Early Morning
Right now my real concern is whether or not the issue with the debit card is one that I tried to outrun. Last year, a similar thing happened when I came over. As it turned out, it was Bank of America trying to "protect" me. When they saw charges coming from a foreign country they froze the account. It took several calls to correct the situation. This year, I called and told them that I would be in Italy and gave them the dates. I'll need to get some cash from an ATM at some point in the next day or two. If it refuses to dispense money then I'll know that I have a problem. Until then, I'm not going to worry about it.
After this, I went down to breakfast. I expected to see the German couple but they were nowhere in sight. Afterward, as I was walking up the stairs, I heard both of them in there now familiar accent call out "Buongiorno!" We smiled and made our goodbyes on the stairs. As odd as this sounds, I'm going to miss them. Of course that assumes that I won't run into them somewhere else on this trip.
Some closing thoughts on Orbetello. Over the years, a number of friends have asked if I'd been there. In fact, just last week I got an email from my friend Barb who was passing through the town with her husband and wondering if I would be there at the same time (we missed each other by one day). Having now been there, I realize that people never really wondered if I'd been to Orbetello. What they were really asking was whether or not I'd been to Monte Argentario. Orbetello's prime tourist purpose is as a jumping off point for an exploration of this island and Giglio. In this sense, Orbetello is perfect, an inexpensive place to stay while visiting its neighbors.
For me, the real memories of this part of the trip will center not surprisingly around Isola del Giglio and the keeled over Costa Concordia. I can't imagine that the image of a vast luxury liner lying on its side will ever be forgotten. Even more so, the sight of dozens of tourists posing and sunbathing in front of it. Equal parts surreal and perverse, I'm glad that I have a good enough eye and a fast enough reflex on my camera to have caught a lot of that circus.
Late Evening
Montevarchi
The train from Pisa to Florence was packed with several people standing all the way. Since I had to purchase the ticket for Montevarchi in Florence, I decided to avoid any possible crowd by going first class. It cost two Euros more for the 38 minute trip, but the comfortable seat made it worthwhile.
When I got off the train in Montevarchi I was surprised not to find Gia waiting. I was about to phone when I heard her call out my name. She was riding up to the station on her bike. I wasn't sure how this would help me to get my rather oversized suitcase to their place, but I needn't have worried. They live a few steps from the station.
Gia and Beppe live in a palace. Literally. The building had been the home of the local duke several hundred years ago. It passed through several owners since then until it finally came to rest in the hands of the Monte dei Passchi Bank. Wanting to unload the property, they decided to divide it into condos. So far, Gia and Beppe are the only ones who have bought in so they pretty much have the whole place to themselves.
Beppe greeted us at the door after I maneuvered my suitcase up three long flights of stairs. Like any good Italian, he stayed home to cook while Gia came to pick me up. Within five minutes we were sitting down to a simple but fairly amazing lunch of pasta sautéed with garlic and tomatoes, green beans and carrots, and a selection of cheeses.
I met Gia and Beppe last year when I was in San Rocco a Pilli. Jack and I were looking for an Italian production team for the film and we had stumbled across an article on them in Reel Chicago. Gia is from Chicago, Beppe from Italy. They are a husband and wife team who work both sides of the Atlantic. On paper, they sounded perfect.
The three of us hit it off right from our first meeting. Over the course of the year, they got to meet Jack and come to one of the "Close Quarters" screenings as well as keeping up with me through emails. Since we needed to talk more about the film, they invited me to stay with them when I came through this year.
Lunch was fun and voluble. All three of us are good talkers so we covered numerous topics - Italian and American foibles, stories about relatives, etc. - before finally getting around to talking about the film. We covered a lot of this ground as we went out for a walk. This became a tour of Montevarchi. It is small and ancient with narrow streets that echo the frequent tolling of the church carillons. Today, there were more than the usual number of bells. For one thing, it's Sunday; for another, it's the Feast of Corpus Dominus. No, I don't know what it is, but it is important enough to peel the bells, have a night time procession, and decorate the cobblestones with these surprisingly intricate reliefs made of colored wood shavings.
No matter where we walked, people would stop to greet my hosts. At one point, Gia sighed and said that the cost of living in a small town is the loss of privacy. At least a small Italian town. The most surprising of the people we ran into was their friend, Giancarlo. He teaches photography at Scuola Lorenzo di Medici in Florence. This is where I was supposed to teach this summer until the class was canceled. As it turns out, Giancarlo and I know several the of same people. Definitely a small world.
After our walk we came back to the flat. They've done a terrific job with this place. Very modern but still warm. My favorite touch is the white-painted exposed brick in the living room and in the guest bedroom. My favorite decadent touch is the gold-tiled and very deep rectangular bathtub in the guest bathroom. If only Bridget was here. She would love this.
We continued our conversation while Beppe printer for me the hellish list of documents that the Sicilian car rental place insists that I bring to them. We then headed out for dinner at a small pizzeria where I definitely did not get pizza. We were sitting outdoors under a big umbrella so we simply failed to notice that it had begun raining.
This of course failed to deter us from doing the one thing we all wanted to do: Watch the procession of the Feast of Corpus Dominus. The bells were peeling like mad so we figured that the procession must have already started. We rushed to San Lorenzo, the big church that dominates the Piazza, hoping to get there in time.
No one was there beyond a few people lighting candles around the wood shaving icon. After a few minutes, people began to appear coming around the corner that leads to the church.
It wouldn't be fair to call this an organized procession. Just imagine a group of priests, nuns, altar boys, and worshippers all trying to look devout while also trying to get out of the rain as fast as they could. They poured into the piazza, but never took a breath. They just kept moving at a dignified gallop into the church.
The rain wasn't really more than a steady drizzle, but now it us coming down in buckets out there. On nights like these it's good to have a palace.
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