Hot Weather and a Warm Friendship
Two years ago at our fiftieth high school reunion, I had the pleasure of reconnecting with some old friends. Well, they are really like new friends given the many decades over which we had lost touch. My “new” old friends include Mary and Rosemary.
At the reunion we shared our love of travel, the flexibility of our “unattached” status and discussed my upcoming year in Italy. Before we said our goodbye’s that August day in 2022, Rosemary and Mary began to plan a trip to join me in Italy. On October 1, that long anticipated trip will begin!
Mary and I chatted about the upcoming October trip on a quiet day in June. We lamented the long, open weeks of summer before then. On an impulse, I urged Mary to consider a spontaneous additional trip. To my delight, Mary booked a flight. And so, just as the temperatures in Tuscany hit near record highs, Mary arrived.
Mary’s two weeks here were filled with experiences that weren’t part of our October itinerary. In Venice we toured the famed Doge’s Palace and St. Mark’s Square and glided in a gondola along Venetian canals. The hotel’s complementary boat escorted us to an exclusive Murano glassworks. In Ravenna, the precious mosaics awed us. Expert tourguide Elena led us off the beaten path in Florence through Altrarno to unique and unknown artistic treasures (like Michelangelo’s only wood carving- a startlingly youthful Christ on the cross). We drank a macchiatone in Greve with my friends Pam and Chris. One clear starry night we took in an open air jazz dinner concert with Carlo Fagiani and his band in the hills above Greve. In Panzano, we shopped at the Sunday market and shared a panini from Dario Cecchini’s lunch truck. Early one morning we watched workers in Siena tending the sandy track around the Campo where a pre-Palio trial had just been run. Oh, and we saw relics. (You can read about that in another blog.)
Through it all we sweated. We sweated like we’d never sweated before. We sweated so much Mary noted in disbelief one day, “We glisten!” Indeed we did! A sheen of sweat coated our arms and faces!
So in between the fun, touristy excursions, we drank gallons of cold water poured over ice cubes in my beautiful new glasses from Murano. And with the stand up fan propped between us, too hot to move, we sat and talked and continued to fill the fifty year gap in our friendship. I couldn’t imagine a better way to have spent the dog days of summer!
The Cecchini Lunch truck overlooking Chianti countryside
An iconic gondola ride though the gondolier didn't sing "O Solo Mio"