suddenlytuscany

Several of us took a spur-of-the-moment trip that relied on advice from this board, so I thought I'd give back a trip report. Some of the areas we visited have been written about comprehensively in professional and amateur guides, and I better say right up front that we traveled in a style that I don't think many travelers would readily want to emulate, fun as it was for us, but here goes anyway!

(Note: All details regarding the identities of the travelers and their individual behavior have been deliberately obscured!)

Day 1 -- Chiusi

Coming in from Rome, we decided to rent our car in Chiusi, but since we arrived in Italy after dark, we elected to spend our first night right there, in Chiusi. We ate at a Michelin-recommended restaurant in the heart of town, Zaira. which is (we learned) renowned for its astonishing wine cellar: an ancient Etruscan tunnel holding some enormously expensive, vintage wines and which rest, undisturbed, under thick layers of Tuscan dust. The restaurant is happy to let its customers tour the cellars, no matter what wine they drink, and it's quite atmospheric. (Steep stairs, no other access.)

http://www.zaira.it/

For ourselves, we chose a very modestly-priced but delicious Chianti (Frescobaldi winery) to accompany our haphazard selection of antipastas, pastas and meats. In retrospect, we should have simply let the waitstaff pick for us, since we stuck to much to the familiar. All our ignorant selections were tasty, and a dessert torte studded with whole dried figs and walnuts was outstanding.

We bedded down for the night at Albergo La Sfinge, also in the heart of town, whose rooms were perfectly clean, perfectly quiet, perfectly comfortable and reasonably cheap (80e for a double). The owner was wonderfully friendly and accommodating. We'd all be happy to return.

http://www.albergolasfinge.it/

Coming soon - the Val d'Orcia

ekscrunchy

Good info..look forward to reading more.

Did you notice that the restaurant is for sale? The menu looks excellent and it is so atmospheric!

suddenlytuscany

ekscrunchy,

Actually, I didn't see the website for Zaira until I looked it up to include in this trip report, and now I do see that it is for sale. Alas, what I also now see on the website is a number of very unusual and appealing dishes that were not highlighted on the in-house menu, which we would have eagerly tried. The decor of the restaurant is pleasantly very old-fashioned and a bit formal, but it is the deep down cellar that is really something to see and experience.

We decided to take turn picking restaurants, and on this trip, we didn't have time to make up lists ahead of time, and lugging around a lot of guidebooks was out of the question. We settled on using the Michelin guide, and got somewhat mixed results with it, since Michelin a bit more conservative than we are!

By the way, a much-recommended restaurant in Chiusi is La Solita Zuppa, which Michelin also recommends and we decided to save for a lunch meal in Chiusi, a decision we came to regret!

Onward....

suddenlytuscany

Day 2 -- Val D'Orcia, Sant'Antimo, Montalcino

Weather forecasts had predicted rain for the morning, and thus our plan was to tour the highly-regarded Etruscan museum in Chiusi and have lunch at La Solita Zuppa. But when we awoke, the day was brilliantly sunny. Doing Chiusi justice was immediately postponed for another day. After a few glitches getting started (locating a tiny screwdriver to repair someone's broken eyeglasses, tracking down an aspirin for a pulled muscle, making the trek to the Avis car rental office) we were finally in our rental car and headed out to the famed Val d"Orcia.

We will take this moment to honestly confess that this small area of Italy is so famous, so photographed, so English-speaker-tourist-friendly, we initially felt less like we were in Italy than on a kind of preserve. One member of our group was heard to exclaim that he hoped this wasn't the only part of Italy some foreign visitors see. Pretty as it was, it seemed Anglicized and drained of surprises. Partly because of the strong sun, which tended to make things look one-dimensional, the famous landscapes were more like cardboard pop-ups to our eyes, having seen them framed by photographs so many times. Cold weather travel in that area has one big plus: The hills were richly dark and even green in many places, rather than parched.

It was such a lovely day to be out in farm country that we were certainly glad we we'd left a town center to see the rolling hills under the Tuscan sun. Rather than stop inside the towns of Montepulciano, Pienza or San Quirico d'Orcia, we decided to keep enjoying the drive until we reached Sant'Antimo. We figured we would stop in some hilltowns in the afternoon.

