After another hour of white knuckle driving and the puffer fish going into hyperventilation overdrive we arrived in San Romano and had no idea of how to find the farmhouse so after both of the numbers for the English speaking contact Benito ringing out I rang Edoardo our host who speaks pretty well no english and managed to communicate well enough for him to meet us in the village and guide us to the farm which frankly we would not have found in a month of Sundays.
The farmhouse is glorious and is a real slice of Tuscan farm life. The house was built in 1829 and is all stone walls, massive log bearers, and terra-cotta floors. Tarn was concerned when we could not find a washing machine but we discovered a separate laundry house in the yard.
The girls are also having panic attacks as we have no toilet paper and the shops are closed as its Liberation Day. Well girls it's either hold on or get intimate with the bidet. What a pack of wimps.
At last the kids have acres of garden to play in and hopefully will burn off their excess energies, but as always with kids they find something to fall out over.
Well it's arsenic hour so off we go into the village to find an open eatery (and toilet paper) but to no avail as we cannot lock the door as the front door lock has failed (I couldn't believe Alfa Romeo made door locks as well). So Mum stayed back with Charlotte who was at imminent meltdown whilst Tarn, Grace & I hoped to stumble upon a take away - another major rarity in Italy let alone it being a public holiday.
We checked in San Romano where Tarn dazzled the milk bar owner with her flowing Italian which resulted in a confused shopkeeper, a still hungry family and me being tooted (politely) and overtaken by a nun.
The first village Sillicagnana was deserted and the only movement was a Nonna hanging out her washing but in the next village Villetta there was an open door in Pizzeria so we stopped and tried our luck.
Ka-ching not only was it open it had a deli and a small grocery stock where we got the basics as well as some local salami similar to Capocolo (Gabagool for all you Sopranos fans) and local vino rosso and pecorino. So we dined on home made pasta washed down with the local drop and Fanta which over here has 12% orange juice and is as far away from our product as we are from Monny right now.
Funny Tarn & Mum didn't complain about me being a messy cook tonight .
Well time to hit the hay
Ciao from Bella Toscana