Let me tell you about our apartment at the Fattoria il Milione Agriturismo in Florence. This is a rural estate in the hills overlooking Florence. Yes, it is difficult to get to, but worth the trip. Almost everything about this place is fantastic. We had a large apartment with a view down to Florence. The place is furnished with vintage and very lovely furniture. There was a kitchenette with minifridge, a cooktop and plenty of pots, pans and utensils.
The complimentary breakfasts were very good. Cold cuts, scrambled eggs, toast, croissants, very good coffee.
The problems? Our toilet dripped, which wasn’t pleasant. And if the apartment had heat we never figured out how to use it. But, overall, a very nice, very interesting place.
8 out of 10.
We left around 9:30am. We had a full day ahead of us. The plan was to drive to the thrift shop in Rome where Marlene could see if that dress that she just had to have was still available. Then drive to our hotel, check in, remove everything from the car, return the car and figure out how to get back to the hotel on public transit.
It sort of worked out that way, but not without drama. Too much drama.
First, we spotted a small town – Tuscania – that had some very old fortifications and buildings. We stopped to take a look. The tourist signs in town – fortunately in both Italian and English – informed me that this was a VERY old town with evidence of inhabitation during the Bronze Age – perhaps 2000 BC. It also had Etruscan graves, still in existence, dating back to about 700 BC. The monastery / cathedral ruins there dated from the 12th and 13th century and hadn’t been used since the 16th century. A very old town.
The cathedral ruins were the setting for some of the 1968 Romeo and Juliet film. It also had a well-preserved section of Roman highway.
This town would have been fun except that Marlene and I had a fight. It was over the photo above (“Up to the monastery”). She wanted me to take it from further away. I thought I should be closer. She got mad and walked away, which is what you see in the photo. The argument was about micromanagement – an argument we have had many times. I hate to be micromanaged. You want a photo? Fine, I will take a photo. But I will choose where to stand and what to include. She wants the photo taken where she says, when she says.
We should be able to get over this silly little tiff. But it put a pall on the rest of the trip.
It got worse in Rome. We found a parking place near the thrift shop and she did find the dress. But when we returned to the car there were two policemen writing me a ticket. Turns out the parking spot was a HANDICAPPED spot – something both of us should have noticed but didn’t. I haven’t paid the fine yet and I am not sure how long it will take an Italian ticket to catch up to me. But if it does it will double the cost of the car rental – over $400.
That worsened by already sour mood.
Then, to top off a really swell afternoon, we were unable to find the hotel. We found the address but no hotel was there. We asked around and learned that it was a private rental – basically a VRBO. But the call button at the door to the building brought no response and I was unable to find a number to call from my reservation. I finally noticed a placard on the other side of the door that had a number. Calling that number got a response and we got in. It was an interesting check-in experience. I got a keypad code to get in the front door, got to the first floor where the person on the phone opened the door into the residential area. Then, when I found our apartment (A), she opened that door too. Inside, on the desk, were two keycards. She asked me to send her photos of our passports via WhatsApp, which we did. She said we would have to pay the city tax to the cleaning lady the next morning. End of check-in. All done without ever seeing a person.
Once in the apartment we had to empty the car, which we did in three trips. It was then 5:40pm and the Budget rental office, where I had to return the car, closed at 6:30pm. It was only 15 minutes away, but I had to find gas, too. Off I went, in the dark, over unfamiliar streets, with scooters zooming past on both sides and a trolley running down the middle. All while trying to watch the GPS. Terrifying. But I found a gas station, filled the tank for a final time (at 1.69 euros per liter, not bad) and made it to Budget by 6:05pm. The car return was simple and efficient.
Then I had to find the subway. A 12-minute walk got me to the station. I figured out how to buy a ticket (2 euros) but needed help using it (the turnstile invited me to insert the card but apparently it meant the reusable card – the single-use ticket was a touch-and-go on top of the turnstile). 4 stops dropped me 12 minutes from the hotel/apartment. I got a message from Marlene to get some cheese, so I stopped in a store along the way and got 2 varieties. We had the usual bread, cheese and coffee dinner.
I blogged until midnight.
ATW-2 Day 18: Paris, France, to Landau, Germany
The four nights in Paris were memorable in both good and bad ways. But the hotel in which we resided for the final 3 days was very fine: Sejours and Affaires Paris Vincennes. This seems to be a hotel geared toward long-term stays by students. But it isn’t a dormitory, isn’t affiliated with a school and certainly welcomed us. So kind of an oddball, but quite comfortable. Clean bathroom, comfortable bed and a kitchenette that allowed us to actually cook meals on a stove. WAY better than the first Paris hotel.
It also had garage parking, for an additional 13 euros per day. I paid for parking but in retrospect might have skipped it as there was free parking on the street and the area seemed quite safe.
Anyway, we checked out of the hotel around 9am and embarked on a 7-hours-plus journey across France, into Germany. We made one stop, in Vitry-le-Francois, on a whim because we saw the towers of a cathedral. It was younger than the cathedrals we had visited in and near Paris, being built in the 17th century, but it was quite beautiful. We were glad we stopped. And it felt good to stretch the legs.
We wandered the town for a bit and bought a pistachio eclair – a first for us. Then we got back on the road.
The border between France and Germany has almost entirely disappeared. The only notice that we left France was a small sign with “Allemagne” (Germany in French) on it. There was a checkpoint but it appeared that no one was being stopped.
We stopped for some groceries at an Aldi in Virty-le-Francois as we knew that we would have access to a full kitchen and were craving a home-cooked meal. We got some sausage that could be pan-fried.
One difference between France and Germany became obvious pretty quickly: the speed on the roads. In France we were often frustrated by slow drivers. Almost no one traveled more than 10 kph over the limit, which made mine one of the fastest cars on the road. That flipped in Germany: I was one of the slowest. Germans drive FAST. This is encouraged by the lack of a speed limit on many sections of the expressways / autobahns.
We had dinner and played cards. Do I need to tell you who won?