We were lucky that a very large religious service was disbanding as we descended the driveway to Sant'Antimo. It freed up all the parking spaces and emptied the church! We do know that the church is famed for its monks chanting, but we, as a group, we're just as glad to have given that a miss.

The church exterior is particularly lovely, although some of it was blocked off for restoration, with ugly orange netting, so we didn't see in its pristine glory. Even so, we again we found ourselves feeling there was something a bit stale in the church view, and with our eyes drifting again toward the sun-drenched landscape, and our stomachs growling, ferociously, we decided to head for lunch and hash out a plan for the rest of the day.

One member of our group selected Boccon di Vino out of the Michelin guide, which we soon discovered has a stupendous view -- a truly stupendous view. (I have since learned some regard it as the finest view in that area of Tuscany). That aside -- although it was really impossible to set it aside -- the ambience and menu of the restaurant left us feeling like we could have been at any number of tasteful, upscale restaurants in the world that serve refined, modern Italian food in a white washed, terra cotta setting, with the John Denver on the muzak. But everything was meticulously prepared and served, and the local Montalcino wine was particularly nice. Surprisingly (for Italy), it was once again dessert that made the most lasting impression: a fresh ricotta "bavarese" with a chestnut sauce.

http://www.bsur.it/boccondivino/default.htm

From so high up, the occasional clouds flying over the sunny landscape made for an almost oceanic, dynamic effect, and again the open road proved so appealing, we made no other plan than to plunge right back onto it, this time heading in the general direction of Asciano.

At last, we found what we'd hoped to find. North of Montalcino was, to us, an extraordinarily beautiful, surprising landscape, that left us amazed with every new twist and turn. In the low light of day, well into autumn, it was ablaze with rich color and deep shadows. The postage stamp farms we had seen in the morning were replaced by great, rolling stretches of velvety, plush hills, sometimes slashed by woods, sometimes deeply carved by that very peculiar moonscape erosion, sometimes broken up by vineyards, coppery trees or long rows of something delicate just beginning to sprout green, we didn't know what.

But the light was fading fast, and the driving becoming more challenging. Without stopping, we pressed on to Lucignano, a perfectly elliptical Tuscan hilltown where we would be spending the next 3 nights. ...

to be continued...

StuDudley

>>famed for its monks chanting, but we, as a group, we're just as glad to have given that a miss.<<

Why is that, if you didn't even listen to it? How do you know what you missed??

We enjoyed it - so have others on this forum.

Did you visit Monticchiello in the heart of the Val d'Orcia.?

>>We will take this moment to honestly confess that this small area of Italy is so famous, so photographed, so English-speaker-tourist-friendly, we initially felt less like we were in Italy than on a kind of preserve. One member of our group was heard to exclaim that he hoped this wasn't the only part of Italy some foreign visitors see.<<

Wow - that's certainly not what we experienced. I don't know how anyone cound have decided that it was too "English-speaker-tourist-friendly" in just one quick morning drive-through - without even stopping in Montepulciano, Pienza, San Quirico, or Montalcino.

Stu Dudley

suddenlytuscany

Hmmm. Maybe it was all those big signs painted in English with words like "Free Wine Tasting Here" and "We Ship to the USA" that gave us that feeling?

Or maybe for frequent travellers in Italy, there is a visible difference in manicure?

Anyway, we did not and do not doubt for a moment that the millions of foreign visitors who come to this part of Italy every year enjoy it and have a highly individual reactions to the Val d"Orcia. That's okay, we think. To have individual reactions.

As for monks chanting, we as a group had heard chanting many times, in many places, so we do know what we missed and -- again -- we know others enjoy such experiences immensely and pass no comment on that. We did, however, wish to see the church interior, and our experience has been that visiting during ceremonies, tourists are expected to stay put and not discuss, etc. and we had no wish to offend or interrupt. Easier when the church is empty.

I stated at the outset of this report that ours was unorthodox trip, and I hope I won't have to come back and defend each installment against criticisms of the highly enjoyable trip that we had, even though we knew when we were taking it that our reactions were not the common ones. Mass tourism takes care of that quite nicely in that area. But maybe a few other people as quirky as us will get something out of hearing about our trip. We're not discouraging others from going and enjoying the standard itinerary, and having the standard reactions.

