Today is Saturday,
May 18, and I have a little catching up to do. On Thursday, our last day on
Capri, we awoke to terrible wind, rain, and cold. We were extremely crestfallen
because we had planned a full day of sightseeing. However, by 10:30 all was
clear and sunny so off we went! We took a small, local bus up to the top of
Capri, called Anacapri. The ride was
extremely hairy with switchbacks and
very narrow roads overlooking the water. From the center of town, we
walked to the beautiful Villa San
Michele built in the 1800’s by a Swedish doctor. The grounds were spectacular
and the views of Capri below were magnificent. The villa was built on top of
Roman ruins from the time of Tiberius. He had
built twelve villas there to honor the gods and did quite of lot of
bacchanalian parities there!
In the evening we had reservations at a lovely restaurant in
a lemon grove but, sadly, we had to cancel because the winds and cold air came
back. I don’t think I mentioned that the Amalfi Coast and Capri are known for
their lemons and Capri is the limoncello capital of the world! One of the
pictures I am including is that of a store selling limoncello, a delicious
lemon liqueur.
The next morning brought more rain but we were departing for
Naples and then on to Tuscany. We took a hydrofoil across the sea to Naples and
then took a taxi to the rental car agency and this is when our plans went
downhill fast. Picking up the car was not a problem but they gave us no
instructions on operating the car and Buddy had a lot of difficulty with the
stick shift. It had an automatic brake
of some sort on the shift and the car kept cutting out. He also had to navigate through a horrendous
circle with no traffic lights. We managed to get through the circle and a
tunnel but took a wrong turn out of the tunnel. By then the car was smoking and
overheating probably from the brake being on. Cars were honking and people were yelling and shaking their hands at us as only Italians can! Buddy was a nervous wreck and I
really can’t blame him. He was so upset that he turned around and said he was
returning the car and we would catch a train. We didn’t argue but he parked the
car at a curb on some street and we had no idea where we were and no phone
(that’s another long story). It was up
to Merle and I to try to find a phone and call the rental agency and ask them
to pick up the car. It was rather a
struggle trying to find a phone but we did but couldn’t figure out how to
operate it! In spite of all of the Italian I had learned in my months of classes, I didn't know how to say "Our rental car has overheated and we need to return it to the agency!". We eventually went into a pharmacy and a very nice young woman
helped us. Between her broken English and my broken Italian, she called the
agency for us and it took two phone calls to get through to them what the
problem was. So we caught a taxi back to
the rental agency, arranged for the car return, and took another taxi to the
train station. Two trains later we were finally in Cortona and took a cab to
our hotel, the beautiful Il Falconiere
in Tuscany country. We are staying in a lovely room in a house that once was
the family home of the owner. On the property
are acres and acres of vineyards, a winery, a Michelin rated restaurant,
a spa , a pool, and a chapel. It is so serene and beautiful here and the views
of the Tuscany region are gorgeous!
Once here, and seeing how far out of town our accommodations
are, we realized how totally lost we would have been if we had a rental
car. It is a little inconvenient not to
have a car, but we will have a private driver for the next two days. So all is
well and the problems of yesterday are now a blur.
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