To Amsterdam, Sat., Apr 8

So we wake in Rome knowing we are starting toward home today! Sort of sad yet relieved to get some rest soon! It rained heavy last night but the sun is breaking through! We check out and bring our bags to the garage that has our car. I tell them we will be back for the car in “Un Oro” (1 hour) and we go to a Pastiserie nearby for breakfast. Oh the Italian words that come in handy! We get our car and Elee wants to drive today.

We have 5-6 hours before we need to be in the airport for an evening flight to Amsterdam. We drive out to the coast near the airport and we point the car south along the coast to see what we can see for a couple hours. Some fun places and since Elee is driving, my cameras love it! We make it all the way to Anzio and stop for lunch at a seaside restaurant. My cameras revel in the idea of getting more coast and surf photos and everyone is happy!

Then we head back north, satisfied we have seen something new and we stop to take photos of storm clouds we are heading for! It is clear to us that the storm is over Rome so we are happy we didn’t stay in the city for the day! It rains on us but just for a short 15 minutes and we drive out of the storm on the other side. The skies over Rome continue to stay menacing!

We make it to the airport with plenty of time and leisurely unload the car of 3 weeks worth of travel. We leave the portable cooler we bought for the car behind as we have no way of bringing it home. We do manage to snag the two ice packs we used as they are useful everywhere. I also left a corkscrew in the room we had because we already know that TSA didn’t like them. Specifically because of the foil cutting blade that is on a corkscrew!

So we trek into the airport (and it IS a trek!) and walk and walk and walk some more! We end up in the wrong terminal and eventually we find the correct one! Getting our steps in! We check in and the attendant tries to bully us into checking our carry on bags. We insist we need them with us and she is relentless. But we know our bags are carry on compliant and she gives in.

We then head towards our gate and Elee reminds me that our boarding passes state TSA Precheck. I look at mine and it doesn’t. So I go back to the attendant and she gives me some line like one of us has to get our bags checked by security. So I think she has screwed us because we didn’t want to play her little game. We will try to get this corrected in Amsterdam as this woman in Rome doesn’t like us! And sure enough, I get flagged for a pat down Security Check. Luckily it doesn’t take but 10 minutes or so and the Guard chuckles and tells me that I was flagged at check in!

The flight is uneventful for all of 2 hours and we land in Amsterdam around 10 PM. We have a hotel at the airport that we have stayed at before. It is a bit pricey but we have 11 hours and will get to sleep 6 of them! It has a modern art designed lobby that entertains our cameras for a bit! We get a couple glasses of wine to take to our cubicle room in the Citizen M Hotel. And it IS a cubicle!

So we get some sleep before making the final trek home.

Rome, Friday Apr 7

Waking up, knowing we are in Rome, even in a tiny guest room, is kind of magical! The Eternal City awaits us! And of all days, it is Good Friday! So that means that pretty much all citizens not working and all tourists of the Catholic faith are here in town for the weekend! And sure enough, the traffic is crazy all day! Glad we have our car parked in a garage and happy to be walking today! Albeit we have the Hop On Hop Off Bus pass and we have a Metro Rail Pass! So we walk to the bus stop, about a mile away and wait almost an hour in line to get on a bus!

And Rome is so much warmer than Tuscany was! It is actually tolerable in a sweater and light hat! And the heat works in our room! We get breakfast at a pastiserrie a couple of doors from our room and get our tummies satiated! Then we walk to the bus stop, about a mile away and wait almost an hour in line to get on a bus! We want to ride a different route today but it turns out the Pope is making appearances in the city today and the route we want is closed for the day! Also, we never see the Pope, LOL

But we ride the bus and get off at the “Wedding Cake” stop and we walk around. It turns out you CAN go inside the Wedding Cake AND you can go to the top! Even better yet, the 30 Euros it should have cost goes to zero on Good Friday and the tickets are FREE!

We go to a restaurant at the midway point and get refreshing Aperol Spritzes which are Prosecco, flavoring of some kind and club soda on ice! Not my first choice for a wine drink but they ARE refreshing on what is a sunny day!

There is even a “Panorama View Elevator” that takes you to the very top for some great city views! Oops, did I mention the Panorama View does cost 15 Euros per person? But to tell a photographer he can’t go up would be blasphemous! So we buy the tickets and go to the top! Views galore!