By the way, this is a good point at which to insert that one dish several of us enjoyed very much at Boccon di Vino was carabaccia, a very light-colored onion soup, made with very sweet onions (or a bit of added sugar) and bread. It was unusual, light and nice, and we understand it's very popular. So we're normal there!

bfrac

I'm looking forward to more as well. This should make a good weekend read.

suddenlytuscany

Lucignano -- Day 2, continued

Lucignano is an quite charming, not much touristed Tuscan hilltown, although in this part of Italy, "not much touristed" doesn't mean the same thing as it does in, say, Le Marche or Lazio. But here is a picture that shows its appeal:

http://www.toscanaviva.com/Lucignano/lucignano.jpg

Our restaurant-hotel, Da Toto, is just to the right of the main church. From this angle, you can see the swimming pool (not for us November!) and the imposing castle tower that was visible from our windows:

http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/med...erial-shot.jpg

We drove through the medieval gate, and headed up a steep ramp in front of the main church into the architecturally soaring heart of town. We easily found Albergo Ristorante Da Toto, and were greeted by a small riot of barking puppies, several curious young children and our exceptionally warm young hosts, who showed us to our very, very modest rooms upstairs, giving us multiple promises to kick up the heat if we needed it.

Albergo Ristorante da Toto has a long tradition of highly regarded authentic Tuscan cooking, with two generations of chefs running the show. The dining rooms and common areas are particularly homey and relaxing. If you've never stayed in a rural albergo ristorante in Italy, you should know it's not surprising to find third-hand repainted furniture in the bedrooms, mismatched wallpaper, bunkbeds alongside matrimonial doubles, hand-me-down curtains from another century, calendar art on the walls, etc. The trade-off for such modest accommodations is the great kitchen and the cheap price. We booked half-board, off season, 55 euros per person per night for five-course dinners with wine, homemade breakfasts and a room.

After dumping our bags, some of us headed out into Lucignano to buy wine and an extra toothbrush at the local supermarket. Some of us took showers, charged up cellphones, read or rested. It was just before dinner that we encountered the first serious glitch of our Tuscan group tour: One member of our group was seriously unhappy with the accommodations. We had previously agreed that everyone should speak up with any complaints. Nobody simply had to put up with group dictatorship. The complaint was that the room was cold, the bed was soft, the shower was not a shower but a shower curtain surrounding a drain in the floor. Offers to switch rooms among us were made. That didn't satisfy. What seemed to be wanted was an entirely new hotel.

In the end, the complaining member wanted to postpone any final decision until trying both the food at dinner, and a night in the room. Perhaps it would be okay.

Dinner went a very long way to solving the problem. At Da Toto, one doesn't get a menu. One is served as a guest. Two uncorked bottles of wine, one white, one red, were placed on the table. (Da Toto makes its own wine.) A procession of dishes arrived, the highlights of which were a milk-based, velvety potato soup flavored with rosemary that was out of this world, and later, slices of pork buried in fresh mushrooms which were divine, everything that mushrooms should be. We all liked the white wine, but feared at first the red might be a bit too full and funky. But the red went perfectly with the pork. Dessert was an exquisite array of homemade biscuits, sparking dessert wine, followed by excellent coffee.

We awoke to glorious sunshine and arrived at breakfast to find yoghurt, juice, fresh breads and more homemade not-too-sweet biscuits, plus we found homemade rosehips marmelade, that was just perfect. After a better-than-expected night's sleep, our complaining friend had arrived at a decision: If there was a better room available, it would be fine to stay put. Our hosts at Da Toto were informed of the problem and instantly eager to please. They unlocked many doors to many different rooms and let our friend choose. All was well!

We spent part of the morning admiring Lucignano's lovely architecture and unique town shape, then headed back out into the beautiful landscape. Our destination was Monte Olivieto Maggiore. We arrived in time to linger over the fabulous frescoes that line the cloister. They are a great cartoon of the life of St Benedict, filled with devils, civic upheavals, beatings and miracles, and the pastel colors are often unique and exquisite. We liked them so much, we marched around twice, to the sound of monks singing bleeding in from an adjacent chapel.

Afterwards, as we made our way back up to the parking lot, past the wonderful della Robbias over the gate, we watched a young woman leaving the service beat both her daughter and her toddler son, with slaps and shakes, finally separated from them by her husband, actually not unlike the scenes of St Benedict beating his student monks in the frescoes. Life imitates art. Food for thought.

