low to the ground and after a couple of minutes it started scraping the bottom pretty significantly. Then the road got steeper. And narrower. And steeper. And narrower. The car was having trouble getting up the hill even in first gear so I had to start fanning the clutch to get mini-spurts of power. I knew if we had to back down we would be in serious trouble and that if I stopped I couldn’t get going again. I felt like I was racing the Baja 1000 in a Pinto. On the right side of the road (which was very close to the right side of the car) there was no rail – just a steep pitch with some trees that may or may not have stopped us from rolling downward. Owen was telling me to stop in a voice that was much higher in pitch than his normal low frequency growl and Krysten was calmly telling me not to stop, evidently also understanding that we would be going backward if we stopped. I was seriously thinking we made a huge mistake…

So basically, I sweat like a pig, Owen screamed like a 12 year-old girl, the car skidded and scraped its way up the mountain, and Krysten basically shrugged it off as a non-event and enjoyed the view. Go figure… We finally hit pavement and the town of Montalcino about five minutes later. I literally didn’t calm down for about ten minutes afterward and I think Owen may be permanently damaged. This is a picture from the top of the hill – the view was amazing and this doesn’t do it justice but here it is anyway:


Anyway, we get to the top and stop in the first hotel only to be told that there are no rooms and that there is only one other hotel in town and they are sold out as well. The only available hotels are at the bottom of the mountain (predictably). When we ask whether there is another way down the mountain the lady behind the counter laughed a little at the idiot Americans who came directly up the Death Trail and explains that we can easily get down (or up) on a nice paved road on the opposite side of the mountain. Stupid GPS!!!

So Owen makes some calls and finds us a great hotel. TRAVEL TIP: Owen is not in charge of hotels. Bad move. Don’t do it. Save yourselves. Exhibit A: We start driving to the hotel and stop to figure out where we are going and I ask Owen if he wants to call the hotel to tell them we will take the rooms and he says we don’t need to because we are almost there. When we get lost looking for the hotel Owen calls the hotel for directions only to learn that the rooms are gone. (Actually, that’s not so bad but since he beat himself up over it I thought I’d kick him while he’s down!)

So, we end up having to stay in a small town down the road a bit called Pienza. But, as luck would have it – it’s a great little town. So great, that we decide to get a hotel for a few days and make it our base of operations for Tuscany. Here is a pic of me, Owen and Little Spree in Pienza:


So, Owen picks a local hotel from the guide book to reserve us some rooms for the next two nights resulting in, wait for it…Exhibit B: He somehow misreads the numbers and dials the number for a hotel in another town called Montepulciano. The next day we show up at the hotel we thought we reserved in Pienza and chaos ensues because they have no reservation for us and Owen already paid for the other hotel in the other town!

But, as they say, it’s better to be lucky than good and Owen is certainly lucky because the hotel he accidentally reserved turns out to be cheap and awesome and the town is only about twenty minutes away. (Besides, we had planned to visit there anyway.) So, although his hotel batting average is low as far as intent goes, he actually batted 1.000 for results. But if you’re out there in the road with Owen, let him read maps or something instead…

Anyway, on to more important things. Montepulciano is an old hill town and they have their own variety of wine in the area – Rosso Di Montepulciano (not to be confused with Rosso Di Montalcino) which is very nice. Here is a pic of the town which should give you an idea of what it’s like:


Pienza is a town known for it’s cheeses and is between Montepulciano and Montalcino. It’s another old town on a hilltop with a few wine bars with local wines (of course). Here is a picture of the countryside from Pienza:


We also had one of our best meals in Italy in Pienza. It’s basically a day trip kind of town so at night it is mostly locals and the restaurant we went to struck me as one in which everyone knew each other (except us). Nobody spoke English so it had a nice authentic feel. Add to that the fact that it looked like there were basically three or four cooks – all of them looking like Italian grandmothers. Perfetto! The meal was great, the ambiance was great, the people were great. In short, it was, well, great!

Montalcino is probably the most touristy town in the region and is on top of a mountain. It’s a beautiful city and there are oodles of wineries nearby and lots of wine shops in the city. Here is the city from a distance:


On the advice of a friend of Owen’s we hit the Poggio Antico vineyard to sample some of the Brunellos. We took in a lunch before the tasting which was fantastic. Unfortunately, I was driving so I could not partake in much more than a taste but the food was great (but pricey). When it came time to taste the wines, Owen dropped a couple of names that his friend gave him – the names were of the owner and his son and the manager we were talking to invited us to accompany her on a tour she was giving. Go Ow-En, it’s ya Birth-day!!! SO, we took the tour and tasting three or four varieties of Brunello which had gone through different aging processes and left with a few bottles of fine wine to drink back on our roof deck at the hotel. But before we left, we decided to get a picture of Owen in the fields:


Can you see him? Here is a closer shot:


See him now? Just in case, here is a much closer shot:


Finally, here is a gratuitous grape shot (it’s like porn for wine lovers):


Soooo, after a few days of tasting wine and looking at beautiful countryside, we decided that we were having more fun that we were supposed to so we headed back to Florence, dropped of the car (or what was left of it after some significant off-roading and my slightly overshooting a parking spot and tapping a wall) and set off for Bologna.

Ok – so here are the slideshows (one for Florence and one for Tuscany). There are lots of pics again because I haven’t weeded out any repeats or bad shots yet – I know, this is becoming a pattern with me but there is only so much time in the day and I’m really busy laying on the beach and stuff. The setup appears to have changed so there should be an “info” button on top to toggle the descriptions (I have to click the full screen mode thingy on the bottom right to see the info button but that might be a Firefox thing):

Florence:  http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157607559933169/show/
Tuscany:  http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157607559885983/show/

Next up, the Italy wrap up with Bologna, Parma and Lake Como.

Ciao

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