Yesterday, we ventured through the hills south of Siena to the hilltop medieval fortress town of Montepulciano. The town is famous for its red "Nobile" wine. Wine bars and tasting cafes line the narrow streets that run the length of a ridge that provides speactular views in all directions. Montipulciano is also the location for many scenes filmed for the Twighlight New Moon film. The town depicted in the book and the movie is actually Volterra which we visited a few days earlier. It's the streets and main square of Montipulciano, though, that are seen in the film. After returning north to our farm, we went out to dinner at a new place I did not research first on Tripadvisor. As soon as we were seated outdoors a few feet from a busy highway, a gentleman began setting up a sound system with large speakers for karaoke right next to our table. He then began singing loudly in Italian. The food was fine, but it was hard to have a dinner conversation!
Today we drove from Argiano to Florence to return our rental car. Then we rode a shuttle to the airport, followed by a bus to Florence, followed by a train to Rome. We encountered once again how difficult it can be to accomplish simple tasks in a country where you do not speak the language and are unfamiliar with certain usual practices. Mailing a package from a post office and filling a car with gasoline are tasks I do with ease at home. Here in Italy they require a lot of planning and an interpreter. We were seriously stressed out about the fully automated gas pumps that only give instructions in Italian for pumping and paying, We finally figured it out and were able to return our car with a full tank. It was a bonus today to return to Florence and have a couple hours to kill before our train departure. Leroy had his last cappachino in Italy, and then we walked a considerable distance to our favorite gelateria for our last gelato. Tonight in Rome we had our last spaghetti topped off with our last tiramisu and our last limoncello. No doubt we will be able to have all of these delicious foods and drinks at home, but I doubt it will be the same. We talked at dinner, again, about how fortunate and grateful we are not only for the three and a half weeks in Italy, but for the entire three months of travel in the Middle East and Europe.
After getting settled in our room this afternoon, we walked a couple blocks to the impressive "Saint Mary of the Angels" Church which has some interesting displays about Galileo (the first such exhibit since the Church apologized to Galileo for excommunicating him in the 1600s, another triumph of good science over bad theology and biblical interpretation.) We ventured further toward the Colosseum, buying some last minute t-shirts and listening to an urgent speach delivered to a group of peaceful protesters carrying red and gold flags. I didn't get the whole gist of it (again, my language skills failed me), but I took it to be a dispute between labor and government. We were reminded of the peaceful protests we saw on the streets of Istanbul, Turkey last month. It has been distressing to see those protests accelerate into violence at Taksim Square in the weeks following.Tomorrow a bus will take us to the airport and the first leg of our journey to Los Angeles. We will be in the air for seventeen hours total plus a three hour layover at JFK. We will cross ten time zones, allowing us to arrive in California mid-evening on the same day we left. We will visit with friends in Santa Monica before arriving in Long Beach on Thursday for the General Synod of the United Church of Christ.