We needed food for the body, and enthusiastically headed for Buonconvento, a town whose grand walls had made us all swivel our heads as we zoomed by the day before. It's an absolutely flat town with an important train station right there, and a huge amount of parking outside the walls. We walked through the gates of the fortifications and found ourselves in a lovely, lively street with a mix of impressive Florentine and Sienese architecture, and several osterie to choose from.

Perusing menus as we walked, we settled on an osteria Da Duccio, whose menu del giorno promised pumpkin risotto, followed by meats. Inside was a lovely scene: Italian families and the occasional lone senior out for Sunday lunch. Everybody talking at a roar, the wait-staff performing miracles of delivering steaming platters of food over the heads of the crowds. We settled into a corner table and managed to shout above the din. The highlight of the meal turned out to be heaps of fantastic spinach, cooked deeply in delicious olive oil. It was all inexpensive and filling.

After lunch, we walked around the small town, enjoying the architecture and the view through windows of restaurant after restaurant filled with large families, and the muffled sounds of noisy children having fun. While pausing to admiring the great gate at the end of town, we were startled when a very elderly woman with a cane came walking through it leading her enormous cat on a leash. She argued with the cat the entire way, since the cat frequently wanted to stop to chase a leaf or eyeball a bird. But in the end, she always won and kept him trotting at her side at the end of a rope, and the two of them finally disappeared along the river bank, heading up the way of the old via Francingena.

The two noteworthy museums in Buonconvento were closed (one of sacred art, the other documenting the history of farming in the area) but even if they had been open, I think we still would have headed back to the "crete sinese" landscape. This time we frequently stopped the car on the side of the road to get out and walk and admire the vistas, take a few snaps, right up until the sunset.

We returned to Lucignano, and toured the open churches. In one, a modest town church devoted to charitable works, a sacristan who spoke some English showed us the rooms that historically had been used for charity medical care, where there was still a horse-drawn ambulance, basins for washing up before surgery and, curiously, a hand-cranked basket filled with beads that was used every year in a charity lottery to raise money. The church also housed the antique hearse and black-hooded vestments used to carry the dead through town (after their surgery?), as well as a lot of other startling medieval items of ceremony and religious veneration. We stayed too long at this curious church to make it to Lucignano's civic museum, which guidebooks have said merits a visit.

Dinner at Toto was simply marvelous, the highlights of that meal being a fantastic radicchio soup, terrifically tangy and the kind of soup that surely cures any illness imaginable. There was a tasty handmade pasta sauced with red and yellow peppers, plus pounded beef rolled around small plums. The dessert was a huge hit: perfectly fried slices of apple drizzled with sugar syrup.

The next morning, all of us commented we could not remember another meal in recent memory that had settled so well on our stomachs. Despite not drinking too much wine -- it's easier when you just take what you want from an opened bottle, rather than ordering one -- we had all slept like logs.

Next up: Day 4, under the Tuscan snow

ekscrunchy

This is great. I respect your opinions, however, unorthodox!

I looked up carabaccia and found this, which may, or may not, be of interest:



http://tinyurl.com/5u2q7y


Your mention of Boccon di Vino reminded me of a long thread here which developed after someone had an unsatisfactory tuna dish. I could not find it on Fodor's, but here it is, on another site:


http://slowtalk.com/groupee/forums/a...8105495/inc/-1

suddenlytuscany

But in the meantime, here's the website for the beloved Albergo Ristorante da Toto. (That's Babu and Dodo. mother and child, on the rug):

http://www.trattoriatoto.it/english/index1.html

suddenlytuscany

ekscrunchy,

I found that thread looking up the website for Boccon DiVino.

I have to say that we were treated exquisitely well at the restaurant, by the entire staff. Every dish was made of first-rate ingredients.

In many trips to Italy, I have never sent a dish back. My impressions of Italy, from many trips, is that this is an insult to somebody's mother (or father), and it is simply a different culture in that respect. The one time I was unable to finish a dish I simply detested, I made an elaborate excuse about suddenly not feeling well, too much sun, etc.

Anyway, my problems with Boccon DiVino had to do with how tailored it was to please an affluent, international crowd. I suppose there is really something odd about complaining about too much perfection in this part of Italy, but it got a bit suffocating and bland, and we were glad to mostly escape it, even when some of our lunch choices could never match Boccon di Vino for quality and presentation -- and sitting there, watching that subtly changing view over the course of two hours, was a very memorable part of the trip, worth the John Denver in our ears.

anna_roz

<<We do know that the church is famed for its monks chanting, but we, as a group, we're just as glad to have given that a miss.>>

Oh no!! You missed the most amazing, spiritual experience! Hands down, one of the highlights of our trips to Italy.

