Panicale Day 1

When you start again from nothing it is always a frightening time.  This time it wasn’t.  We spent a panicky two weeks packing boxes and helping our daughter purchase her first home. The craters came in and boxed up all of our heavy furniture as well as a number of puzzles that would fit inside the crates.  

George emptied out the bridge and the dormitory while I tackled the IPP wall and the mirror room.  We left our contractors in Florida with plans on packing up the museum.  We had an exceptionally frantic time packing up the clothes we would need for Italy.  At first we simply packed our winter clothes, but after a phone call with my father, I realized that it is hot here and still summer. Into the bags went some more sensible clothes for the current season.  

On Tuesday the 9th of August at 8:00 am we drove down to Miami to catch a flight.  We were loaning George’s brother our car for the trip as his got stolen and this would save him some rental costs. Traffic was fine until we hit the exit for the airport. I got in the lane to turn and realized I was in the wrong one.  30 minutes later, I was able to extract myself from what could have been a bad situation.  We called the boys and had them meet us at the cell phone lot instead of going all the way to their house.  

We handed over the keys and the boys dropped us off at the airport.  Let the adventure begin!

A slight cock-up on my part, I booked through United, they had us flying Air Canada.  Not a major problem, we just had to walk a bit through the airport to check in.  We found the place, got our tickets and flew through inspection.  TSA pre-check is amazing! 

Off to the lounge for a few hours before the flight took off.  We had a nice little breakfast and I had a glass of red wine while George had a terrible tasting Heineken. We boarded the first flight at 1:30 and were on our way.  

The flight was uneventful for 3 hours or so.  We each watched a movie, had a bit to eat and I studied some Italian so I could get a leg up on our adventure.  

We landed in Montreal for a 2 1/2 hour layover before heading to Rome.  Here we again went to the lounge, did some last minute emails and watched a few more Colbert monologues before going downstairs to get on the flight.  There was a delay of about 1/2 hour, but no matter.  

Finally!  Seated!  George and I had seats next to one another, but there was a big wall between us.  While we were able to hold hands across the barrier, it was rather disappointing.  Air Canada is not Cathay.  The flight was uneventful again. There was some slight turbulence over the North Atlantic, but other than that it was smooth skies.  

I watched a few episodes of Julia and I’m sure George watched a movie or two, but mostly I slept.  I needed to be alert when we landed so I could drive us to Panicale. You see, he can’t rent a car here because he’s over 70!  Agist!  Over dinner I was given a rather large pour of wine, but I left it sitting.  To be honest, I didn’t eat much either. The food was ok, I was just beyond tired by this time and wanted nothing more than to sleep.  I think I managed 5 of the 8 hours of flight time.  

And at 10:30 as planned we landed in Rome.  We cleared immigration rather quickly-no, I take that back, it was super quick!  We simply waled through. I think the entire process took no more than ten minutes.  

From there we went to collect our baggage, which was already on the conveyor by the time we arrived and headed out to the rental car pickup.   This too was a smooth process as AVIS had already called a few days before and verified my information.  We had a packing puzzle getting 3 suitcases, 3 back packs, a carryon amah bag, and my purse in the tiny little Volkswagen Up that we rented, but being us, we managed it all and in no time we were off to start the Italian part of our adventure.

Did I mention the car was a standard and that I haven’t driven one in over 30 years?  :) Leaving the rental parking lot, I experimented with the pedals and am not ashamed to admit I forgot which foot was the clutch and how it feels to kill the engine.  Once that problem was solved we were on our way. 

The Autostrada is amazingly easy to drive!  I hooked up my google maps to make sure we were going in the right direction.  George was right, it was like riding a bike.  The shifting came back just as naturally as if I had never driven anything else.  I even remembered to down shift when exiting the autostrada and when stuck behind slow moving vehicles.  

Along the way, we decided to stop and get a bite to eat and fill up with gas.  When we got the gas, the gauge wouldn’t register it.  This is going to be a problem I’m sure.  But with every problem there is a solution. I will simply fill up the car later this week again and then hit the trip meter.  I noticed we were able to go 188 km on 1/2 a tank so instead of a working gauge, I’ll use working mind to determine my fill-ups. 