We study the view photo displays at the top and find where the Trevi Fountains are and we descend and head in that direction. Even though I have walking navigation with me, it is not hard to find. Just follow the bulk of the crowd and we soon arrive! Before we leave the Fountains, we get our last taste of Italian Gelato, it is just the best! I acquire some coins in the change from the Gelato and Elee tosses one in the Fountains in honor of her Mom who we brought here 7 years ago in a wheelchair. It brings tears to Elee’s eyes and I choke up a little also! We even get to see the Spanish Steps but elect not to climb them!

But we move along and find a bus stop to ride again and we ride a complete loop plus a couple stops to the Rome Train Terminal. Here we get on the Metro Train and try to ride 2 stops to the Colosseum. Alas, the train slows at the Colosseo stop but doesn’t stop! It stops next in Circo Maximo and we get off. We’re not sure of exactly where we are but soon I recognize the streets and figure out it is where we walked this morning to get to the bus! It’s strange how things become familiar quickly!

It turns out the reason we couldn’t stop at the Colosseo either on a bus or a train is that the Pope was scheduled to be there. Italian News tells us a Cardinal went in his place due to the cold weather. As much as we thought it tolerable today has a lot to do with what we experienced in Tuscany during the last week! We did wear warm clothing today and I can understand how an 86 year old person does not want to brave this weather!

We have a slightly longer walk back home than we thought, but only a mile or so! So we walk back (aided a few times with my walking navigator GPS, I love that part as it also shows the direction my phone points!) and we get ‘home’ in about a half hour. With almost 13,000 steps in today, my legs agree it is time to call it a day!

We check out a restaurant that is almost directly across the street from our room, which is convenient. It was “Pizzeria al Vinoria”! Can you figure out what they sell? You are wrong. They not only sell Pizza and wine, they also sell all kinds of pasta and meat dishes! We both order pasta and I can’t get over how perfectly Italian restaurants can cook pasta, “Al Denti”! Fantastic meal!

We retire to our room and relax to write these Blogs. I have a bottle of wine left and we can’t take it on the plane due to traveling with carry on’s so what to do, what to do? Oh, I have an idea! (and it doesn’t include leaving it behind, LOL)

So good night and I tip my glass to all my followers and readers! And tip it again! And again!

To Rome, Thurs, Apr 6

We get up today and check out of our Villa. We point ourselves towards Rome. I have forgotten to turn ‘Avoid Toll Roads’ off so we find ourselves winding our way back through Pienza first. I suddenly remember and turn Toll Roads back on and it turns us around completely and we repeat the first half hour. Probably should have let it be. But we finally get on the Autostrada (Toll Road) and head towards Rome. A brief stop at another AutoGrille for a bite for breakfast. We love AutoGrille as it is not your average highway service store, but a full on restaurant with really good food!

Then something fun occurs! We spot a medieval city on top of a cliff and it looks so interesting that we leave the highway in search of it! It turns out to be the town of “Orte” and we finally get there after a few wrong turns because we don’t know the name until we get there. We drive up through very narrow medieval streets like several towns we have seen. At times we creep along at about 1 or 2 mph because the road is so narrow and we only have a few inches on each side and we even have to make a few ‘K’ turns to be able to get into some streets!

Bur we find a lovely restaurant at the top and have more authentic Italian pasta for lunch! If you have never eaten Al Denti Italian Pasta in Italy, you are missing out! The people are friendly and love Californians too!

But this was just a side excursion to use up a couple of hours and it was a fun one! We move on and make it back to the Autostrada and drive the last hour into Rome. The driving is somewhat hectic and I never thought I would be driving in Rome! But I only plan to drive in and park the car for 2 days until we leave Rome! We’re on foot from here! It turns out we find a parking garage only one block from where we’ll be staying and that is very convenient!

So we get into our place, the “Metronia Guest House”, and it is the tiniest place so far. It is a room in what appears like a boarding house. We do have our own bath but the kitchen is shared among 5 rooms! But it is clean and seems comfortable so all is good.

We are told it is walking distance to the Colosseum and now I am thrilled to have that Italian sim card in my phone as the navigator works for both driving AND walking! Sure enough, the Colosseum is less than a mile away straight down the road our room is on! We get there and attempt to buy tickets to enter, but alas! The first tickets that are available are for a week from now! Oh well, we photograph it from the outside and our cameras do not complain!