You also missed the wonderful small towns of Val D'Orcia which are Tuscany at her finest.

Anna Roz

suddenlytuscany

Anna, as you will see, we did return to the area to look at towns. We just weren't going to lose that sun that day, That's why this trip report is called "Carpe Diem." We seized the moment, knowing the towns would always be there, and the sunshine was ephemeral.

As for "spiritual experience," one person's organized spiritual experience is another's unpleasant experience. We just go our separate ways on that one.

We prefer the natural glories of a beautiful day of sunlight on the earth to any church, any time.

SusanP

I'm enjoying your report. I enjoyed the chants at Sant' Antimo but don't see why it should bother me if you weren't interested. Now I want to go to Lucignano! Looking forward to more.

suddenlytuscany

Day 4 -- Arezzo, Montepulciano

We had heard thunderclaps in the middle of the night, and we awoke to pouring rain. Torrential rain. We decided to head to Arezzo and spend the entire day in the shelter of its fine museums -- until we read in our guidebooks all the museums were closed that day.

Even after we reconsidered, Arezzo still seemed like our best best, as we very much wanted to see the Piero della Francesca fresco cycle, The Legend of the True Cross, in the church of San Francesco. We also were keen to see the Piazza Grande, which has porticoes, so we'd have protection from the rain. We marched out the door of Da Toto wrapped up in slickers, umbrellas, hats and boots. The dogs curled up by the fireplace gave us a look that let us know they thought we were crazy.

This is a good point to insert our frustration with GPS systems. We had tried to use it to find Boccon di Vino near Montalcino, and felt spun around in circles, until we just turned it off and looked for signs. We thought it would be very useful in a big city like Arezzo, but when we asked to be directed to a particular parking area near a well-known piazza, the instructions to turn this way and that, with no other context, caused us to pull into a parking lot near the train station, quite far from our preferred one, a mistake we don't think we would have made had we been relying on maps and following signs.

Anyway, we trudged through the rain to the church of San Francesco and ended up being disappointed in the frescoes -- or more accurately, we were disappointed that we bought tickets to be admitted into the area behind the altar, supposedly for the better view, only to conclude that the frescoes actually look much more alive and dynamic from the pews of the church, which surely PDF himself understood when he made them. (All that said, we don't begrudge the church teasing out our extra euros for maintenance.) We'll also confess that the etherally refined works of della Francesca seemed static and too tasteful after the sensual, even saucy, Signorellis up at the Benedictine abbey, with the all the devils and violence and dramatic goings on. (We obviously prefer a looser Italy than many people do.)

We were also disappointed to find the Piazza Grande filled with construction equipment, chain link fences and mounds of dirt. A renovation project in the works. We ducked into the Caffe Vasari on the piazza to dry off and admire what we could of the soaring architecture through the caffe window.

Departing, we found ourselves a little sad to be in Arezzo on a day when the weather made window shopping at the many atmospheric, alluring true antiques stores sheer misery, and a visit to the beautiful, towering church of Santa Maria della Pieve, pierced by hundreds of windows, was not a light-filled experience but a gloomy one.

The rain and low clouds finally lifted enough to reveal that the hills all around us were white with snow! We had harbored some aspirations of driving up into the hills to La Verna, a Franciscan sanctuary quite close to Le Marche, thinking we'd enjoy seeing the collection of della Robbias there. That was now out of the question. We decided to head south.

Now here is where we made the biggest mistake of our trip.

Instead of simply re-feeding the meter in our paid parking lot and finding a good restaurant in Arezzo for lunch, we headed for the autostrade and talked vaguely about seeing the Piazza Grande in Montepulciano, figuring we'd find a restaurant on the way. But we didn't study the map, and once we were on the autostrade, we were unable to get off until we reached the Chiusi exit. At that point, we had to find someplace fast, as it was almost two pm.

