Day 2 - Arriving at Gli Archi

Saturday July 4, 2009

It’s not that we were dawdling when we heard our names being called in the Munich airport; it’s that security and immigration caused some delays. Of course, Dan being a photographer always has his equipment searched and tested regularly, but I had my new camera knapsack now and they examined that too. Well, I shouldn’t say new, as Dan cleared out an old one for me since I am now officially a multi lens owner. I felt like a little kid getting their own little piece of luggage to take with me on a trip. We did make it to the flight on time – Air Dolomiti – direct to Florence. After my luggage didn’t arrive in Florence, we picked up our car rental (in the parking lot of the Florence Airport) , drove to Lucca to kill four hours, not recommended after an overnight flight but hey...Florence airport is small ...so easy to go in and out of...despite the extreme heat...let’s keep positive now – after all we are so happy we are in Tuscany!

I finally received my luggage (5 hours later) and we were off.

Now it was up to Higgins (our nickname for the GPS- credit to Zac for naming it) to get us to Gli Archi, near Camucia/Cortona, our home for the next week.
Winding through the roads in our little yellow Fiat Panda, we enjoyed the picturesque countryside.

The GPS was fantastic but eventually we were on roads that even “Higgins” didn’t know the names of. He continued to provide the directions just referring to turn right on “road” and left etc on “road” and believe it or not...we got there!
Gli Archi greeted us with fields of smiling Sunflowers, radiating joy, and in fact rejuvenating Dan after this very long day. We couldn’t help but smile. They seemed to be standing there like a chorus line, all the same height with the same yellow hats on - their heads facing us...welcoming us to this land of the Tuscan sun.




Emanuela checked us in to our lovely apartment with its’ modern bathroom, bedroom with a terrace, kitchen, dining room and another terrace with a table overlooking the sunflower fields. The property has bicycles available to borrow any time as well as laundry, a very nice pool and tennis courts.
We followed (raced) Emanuela to the grocery store to pick up some dinner. Gli Archi did not come with any condiments, dish soap, paper towelling, sponges etc. So if you intend to stay at this property, you might want to bring along a small amount of spices etc. or pick things up at the grocery store when you arrive.
We toasted to our first meal – our first bottle of Chianti. We had lasagne and I’m not sure exactly what else we ate, since I just pointed at things when they looked good and said “Si, per favore!”
BTW, we can’t speak Italian....

Ciao

...stay tuned for Day 3!