Gagner une semaine en Toscane!
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Old Friends Re-Union
“Our long journey to Tuscany started back in 1970, the year in which Paul McCartney left the Beatles and British teenagers like myself and my two friends Phil and Dave, were entitled to vote for the first time. It was also the year that we graduated from hotel school and started work as assistant managers at a grand old hotel in Bournemouth.
By the summer of that year we were settled into our jobs and planning our first holiday together as adults. Our manager at the hotel hailed from the Tuscany region and would spend hours describing how beautiful it was and what a great place it would be for us to visit. Unfortunately, Europe was not quite as accessible as a holiday destination in those days, especially for impoverished young men like us, so we settled for a week in Jersey. The attached photo was taken on that holiday.
Although we didn’t make it to Tuscany on that first holiday, we never forgot our manager’s recommendation. Before we left the hotel to pursue our own managerial careers in different parts of the world, we made a promise. If we were all still alive and able, we would meet up again at the end of our working lives and finally enjoy that holiday in Tuscany.
Well true to our words, in 2014 the reunion happened. Our careers now over, we hadn’t forgotten that 44 year old promise and we began making plans to take that long awaited trip. The three of us have worked and lived all over the world in the intervening years and still reside thousands of miles apart. Phil lives in Durban, South Africa, with his wife Alison. I have been in Canada for nearly 40 years and live on Vancouver Island with my Canadian wife Dianne, and Dave married his childhood sweetheart Gail, and they live in England.
After a combined 33 hours of flying we reunited at our old hotel in Bournemouth. Unsurprisingly our first manager is no longer working at the hotel but we did discover that his son had opened an Italian restaurant nearby. We spent a wonderful evening there enjoying the sort of food that we were shortly to experience at its source, catching up on all our experiences and giving our ‘significant others’ a chance to get to know each other and form their own friendship.
The next day a flight to Pisa, and a short 1 hour drive into the heart of Tuscany to fulfil our 44 year old promise. We had selected the Villa Grazia in the hills of Monsummano Terme, which is located high up in the hills on a narrow mountain road. ( the view from our patio is attached).
Phil took the first turn behind the wheel of our hire car and being used to driving on the left in South Africa drove a bit too close to the rocks at the side of the road and before we even arrived at our villa we had a puncture! Unfortunately the new model hire car didn’t come with a spare tyre, only a can of compressed air, which doesn’t help when the tyre has a big rip in it!
As we waited for the tow truck, we purchased a couple of bottles of Tuscan wine to take with us to enjoy on our first evening in the villa. It soon became apparent that with 3 of us telling our life stories of 44 years of work and families, one week in Italy was not going to be long enough, ......and we needed a lot more of this lovely wine!
On our first full day we took the train into Florence. Although the trains were quite frequent we missed two while queueing for tickets! Trenitalia had apparently just introduced a new computer system and teething problems meant it took about 10 minutes to serve every customer. Frustrations were running quite high among all the waiting passengers until eventually the station manager told us all to get onto the train without a ticket. Believe it or not this continued for the next 4 days as computers kept crashing and we probably travelled 800 kms over the week without having to pay for a ticket....Thank you Trenitalia!
After a wonderful day on a hop-on hop-off bus tour in Florence we returned to our gorgeous villa. There is so much beauty in the region that we were certainly not lost for places to visit. Lucca was our next port of call and probably our favourite. What a day we had as we rented bicycles and toured this beautiful walled city. Although it was busy we were told by our Italian speaking ‘Scottish waitress’ that July and August are even busier. A car accident on our route home caused a long delay and sitting in a hot car for an hour made the swimming pool at our villa even more enjoyable when we finally returned.
Next morning I went to the grocery store for some eggs and as I don’t speak Italian I decided to flap my arms and ‘cluck’ like a chicken. Inevitably I was taken to the deli counter where all the chicken was displayed. I won’t go into detail here about how I mimed that it was the right creature but I wanted its eggs! This is part of the fun to experience when travelling to another country and breakfast on our patio, high above the Tuscan countryside gave us some time to laugh at my ineptitude while enjoying the breathtaking views. The memories and stories that we shared had us all astounded that a lifetime had flown by as we went from boys to senior citizens.
Only a short drive from our villa, we discovered Montecatini Alto, and if you haven’t been there, this is a must! A funicular (cable car) pulls you to the top of a hill high above Montecatini Terme, with stunning 360‘ views. (The group photo was taken here) Outdoor bars and restaurants are in abundance and we all spent too much in the quaint little shops.
A week together flew by and in no time we were returning the rental car in Pisa, shedding many tears as we bid farewell once again, with another promise....we will do it again and this time it won’t be in 44 years .........another week in Tuscany? ABSOLUTELY!”