We should have simply gone into Chiusi and eaten at La Solita Zuppa or Zaira. Instead, we stubbornly pressed on toward Chianciano Terme, a old spa town full of grand hotels which shuts up tight as a drum in November. We finally spotted an enormous roadside restaurant and pulled in, just in the nick of time. The wait staff didn't look too happy to see us at two minutes to two, but the restaurant was filled with local diners just tucking into their antipasti, so we couldn't legitmately be refused.

There was a cheering fireplace in the corner, the specialty of the restaurant was grilled meats and grilled fish, which we saw reaching other tables in huge mounds. Some of us opted for fish, which turned out to be frozen, and there were canned mushrooms in the salads, and a pasta we believed would be mainly vegetarian had flecks of sausage.

The restaurant -- whose name no one can remember if we ever noticed it-- got mixed reviews from us (some hated it, some were content) but I think we all we felt like fools for being in the middle of gastronomic Tuscany and not paying enough attention to get a good lunch for ourselves. To cap off our folly, we all elected to skip dessert and, eyeing the sumptuous homemade dessert cart on our way out, we had the feeling it was probably the one thing this restaurant did well.

Despite seeing snow on the hills closer than we liked, we moved up to Montepulciano, hoping we'd be staying low enough to only get rain, not ice or snow. Our luck held in that respect, and with the surprisingly snotty help of the tourist office, we found parking just downhill of the Piazza Grande and walked up. In chill and fading light, we were quite taken with the piazza's lighthearted Florentine flourishes, contrasted with its dignified, even stark duomo and monumental tower, and we especially enjoyed having it all to ourselves. We tried to imagine what it would be like in a warmer, sunnier moment, but couldn't imagine one without throngs of tourists in addition to the sun. In that respect, we thought the graceful piazzas of Lucignano were still the place we'd want to be on a warm spring night in Tuscany.

We continued admiring the piazza from the dry warmth of the cafe just off it, sipping hot tea. Afterwards, we went into the wine cellar in the Palazzo Contucci, sampled some wines, and bought a bottle. Getting slightly lost on our way back to our car in the increasing dark and renewed rain,, we happened upon Bottega del Rame without looking for it. The gleaming warm copper in the windows, and the peace of the workshop with the coppersmith at work, made a very beautiful twillight sight. Walking out through the city gate, the rolling, well-tended landscape beyond the walls was just barely visible, in deep shades of green, brown, reds and even blacks.

By the time we were back in our car, it was raining buckets and absolutely lightless, and the drive back to Lucignano was a flat-out chore, the kind of miserable drive where one is actually glad to have a slow-moving truck directly ahead, just because it's simpler and less harrowing on those narrow twisting farm roads that run alongside of deep ditches.

Dinner at Da Toto chased away all the chill, damp and disappointments of the day, the highlight being was an absolutely heavenly starter made of crushed tomatoes, eggs and onions, nothing else. The meat of the evening was beef short ribs, baked in a hot oven. Simple, chewy and just right.

Tomorrow -- back to Chiusi

sallyky

I'm really enjoying this report. I like your attitude. But the food talk is making me hungry. Wow.
Sally

suddenlytuscany

Thanks for the encouragement! If I barrel though, I will get this done tonight. Glad I'm not boring everyone.

suddenlytuscany

Day 5 - Back to Chiusi, on to Tarquinia

We saw no rain when we awoke, but no sun either. After our final happy breakfast at Da Toto, we paid up our pittance and, having been presented with a gift of the restaurant's cookbook, we were on our way back to Chiusi, for the museum, for lunch, and to visit some Etruscan tombs . The museum proved to be brilliant in its organization and very helpful to English speakers. We learned quite a bit touring its two floors (the basement has many many beautiful Etruscan artifacts that should not be missed).

We had planned to eat a lunch of soup at the highly regarded La Solita Zuppa, but wouldn't you know? They had shut for the day to do renovations. We marched back to Zaira, and ordered a bit more intelligently than previously, and ended up with a better meal. Highlights included perfectly cooked Tuscan beans simply dressed in delicious local olive oil, and a very robust penne pasta with fresh artichoke hearts and fresh ricotta. And a very moist "Saracen torte" for dessert, made of rich grains and with a nice hidden dollop of great jam in the middle.

After lunch, we drove out in the direction of Lago Chiusi, where we were met by a museum guard at the entrance to the "monkey tomb". The guard was not in a good mood. Due to a misunderstanding, he had expected us much earlier, and was impatient for us to get on with it. We spent a few minutes touring the monkey tomb and its neighboring tomb of lions. Truthfully, we got fewer goose bumps there than we did in the multi-roomed Etruscan cellars deep under Ristorante Zaira. We jumped back in the car and headed for Tarquinia.

