Day 4: Wedding planning adventures in the country

Hi all!
I lied about catching up on blog posts.  But I was exhausted and feeling icky so I just couldn't bring myself to get to it until just now.

We woke up super early to go grab the car and head out to meet with the caterer in Poggibonsi about 40 minutes away and then to meet with the florist in Montalcino which was about another hour and 20 minutes from Poggibonsi.  Out the door we fly and we stop at a bakery just across the street from us and have these beautiful and wonderous smelling pasteries.  Mine had cotto ham, cheese and a squash flower rolled up like a cinammon bun.  Dan had a sweet, sticky bun, both incredible.  We hike our butts down to the public parking lot where my brain suddenly kicks in and remembers that I grabbed pretty much every paper we had at the apartment except the one with the addresses we needed.  Sigh.  So we shell out the 20 euros for one nights parking (yeah, that's right 20 euros which equals about $26 americanos.) and then wind our way around back to the apartment which takes forever because of course I get lost about 5 times.  After I send Dan back multiple times to get the right papers off we go.  I only get lost about 4 times but we eventually get on the right track and are treated to some interesting neighborhoods.  It's hard to keep your eyes on the road because there is such a concentration of things to see but you are also on the verge of a nervous breakdown from driving so, you focus on not dying or killing anyone.

Driving on the highway is as it should be!  People drive fast and in the RIGHT lane unless you need to pass in which case you get over to the left lane, pass and get immediately back into the right lane.  You hear that American drivers?  There are no shoulders and the exits are few and far between so there are police cameras monitoring traffic at intervals.  There cool thing about this is that there is a warning about a quarter mile ahead of time that one is coming up and then there is a giant sign over the box that is set up to catch you.  It took me passing about 2 boxes to realize what was going on so hopefully we don't get any tickets.  The scenery of course was luscious and there were some fun tunnels we drove through.  When we get to Poggibonsi the GPS is giving us great directions and we are hitting all the turns (except for a few spots where GPS first tried to drive us into a wall next to train tracks but, hey, nobody is perfect!).  We see we are getting close and GPS says "Turn left", which we do, onto a very narrow, single lane dirt road into the forest.  Hmmmmm.  Ok, well, GPS seems confident and who knows, this could be right.  It has to be right!  So up, up, up and around and around we go until GPS says, "You have arrived at your destination."  Oh really?  We are in the middle of nowhere GPS!!!  WTF???  I'm about to slide off the side of a steep hillside into a vinyard.  I'm pretty sure we are NOT at our destination.  So we drive up a little further and find a little farm driveway to pull into and I call the caterer who casually tells us that, oh yeah, there are two streets with the same exact name and one is wrong.  While we are sitting in the driveway the old woman who lives there comes out to the gate to stare at us the entire time even though we are waving her away.  We reprogram our GPS and head back into town and finally find the caterer.

They are super nice people who we were assured spoke very good English.  Not so much true but we managed to awkwardly charade our way through what we needed so it should be interesting to see what we end up with!  When we were ready to leave we asked about the best food in town and she sent us out to a place she called Sosta del Papa.  It was out of town in the country and actually called Sosta di Pio VII but MAN was it worth finding!  It is an idyllic little stone farmhouse covered in ivy and flowers and the food was so good I could have cut out my tongue after eating there and not regretted it one bit.  The waiter came out and instantly I liked him.  Cute in a rough way with a smart ass way about him.  He guessed I was from NY!  Probably just a lucky guess though.  They brought out a brown paper bag filled with fresh bread and we had a mixed plate appetizer of meats and sauces to start and then a plate of fresh made ricotta and spinach ravioli in a tomato with boar sauce.  After that we shared a mixed grill plate of chicken, pork ribs, sausage and steak (which was cooked perfectly rare.  They don't ask you how you want it, they just cook it right.) and it was perfect in it's simplicity.  Oh, and of course, wine.  FOOD COMA!!!  But no time for that, time to get to the florist!

Back on the road and this trip was more country roads than highway.  They do not have any shoulders on any of their roads which is probably a good thing to keep tourists like us from pulling over to take pictures every 5 feet but I really wanted to pull over and take pictures every 5 feet!  Oh well, we got some blurry, over exposed pictures you can see on our Flickr feed.  When you pull into Montalcino you are instantly taken back in time.  You can imagine it as it was hundreds of years ago.  It's small and every view is breathtaking.  We had some time so what did we do?  We got gelato of course!  I had lemon and Dan had Creme Caramel.  Both super yum :)  As we sat outside and ate it we watched the town cat come sauntering through on his rounds.  A tough looking little fuzzball.  After gelato we decided we had better check and make sure the florist is where it said it would be since nothing else has been where it's supposed to be.  SIDE NOTE: Dan and I decided that Florence changes itself at will.  You see things one day that you don't the next and vice versa.  Every day!  OK, BACK TO THE STORY - We wander down the street and find the florist - miracle!  So we keep going to check out the town while we have time.  So quaint and full of so many steep hills and stairs. 

When we finally meet with the florist she speaks absolutely NO English but has brought her 30-something years old son who is obviously a video gamer to sort of translate.  Again, we manage to work out what we want via hand gestures and pictures and our limited Italian vocabulary.  So, we'll see what I end up with for flowers!  I'm not even sure what I asked for at this point...hahahaha!  It's at this point that I speak on the phone with my wedding planner and she tells me that we should plan on my dress not arriving for real.  I want to cry but all I can do is laugh and shrug my shoulders and ask the florist if she can make me a dress out of flowers.  She actually considers it for a moment.  We decide to take advantage of the sunlight we have left to explore the town some more and we are glad we did.  When we finally go to get back on the road Dan decides to give driving a try.  Bravo Dan!  It was a fairly uneventful drive back except for some ridiculous traffic getting back into the city and Dan did great driving the whole way.  We were very boring that night and came home, cooked up some eggs, salami and cheese with bread for dinner, did some blogging and uploaded some photos.  Oh yeah!  I took what I thought was a melatonin but actually turned out to be an Ambien which suddenly punched out my brain...zzzzzzzzzz.
All day 4 pics here http://www.flickr.com/photos/65343163@N05/sets/72157629890275150/
Tomorrow, the Ufizzi y'all!