Day 18: Rome-Chiocchio (Chianti)
Time to leave Rome….our last breakfast in the apartment where we enjoy more treats from the great bakery–Roscioli– just down the street. The warm "pizza bianca", fresh cornetti and terrific tiny rolls are all fantastic.
The cab picks us up and gets us back to the same car rental office without difficulty and our drive out of Rome–while taking a slightly different route–is uneventful. We are meeting our friend Miriam Margolyes–one of the Italian connections whom we met in the 1990s on the Italian Forum on Compuserve. She has a house in Montisi in southern Tuscany where she spends some time and also rents out for most of the season.
The weather worsens as we leave the autostrada and the rain begins in earnest as we drive the hilly country roads, but when we arrive in Montisi, it stops. We have a great get together with Miriam and a pleasant lunch at La Toretta in Castelmuzio–the next town over from Montisi.
After lunch, we stop at the Montisi cemetery where our friend Glenn Scott’s ashes are interred. He was another friend from the Italian Forum, who died in Rome in 1998.
We then take the beautiful back roads through southern Tuscany into Chianti. We are staying with Rita O’Connor and Lino Ferracin…she’s from New York and he’s from Florence and they now live in Chiocchio, a small village just north of Greve in Chianti. We met through the Slow Travel web site and they run a tour company that does small group tours in Italy.
By the time we arrive it is dark but we manage to find the right house. We have a relaxing dinner with good food and lots of wine in their comfortable kitchen and have no trouble falling asleep.
They have done a great job fixing up the house, which dates from the 1600s and has a beautiful setting.
Tomorrow we will explore the Casentino, a relatively untouristed part of Tuscany, located to the east of Chianti.
The cab picks us up and gets us back to the same car rental office without difficulty and our drive out of Rome–while taking a slightly different route–is uneventful. We are meeting our friend Miriam Margolyes–one of the Italian connections whom we met in the 1990s on the Italian Forum on Compuserve. She has a house in Montisi in southern Tuscany where she spends some time and also rents out for most of the season.
The weather worsens as we leave the autostrada and the rain begins in earnest as we drive the hilly country roads, but when we arrive in Montisi, it stops. We have a great get together with Miriam and a pleasant lunch at La Toretta in Castelmuzio–the next town over from Montisi.
After lunch, we stop at the Montisi cemetery where our friend Glenn Scott’s ashes are interred. He was another friend from the Italian Forum, who died in Rome in 1998.
We then take the beautiful back roads through southern Tuscany into Chianti. We are staying with Rita O’Connor and Lino Ferracin…she’s from New York and he’s from Florence and they now live in Chiocchio, a small village just north of Greve in Chianti. We met through the Slow Travel web site and they run a tour company that does small group tours in Italy.
By the time we arrive it is dark but we manage to find the right house. We have a relaxing dinner with good food and lots of wine in their comfortable kitchen and have no trouble falling asleep.
They have done a great job fixing up the house, which dates from the 1600s and has a beautiful setting.
Tomorrow we will explore the Casentino, a relatively untouristed part of Tuscany, located to the east of Chianti.
posted by Jim Zurer at 7:41 PM
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