Although the rain was now gone and the sun was making a hazy reappearance, the drive from Chiusi to Tarquinia was harder than we expected -- or perhaps we were just becoming tired of driving. That said, Tarquinia itself was an unexpected joy, its historic center filled with grand architecture, fountains, atmospheric byways, all clean and attractively lit. The friendly young owner of the Gran B&B del Duomo was kind enough to meet us in the main piazza and guide us to a parking space. (There is lots of parking in Tarquinia, and it is actually not hard to find. We were simply tired.)

Our rooms at the Gran B&B could not have been prettier, quieter, cleaner or more atmospheric. Lodged in the upper floors of a grand palazzo, the high-vaulted ceilings still bear traces of decorative painting from the renaissance, while underneath, the very recent renovations, all done to a very high standard, feature spacious bathrooms and all the mod-cons. All of us were as pleased as punch. The rooms were 70 euros.

http://www.granbandb.it/

Best of all, we were located just steps from both the Etruscan museum, our target sight, and one of Tarquinia's most admired restaurants, Arcadia. After 4 days of Tuscan meat, we were starving for fish, and we enjoyed an absolutely exquisite seafood supper at the oft-recommended Arcadia, We had salt-baked fish, linguine with clams, raw fish drizzled with olive oil and lemons. We were in heaven, and the recommended local white wine, which we thought watery upon tasting, popped to life at the first bite of our food. It was a perfect pairing.

http://www.on-web.it/arcadia/

Day 6 -- Tarquinia, and all the roads that lead to Rome

Up bright and early, we headed round the corner to the National Etruscan museum in the Palazzo Vitelleschi, a very grand and wonderful building in its own right. The collection of artifacts at the museum is dense and layered. The most striking objects are on the very top floor (which also has beautiful views to the sea), and it would make sense to take the elevator to the top floor and work one's way down, since the museum is only partly arranged in chronological order.

Having enjoyed our dinner at Arcadia so much, we elected to eat lunch there as well. We enjoyed a fantastic oyster risotto, which was surprisingly inexpensive given its freshness and quality. We enjoyed a raft of fresh fish antipasti, including huge steamed mussles and a carpaccio of raw octopus, all impeccable.

We thought we'd have a very simple and easy drive to Ostia, near Fiumicino airport, where we were spending our last night in order to take a look at the ruins of Ostia Antica before catching our flights home. However, nothing is simple when it comes to Roman traffic, and our situation was worsened by a sudden downpour, that further snarled traffic. We found ourselves swerving into Ostia in the dark, nerve-wracked by negotiating the densely packed roads and poor signage.

We simply slammed on the brakes in front of a cafe, and one of us was dispatched to ask directions to our hotel. It turned out it was right across the street.

The Rodrigo de Vivar is a place one of our group had longed wished to stay, having seen pictures of it on the internet. It is, indeed, a wonderful, absolutely fascinating place, located in the medieval heart of historic Ostia, right at the edge of the ruins of Ostia's antiquity.

Here are pictures of Rodrigo de Vivar, which is right in this historic quarter:

http://www.rodrigodevivar.com/in/whoweare.html

Ostia was an important defensive position for Rome until about 1500. A great castle was built there to protect river traffic, until the river flooded and took a new course, and the town fell into decline. That decline meant the historic center was never developed, and it remains a wonderfully unique place today.

We were warmly greeted by the owners, shown where we could park, and leant umbrellas to get settled, as well as books about Ostia Antica. The apartments that were made available to us for an absurdly low rate were lovingly furnished, dry and warm. Everything was clean and spotless. We recovered from the terrible drive in the peace of a large private sitting room before heading back to the friendly bar owner who directed us, for a stiff shot of whisky before dinner.

Another in our group had previously picked out a dinner restaurant in Ostia that was historic in a different way: In the early 20th century, workers from Ravenna were imported to drain the marshes for land development. It was brutal work, and many died, and the restaurant Monumento began as a simple trattoria that served these workers, many of whom organized the first worker's cooperatives in Italy.

