Piazza della Repubblica

It feels like every day is amazing and we do a ton, and this day was no different. One final morning with breakfast and some views in Greve in Chianti before hitting the road. Can’t say enough about our stay here; felt like the quintessential wine country vacation and I’d recommend the Podere Compriana super highly.

At our hosts recommendation, we drove first to Monteriggioni. Best views of the trip on the way there. Rolling hills of vineyards, olive trees, and estates everywhere. The town itself was essentially a fort on top of a hill. Cool spot to meander, walk the wall, and check out the museum of armor, where we could try on chainmail and other ancient styles of armor. They say men of a certain age have to either start smoking meats or get really into history. Given Dave is without his smoker, he’s pretty excited about the history of Italian wars in the 1500’s. Also, Monteriggioni is effectively the area and significant time period for the video game Assassins Creed: Brotherhood, which makes for an eclectic gift shop of toy weapons and video game merch.

From there, we went to Siena. Only real regret of the trip so far is I wish we spent more time in Siena and less in Florence. We only had an hour in Siena, but it was a very cool town. There is a horse race that will happen there tomorrow, so a whole lot of people were wearing the scarves of the horses (or horse teams? Unclear) they were supporting. We didn’t see the horses, but we could walk through the piazza del campo, right in the center of town, where all the sand was already laid out for the horses. We also saw the Siena Duomo; in my opinion this was more impressive than the Duomo in Florence that everyone raves about. We grabbed a fast lunch of small sandwiches and slices of pizza, and hit the road again to get to Rome!

We had a golf cart tour of Rome booked that we had to rush to get to. Drop off the car, catch the local train, check in to the Airbnb, and rush to the golf cart but we made it. Thankfully, as the tour was a highlight. Very fun guide, very knowledgable and also some great one liners. For example:

* Pointing to a newer, ugly building: “See, this is why we don’t make new buildings. Ugly as shit.”
* Dave, pointing to his left: “hey what’s over there?”, the guide: “Just cars?”
* After asking us where we are from “Ah, you’re from Boston! You are all always so happy, you’re like the Canada of the US.

Probably helped that it was a Rome golf cart tour with drinks. He also managed to get us a reservation at what was apparently a very hard to get into restaurant. More amazing food: bruschetta with mortadella and Gorgonzola, zucchini lasagnas, rigatoni carbonara (this was the winner), and some steak with pork fat. Oh, and tiramisu and chocolate mouse.

Oh, and a bag update! Our bag ended up in Venice this morning, which isn’t thrilling. But then it was flown to Rome! We’re within 20 miles of the bag! Supposedly it will be delivered to our Airbnb… at some point? I’ve still had very little communication from TAP or United about the bag. Thank goodness I put an AirTag in the bag, otherwise we wouldn’t have a clue.

It’s now almost midnight, and we’re all exhausted, but looking forward to another great day tomorrow!Read more