We then come across a vendor selling Hop On Hop Off Bus tickets and we purchase 2, good for 24 hours. We have to walk a half mile to the closest bus stop and wait about 20 minutes before a bus comes along. We get on and are told that because of the hour, the bus will not make it back to this spot but will end at the Rome Train Station! We get on anyway because what’s an adventure without lots of adventure? We get close up views of lots of old buildings including the “Wedding Cake” and it is a fun trip. We are on the top open air level and I left my warm hat in our room. Brrr! But it is nowhere near as cold as it was in Tuscany the last 5 days!

We walk around and find a pizzeria and we order a pie and a couple glasses of wine and all is good again! Then we walk across the street to the train station and navigate our way through the huge terminal, stopping and asking random workers how to get on the local train to the Colosseum? We finally figure it out and find a ticket machine that allows us to do our transaction in English! Whoopee! We buy another pair of 24 hour train tickets so we are good to go for transportation until tomorrow night!

Navigating the Metro Trains is not difficult and we can recognize the name of the station we want so we board a train in the right direction! We get off at the Colosseo Station (Colosseum) and sure enough, we are right there at night! The Colosseum is spectacular at night and our cameras are in their own element again! Too bad there is some form of construction going on for about three quarters of the way around the building. I’m hoping to do a little creative editing and disguise most of the construction!

Then it is a 17 minute walk to our room and it caps our energy for the night! So back in the room to get our photos uploaded and the words of this Blog written and it is time for slumberland! See you all tomorrow!

See you all Tomorrow!

Trequanda, Apr 5 Truffle Hunt

Today is the reason we booked this trip in the first place! But our hunt isn’t until 3PM. So we get up at 9AM and head out to visit Pienza which was cut short a couple days ago because of our small bout with food poisoning! We visit the Duomo at the top of the city and find breakfast. As we walk around, we find a wine tasting in the center of town. So we try out more Tuscan wines!

Then we head out and check out a castle that we have passed by several times and this time we drive in and it turns out to have the best wine tasting of the trip! FREE! so we taste several wines and I buy a bottle of their best one which is only 21 Euros! We can’t believe our luck! Then we go back to our villa for an hours rest before our hunt starts!

We finish our visit to the castle, which has some fun statues that are clearly very old along with some other very old relics and we drive away past an olive orchard!

Promptly at 3PM, we meet Andrea, our Hunter, and only one other couple is with us with their 10 year old daughter. They are Leon, Vera and daughter Marie from Tarzana, CA, a mere hour drive from where we live! We’ll need to stay in touch! We follow Andrea down the road a kilometer or two and park. Andrea releases her truffle dog, Mia, but the dog answers to the name “Puppy” which is only a puppy but seems to know it’s stuff. We walk off into the woods following Puppy and soon enough, she is digging at the ground. Yes! A truffle! I will go into more depth on the kinds of truffles but for now, we have found truffles! All in all, the puppy finds 47 grams of truffles (as weighed later) which is about 23 Euros worth, plenty enough for dinner for 4! Our hunter throws in a black truffle she found this morning and we have 60 grams!

There are 3 basic kinds of Truffles, Marzuolo (found in the spring and the ones we find today!), Tartufo Estivo O Scorzone (Black Truffles, found in the summer and fall mostly) and Tartufo Bianco (White Truffles, found in the fall into winter)

Andrea gives the truffles to our chef, Giovanna, for the evening, and we all agree to meet at 7:15PM for dinner. So we go back to our room and relax until then. We have a couple hours and I even get a nap in! We all meet at the agreed time and are ushered into the dining room and get seated at the table. Our truffle mates are a Russian couple, Leon, Vera and daughter Marie, that happen to live in Tarzana, CA and we get along famously! So much so that those of you that live local to us may even get to meet them one day as they are now on our invite list!

The meal is fabulous and every course includes truffles! We ask what the courses are but no one speaks English! So the photos will have to suffice! Dessert is the only course that doesn’t use truffles and we feign mock disappointment and everyone laughs! Then they serve us Grappa, which Elee and I have been dying to try. It is a sweet Anisette, licorice flavored after dinner drink, which is interesting but I probably won’t order again! Strong!

So it’s back to the room to write this blog and retire. A fire lit, we kick back and turn on Netflix and turn in!