The restaurant is a terrific place, with a crackling fire in the evening and a sunny solarium for lunch, serving homey specialties of Emilia-Romagna, just as the restaurant began. We were simply wild about our handmade cappelletti, served in brodo or ragu, and a chicken cacciatore that had no tomato sauce, but instead was sauteed in high heat with white wine, garlic, rosemary and vinegar. There were rich desserts and robust house wine. The bill was amazingly cheap.

We knew from the first bite that we'd be returning for lunch the next day. Apparently Federico Fellini fell in love with this restaurant when he was in Rome, and we did too.

http://www.ristorantemonumento.it/

Next: Day 7, Ostia Antica and flying home

suddenlytuscany

Day 7 -- Ostia Antica, Ostia Scavi, and home

The day dawned brilliantly sunny, and after yoghut, cereal, and plenty of coffee, we walked over to Ostia Scavi to tour the sight. For most of us, the greatest area of interest began deep into the excavation site with the amphitheater and the Piazzale delle Corporazioni, where the various merchant guilds of ancient Ostia rolled a carpet of mosaic at their doorstep, immortalizing their craft. Fascinating too are the fireman's barracks, the bakery with its mills, the beautiful tiled baths, and the great expanse of the public forum, dominated by its imposing Temple of the Capitoline.

For us, on this trip, nothing quite competed with the deep, inexplicable magic of strolling through the empty streets of Ostia Scavi, all by ourselves, on a sunny winter's morning. It was easy to suddenly get the feel of what had been so many centuries ago, how people moved about, the continuum of humanity, organizing its chores, erecting state monuments, creating things of beauty.

When lunchtime arrived, we headed back to Osttia Antica to Ristorante Momumento for more cappalletti, more pollo and more delicious dolci.. We took a stroll through the tiny historic borgo of Ostia Antica, admiring its small chapel, its unusual triangular castle-fortifications, and the ongoing life of the handful of people and pets who still live inside the borgo, who sweep up, hang out their laundry, gossip, and have jobs teaching school, among other things. It's a very, very special small town that feels like a privilege to be inside, if only momentarily, and share the food and a place to sleep.

Here are some pictures:

http://tinyurl.com/67vbsk

We retrieved our bags, our car and took the 10-minute drive to Fiumicino airport and dearly wished, one more time, that there were better signs at the airport for dropping off rental cars, but everything got accomplished, no damage done, our plane was only 40 minutes late taking off, and we all arrived safely home.

suddenlytuscany

THINGS WE WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY, THINGS WE WOULD DO THE SAME. ON A FUTURE TRIP:

Chiusi:

We wouldn't rent from Avis, especially if we weren't spending the night in Chiusi. The rental office is simply too far from the train station. If renting through AutoEurope, be sure your pick up address is not the via Molise.

We would get better instructions from the museum when making reservations to see the Etruscan tombs about where to meet and the timing.

The Tuscan Landscape:

Next time, we would be tempted to stay in a agriturismo that serves dinner every night, somewhere deep in the farmlands in the area between Montalcino and Asciano. We would like that place to be somewhere we might also enjoy walking paths -- which appeared to our eyes to be in very short supply, or hard to find, in that area. Our ideal Tuscan vacation would be enjoying the the deep peace and beauty of the farmlands and unusual landscape.

Lucignano:

We would go at a warmer time of year to enjoy the piazzas and life of the town, but otherwise we wouldn't change a thing, and we'd eat at Da Toto.

Buonconvento:

We wished we could have seen its museums, which appeared quite interesting. In all, it's a town I would highly recommend to people who want to base in a characteristic Tuscan town but don't want to be climbing hills all the time to get to restaurants, etc.

Arezzo:

I would pay attention to the dates of its antiques market, and plan to enjoy a lot of browsing.

Montepulciano, Pienza, etc.

I would pay a return visit to Montepulciano just to shop at Bottega del Rame, and I still hope to see Pienza some day. That said, I'm not sure I would ever want to tour the famous hilltowns of Tuscany in "season." Sunny days would have been nice, I'm sure, but I think I'd prefer the least number of fellow tourists.

Tarquinia

I'd start at the top of the Etruscan museum and work my way down. I'm already thinking about spending a few nights here as part of a visit to Rome, using it as a base to explore neighboring areas of the Maremma and Lazio.

Ostia Antica

I hope every time I fly out of Rome's FCO, I can spend some time here. and preferably at Rodrigo de Vivar.

Done!