We arrived at the castle promptly at 3pm but this was only after a rather comedic trip through some old country backroads.  At one point, the GPS sent us onto a gravel road.  Pass!  I backed out only to discover deep ditches all around me.  That was not a 3 point turn, but rather a 30 point turn.   Crisis averted and we were back on the road to Panicale.  Did I mention back roads?  Well, this was as rural as one can get.  The winding road also went up hill so when I shifted into second gear, the engine stalled, or the car would roll backwards on me.   George told me to leave it in first and let the engine rev.  Not the best way to drive, but it did make it up to the top.  

We found a spot to park and with a huge sigh of relief, we went across the road to the local park and ate those sandwiches.  

Leonardo; the current owner of the castle, left a note on the door telling us how to enter.  We walked around to the inner city wall and rang the bell.  Our greeter was a rather happy woman who ran away to get keys as soon as we entered the building.  A lovely lady!  She showed us into the apartment we will be staying in for the next 3 months and left us to freshen up with instructions to go upstairs at 5 pm.  

This was wonderful!  We moved the car to a closer spot.  And I won’t even tell you of the problems we had getting it into reverse gear.  Needless to say I was ready to call AVIS and have them come get this damned thing.  Another problem solved by walking away for a while.

After unloading the car, we both took showers, set an alarm for 4:40 and drifted off into a long overdue nap with the fresh breezes blowing through the window and the most incredible piano music playing somewhere outside our room.  This was one of the most romantic naps I have ever had.  I fell fast and deep and woke more refreshed than I expected.

We dressed and headed up stairs to meet the owner again.  For 95 he’s as mentally sharp as I.  Perhaps even more so.  Rita gave us a fresh fruit juice and we chatted a bit.  Awkward!  She only speaks Italian and French, I’m a rusty polyglot at best and George told me last night if he’s a -glot that is something.  I was able to understand their Italian, but replies were difficult and I kept switching back to Spanish.  At one rather silly point when talking about telephones I switched for some inexplicable reason to Cantonese. It has to be back to school for me!

No matter.  Rita took me to show me how to use the elevator and gifted me the puzzle that was the final cause of our purchasing this castle.  We did a tour of the castle again and she pointed out a few things here and there.  Upon our return to the main room, we began to use Google translate to discuss the important matters such as transfer of electric and other utilities.  That mundane stuff that is difficult enough when you speak the language, but impossible when you don’t.  

Leonardo gave me the list of contractors and other useful people to help us with our eventual move in.  We spent a good 2 hours speaking with him about the castle and how and when we were to move in.  

We came in as American’s and left the room feeling more like Italians.  It took us 2 weeks start to finish purchasing Katherine’s condo.  This castle has been in the works since April and doesn’t look to be complete until the end of September now.  Leonardo told us all things move slowly in Italy.  He wasn’t kidding.   

We mentioned that we were interested in purchasing two properties next door and connecting them as they originally were in the 1400’s.  His response was good luck.  It turns out the two homes next to us are owned by (insert the word ugly here) Americans who only come for a few weeks a year.  He felt this would never happen.  Rita told us how beautiful the old hotel was that we are interested in and encouraged us to look at it.  That is the plan. I hope to contact our relator today and be able to go inside for a look around.  

At 7 we left in search of a meal.  Our first stop was the place we had our lunch at those many months ago.  The owner and waitress remembered us from that visit and although they were unable to get us a table, booked us in for Saturday night. She then very helpfully sent us in the direction of one of the other eateries on the square.  

As we were still early, we took a small walk around the town.  This lead us to the road overlooking the lake.  It’s simply beautiful. 

On the way back we saw a sign for the opera festival and purchased tickets for Don Giovanni in September.  This year we will go to only one while we are here, but in future, we plan to attend all of the operas in town.  There is an old 100 seat theater less than a block from us and we plan to go as often as possible. 

The second one we looked at has a place open for Friday night, which we took, but nothing for now.  Ok.  We went to a little café on the square.  George had a poke bowl with the freshest raw salmon (in central Italy no less) and I had … you guessed it … pizza! Add to that a lovely bottle or red wine and we spent our first night in heaven. 

The owner came over and was lovely.  He chatted with us about living 3 km away and even got us a reservation at his brothers restaurant for Sunday night.  Driving a stick, I think I’ll pass on any wine that evening. 

We returned to our castle after a glorious evening in our new town. 

We drifted off into slumber to the same cool breeze that flowed earlier in the day and the sounds of the insects in the background.  What an amazing way to end our first day in our new castle.