Day 7

An early start one that begins with the twitter of the chatting birds. To full from yesterdays meal we manage to eat our last egg from Casta Bellavista with some freshly home baked bread. Our suitcases packed and the bill paid (all I can say is Happy Honeymoon and it's breadsticks fort he rest of the week), we make our drive down the motorway to Florence.

This is the part were my mind will now be blanked, but before it is may i warn you DO NOT DRIVE INTO FLORENCE it's worse than London, well maybe not but lets say the stress levels were high. We managed to drive into Florence fairly straightforward only one wrong turn, but lots of Arrrrrggggghhhh's. With the car checked we decided to walk to the train station as it was just around the corner, we had an hours wait and on top of that the train was delayed.

The train from Florence to Rome was a eurostar non stop direct route, with booked seats, a very nice train journey that made the 1hour 15 mins go quickly.

At Rome we were greeted by our chauffeur who was waiting to take us to our hotel, through the hustle and bustle of the main roads to squeezing through the narrow cobbled ones.

Our hotel is off the main shopping street so we have easy access to a lot of areas, it's tucked away amongst lots of other buildings and is very basic but nice. We check in feeling exhausted and sit back and make our selves a brew (good old English for Jo and lemon and honey for me) before we brave the busy outside.

Fruity strawberry and peach – Day 6

We went for a drive to Pienze, Jo’s second favourite place. It’s not very built up, a little bigger than Cortona, but the little ‘old’ part is built up on the corner of a road, drive to fast and you might miss it.

Down pedestrian streets, passed little shops, lazily soaking up the sun gazing up at the variety of buildings, walking to the end to be hit by an open landscape of rolling hills, green fields the best we’ve seen and here we enjoy our Ice cream (more like sorbet for Jo (my) lemon and cherry flavour).

From here we move onto Montepulchino diverting via La foce to see if Jo can find her rows of tree’s she’s seen on many a postcard. We think we’ve found the spot miles down a dirt track road to an old castle no one loves and sitting in the shade of an Italian rooted tree we stop to look out on our view that includes a path of her cypress tree. It’s here that we sit to take our lunch, bit’s and pieces we gathered on our way. Half a cheese and tomatoes sandwich (so much better than home) with tomato and herb style pizza only the toppings in the middle, followed by a cake, more like a biscuit base with a thick layer of cherry jam and more biscuit on top sprinkled with almonds.

We continue on our drive but there is a change of plan now we are heading to Montepulciano. On the way Jo isn’t satisfied with her road of those tall tress to guide her way and as we drive discussing it’s authenticity we realise the twisting, sharp down hill bends, we’re meandering down are lined with those dark tall cypress tress, may be this is the one. Shortly after we find Monticchiello and park in it’s lonely car park, with the guide books advice of an hours tour we enter and leave in 10 (10mins) to venture of to our original plan of Montepulciano. There's something about this place I don't like. Maybe it's the tall towers leaving narrow corridors of cold and darkness it seems busy but with so many paths it soon becomes eerily quiet.

They charge you a fortune for a lemon soda and an cold espresso shaken over ice and served with a frothy head and a grunt from the waitress. So it's time to go home and on the way just by chance in one of the archways we find a little biscuit shop, we enter empty handed and leave with a mix of the most delightful yummy local biscuits.

Tonight Simonetta is cooking for us. We don't know what, or how much (food or money) just that it's at 8. We arrive downstairs and are seated at our private restaurant for 2. We start with a Rose wine at E25 but it's very nice. We're served with our 1st course, a local dish of fish, capers, potatoes, sun dried tomatoes and a lot of Tuscany with every mouthful. This is followed by Primipatti of Ragu, which we discover is made with pork, veal and liver and tastes full of deliciousness. Our Secondi patti is chicken stuffed with ricotta and spinach served alongside a type of runner bean that's tastes sweeter and chopped roast potatoes (but oh so much nicer). If that wasn't enough we have to finish a delicate dessert from the French border, a chocolate kind of egg custard with a biscuit cake type top, that just melts in the mouth. Almost gone in one. Before the night is over we invite Simonette to drink coffee with us and we chat over Italian coffee and a helping of Tuscan sweets, before taking our glutenous bellies to bed.