Here’s Part Four of our road trip through northern and central Italy in mid-November, 2011. See Parts One, Two and Three to catch up from the beginning.
We’d heard so much about the wine regions of Italy, and this seemed like the perfect chance to drive the Chianti Road in Tuscany as we were leaving Florence and Lucca for parts further east and north.
When we picked up our rental car at the start of the trip, the cigarette lighter wasn’t working, and our GPS (“sat-nav”, “navi”, etc.) would have been useless in that car. I’m really glad we made the rental agency give us another car with a working power port — this part of the trip would have been v e r y s l o w, pausing at every intersection to try to decide how to proceed. Indeed, the pace of this part of the trip was quite a bit slower anyways, owing to the terrain and pulling over frequently to take in the sights at the crest of a hill or in the middle of an olive tree grove.
- Some things to note for next time:
- In the off-season, not a lot was going on in the towns. Most cafés, restaurants, and stores were closed in the middle of the day, or maybe for the whole day. But the roads were wide-open — it mostly just us and the racing bikers, which made it easy to park. It’ll be drastically different in the high tourist season.
- You’ll burn through a lot of gas up and down those roads twisting between the hills; probably best to start with a full tank of gas.
When were were there, a summer many moons ago, everything closed mid-day, with perhaps a gelato place here and there. Did you stop in Ravenna to see the mosaics?
Nice pix and writing. We need to take a road trip with you to that area or maybe rent a villa for an extended stay.
German Gems: Great foreshadowing — that’s Part Five, coming soon!
Dad: Thanks! It looked like there were plenty of villas available. Probably not cheap in the high season, which is why you’ll want to find one this time of year or perhaps a touch earlier, when there is still some life on the vines and in the towns.
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