Timeless Tuscany

By Nancy DiDio - Ever since my first visit to Italy many years ago, I’ve been fascinated by the Italian lifestyle. In comparison to our frenetic lives, they take things at a slower pace, and it seems to me that theirs is a simpler and happier existence. Our occasional vacation excursions there left me longing to experience their way of life, to see if it is really as it appears. I decided, and my husband Fred agreed, that renting a place to stay during part of a vacation would give us a glimpse into everyday Italian life.

I excitedly began planning such a trip. Choosing just the right place was no easy task. Hundreds of sites on the Internet offer the opportunity to view pictures, read reviews, and make arrangements for vacation rentals. We wanted to stay in or very near a town from which we could conveniently take day trips to places we wanted to visit. It should be a small town, since we hoped to get to know some local people.

With much research, I finally found a place that was situated in the heart of Tuscany, only one kilometer from the small town of Asciano. It was in a house on a farm that grew olives and grapes. Although it was large enough to accommodate six people, the cost was reasonable even for just the two of us. We made contact with the owner, and soon we were planning our stay in a Tuscan farmhouse. Because it had extra room, we asked our nephew Paul if he would like to join us, and he enthusiastically accepted. He had never been to Italy, where his great-grandparents were born. He would arrive a few days after we did.

In mid-June, we set off on our vacation, looking forward to the week we would spend living in Asciano. Arriving in Italy, we picked up our rental car at a small agency where the clerk, who spoke no English, tried to explain the alarm system. Our comprehension of basic Italian doesn’t exactly include the vocabulary to discuss complex concepts like automobile alarms, but Fred indicated he understood, and off we drove.

We had several hours before we were to meet the landlord at our rental, so we drove a scenic route through the Tuscan hills. We stopped for lunch in a small hilltop town. As we exited the car, the alarm went off. It was several minutes before Fred was able to stop it, and we had attracted quite a bit of attention. Very embarrassed, we decided to postpone lunch and drive on. Further along our route, we stopped at a bakery where I ran in and bought slices of focaccia while Fred kept the car running. It was apparent we needed to master this alarm!

At the appointed time, we arrived at the farmhouse which was to be our home for a week. We drove up a steep gravel road to reach it, and spotting chickens pecking in the dirt and farm equipment in the yard, I was suddenly struck by the realization that this was a real working farm, not an idyllic country villa. I hoped we had not made a mistake in choosing this place.

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