Raindrops on Helmets

Our first taste of rain, and even then it is only a sprinkling. It comes and goes for a few hours, but we don’t even mind because the scenery is so spectacular.

Today we leave the coast and head inland through several small towns toward our next hotel. The thing about Tuscany is that every little town is breathtaking. Amazing views, thousand year-old churches, cafes and bars lining the ancient streets – it’s all perfect.

After lunch Bessie proves she is worthy of the superhero suit. Not many people can keep up with Adam, but the two of them take off, racing across Tuscany at warp speeds. Luckily, in Suvereto Bob finds a way to slow them down.

We’re behind schedule, and our guide is a bit irritated by the time we pull into the new hotel. I think he’s had enough of us today, but, being a guide, he is still pleasant.

Montibelli is another agritourismo, and the owner is trying to produce organic wine, something rare in Italy so far. He seems like a great guy. I think several people on the trip would come back and stomp grapes for him.

I haven’t played tennis in Italy since I was living with my cousins in Lecce, but Chris and I manage to get in a fierce, competitive match. It isn’t really fair because I get the good racquet, which is only missing two strings in the cracked frame. We have to keep prying the balls out of the gigantic mouth of Lupo, a wolf dog with a head the size of a dumpster, so by the end we are covered in slobber.

After dinner a bunch of us go up the hill to local bar. It seems like the guides must be regulars here. We have the best time drinking red beer and playing darts. Christian manages to hit the dead Tuscan Sea Mouse in the bulls eye. Pam manages to take a chunk out of a six hundred year-old wall.

Meanwhile Adam hooks up with a group of high school kids from Washington DC. He walks right up to them and starts talking. When I was sixteen, it would have been easier for me to levitate. Everyone is impressed, especially the guides. They give him a lot of advice about women, most of which I do not bother to translate.

Meno male. (Good thing.)