It was definitely by design that we were in Italy over our anniversary. To celebrate the day we took a bike ride! Before I get into the story of our ride, I need to sing the praises of the hotel staff. I tried to find bikes to rent on my own through the wonderful tool of Google but nothing ever worked out. Finally, with only a couple weeks to spare I emailed the hotel and asked them for advice. One of the staff, Lucca, took it upon himself to find us bike rentals and make sure they were at the hotel waiting for us. Not only that but he got the rentals for super cheap and they even took care of picking them back up. It was perfect.
Well, mostly perfect.
Unfortunately my bike was too big (I'm a wee person, so I'm not surprised) and Steven's hub was dangerously lose (we were able to fix that at least). We didn't let that, or the rainy morning we woke up to, derail our bike ride plans. For a route we decided to climb up the mountain that was beside us that had what looked to be a castle on it (waaaaay up there).
We didn't know it but that castle ended up being the ancient church of Montecatini-Alto which is the parent town of the city we were staying in. The way I understand it is back in the beginning of the settlement of the Tuscan region all the mountain tops were built upon. Safer I suppose. Considering the limited real estate, as families grew there was no place for them to go but down. This is how the valleys eventually developed and why the valley towns often share the names of their mountain towns. After trying to write down some directions (not easy) we set off.
The climb up was difficult but beautiful and Montecatini-Alto was the epitome of quaint Italian town.
It was also full of steep cobblestone roads.
Riding around the mountain towns was spectacular.
Inevitably, we got lost...It's actually a pathetic story. Somehow we managed to find the right road but we thought it was the wrong way. This caused us to backtrack into some nasty traffic and take a far less desirable road back into Montecatini-Terme. Once we were safe in our hotel room I looked up our route to see where we went wrong and discovered our folly. In the end it was alright because instead of riding around the flat lands of Tuscany, we just did the mountain climb again (gluttons for punishment)!
We were done relatively early and thought it would be nice to walk around the city to get some pictures before dinner time.
Montecatini-Terme has a very cool history. Back in Roman times it was discovered that the waters that ran out of the mountain springs were heavy with good-for-you minerals. Several spas were built in that era that still function today. In some of them you can bathe in the waters and other just have drinking fountains. They were all beautiful but one was breathtaking.
We didn't actually go in until the next day but I'll share the photos of that evening here for continuity.
This is Tettuccio Terme. It was a drinking spa and only offered tours and fountains.
The water tasted...odd. It was definitely heavy in minerals but I couldn't begin to tell you which. It was supposed to have gastrointestinal benefits. I couldn't really tell you one way or another but I gulped down a couple cups just in case.
The grounds were breathtakingly beautiful.
All the pillars made me feel like I was in old Rome.
We wandered around the grounds for a bit.
And managed to find the headwaters of the fountains.
This was the only spa in Montecatini-Terme that we visited though there were at least 4 more.
The city of Montecatini-Terme had many other beautiful locations. This statue is a memorial for the people lost in World War 2 in Montecatini-Terme.
This fountain was in the main square.
There was a large city park that was littered with greenway trails and these beautifully pruned pine trees.
The Excelsior spa (was not in service at this time).
Random cyclist made out of bushes and vines!
That evening, after wandering around the city until we'd worked up an appetite, we found a hole in the wall wine store and picked up a handful of pastries from the pasticceria on the main road. Then we tricked Netflix to think we were in the states and watched a movie. It was a wonderful way to spend an anniversary abroad!
The last time we vacationed in Italy we had planned on visiting the Lamborghini museum near Bologna and Modena. Unfortunately we didn't rent a car the last time and were not able to make it make it happen. We made sure to rectify this wrong on our trip last year.
First, things first, directions.
I tried so hard to write down detailed directions to Lamborghini and Ferrari. I tried so hard and failed so spectacularly! My directions got us to the exits around Bologna but once there none of the signs made any sense. Thankfully I'd bought a road map for Italy and thankfully Steven is a very good navigator. He managed to point us in the right direction and I managed to not get us killed. We were a good team. I'm still impressed that Steven found the Lamborghini Museum. He just kept telling me to follow the road signs towards a city (a city that the Lamborghini Museum wasn't even in) and somehow, BOOM, there it was on our left. Finding the parking lot was another trick all together.
Lamborghini's as far as the eye can see!
Steven's favorite
Gravity defying!
The engine's themselves were works of art.
The museum was actually pretty small and we were through it relatively quickly. Just in time to race all of the Audi's to Modena for lunch. I tried to keep up in the little panda. Squalling tires around a roundabout and everything.
I don't know if it was planned but the fact that the Ferrari museum was 15 minutes from the Lamborghini museum was pretty handy.
When we first got to Modena we were starving and went looking for lunch. We followed our rule of "don't stop at the first place you see" and we're glad we did...the first place had some sad looking sandwiches (and gruff looking people). Eventually we wandered far enough to find a little restaurant serving delicious food. At this point we were good enough with Italian to ask for a table for lunch but when the lady came over and started spouting off Italian I quickly asked her if she spoke English. Turns out she didn't. Then I asked for a menu. They didn't have that either. Oh good. She handed me the notepad she had with the written menu and I selected a couple things that looked familiar. They were both delicious. Steven's was a smoked salmon dish with some veggies and mine was a cheesy potato casserole. Oh my god so tasty. After a cafe (espresso) we meandered our way back to the Ferrari museum.
This was the one and only picture I took of the city of Modena. This wasn't even their big church but it was on the way back to the Ferrari museum.
The Ferrari museum was full of old Ferrari's as well as old Alfa Romeos, Maseratis and a whole bunch of history.
Crazy looking building.
I think this one was my favorite.
I liked the Maserati emblems the most.
After our fill of old cars we hit the road back to Montecatini-Terme. We were starting to get the hang of this whole driving in Italy thing.
That evening we took the Funicolare (I'll tell you all about that in the next post) up the mountain to eat dinner in Montecatini-Alto. We picked a restaurant that looked relatively busy for dinner (out of the 3 in the courtyard) and enjoyed one of the most delicious meals we've ever had in Italy. We struck up a conversation with the couple next to us who turned out to be Bulgarian and were staying in Montecatini-Alto. The gentleman was a travel agent who had gone to school in Boston (!) and the lady with him was a banker. They currently lived in Vienna and were on a short weekend trip. I still have a hard time picturing saying, "Hey, I feel like going on a vacation this weekend. Hell, let's go to ITALY!" Mind. Blown. That being said when we told them we would drive 600 miles to visit our family a few states away, their mind were blown.
For dinner they had dined on a MASSIVE steak that made Steven and I stare in awe. Turns out that dish is called a Bistecca Florentine and is a staple of the Tuscan region. They recommended the steak at that restaurant over any they'd ever had in Italy. Considering that and the fact that I forgot my camera that evening, we decided we'd have to visit that restaurant again for dinner the following evening.
All this reminiscing is making me miss Italy.
Liz
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