On our last evening there, we were back at the dining room of La Romita for Dinner.  I admired the doodles on the table cloth that Federico Fellini had drawn when he visited La Romita years back.  The subtle pattern in the cloth that he drew on was still the cloth for the table linens used today.  The pictures were framed and hanging over the tabe that we dined at our first night.  We only learned the Fellini story on the second day from Robert Etherington.  What a marvelous lnk to the cinema.  I do not understand Fellini's work, some is enjoyable, but I am always star-struck.

For dinner the owner went out to the garden to collect the ingredients for the cook.  Fried flowers were on the menu, and when Marsha ordered...  it was fried flowers.  Senor Bindi apologized for the carnations that were not to be had.  He had Marsha select a different course as fried flowers were not to be served.  His wife/chef was not as apologetic.  She had no carnations... but sent him out for roses (from the courtyard across the street at Il Rondo's outside seating), and a branch full of the most perfectly ripe cherries.  She was going to give Marsha what she had ordered, according to what was available. There was fried rosemary and apple and fennel and cheese and what a wonderful meal.  I had duck that was seasoned so delicately that the cloves were there but only for a second, and never overstayed their welcome.And then there was a fried pear in a sauce that was one of the great sins of man, except Giovanna is a woman.  

We had examined the olive oil press earlier in the day.  As our host describes it, it is his Ferrari.  The factory is quaint, but state of the art. The exterior looks like the 600 year old building that it is.  The inside is clean enough to perform surgery in, especially if the surgeon is extracting olio from olives.  

Leaving Montisi was a tad melancholy.  Life had developed a rhythm, not a pattern, but a rhythm. Late meals.  Panoramic walks that take your breath away.  And people that do not share your language, but seem to share your interest in the rhythm of living.  As was mentioned earlier, Blanche DuBois had nothing on us.  We depended on the kindness of strangers, and it was here in spades.   We got pictures and exchanged email addresses.

We drove around the countryside and stopped at a supermarket in Sinalunga to assemble a picnic.  Marsha found a meat selection of Parma ham, prosciutto, and salami.  We found some fresh bread, great cheese, a small bottle of a special golden Chianti wine.  It was the smallest bottle and figured it was a wise choice.  It was a dessert wine, hence the small bottle, but it was a great addition to the water we had.  I bought a cork-screw/knife combo.  (P.S. This came in handy later that night).

We found an off the road area that seemed like a place to be alone and enjoy a meal and each other's company on our last afternoon in Tuscany.  It was great, and quite chaste as it was actually a dirt road to a farming monastery that was visited by more than a dozen cars as we ate our sandwiches from Sinalunga, a picnic extraordinaire.  A kiss or two were exchanged, and if we had more time, were in our teens and had feuding families...I am sure we could have found a place for more intimate expressions of the joy of our company.  Alas, the night train was in our IMMEDIATE future, and that would be well worth the wait.  Age brings patience, marriage takes the guess work out of courting and wooing.  What a great time to be alive and in love.

We returned the car to rental place in Torrita di Siena.  I was sure that the train stopped there, but the train station was deserted, so we were driven to the train station in Sinalunga as was planned.  The people at the car rental place never asked if we were catching a specific train, merely accommodating our requests.  We grinned real big as the train we picked up in Sinalunga stopped at the deserted station in Torrita di Siena on its way to Chiusi.  Here we lugged luggage up and down stairs to get to the right platform to go to Fiorenze.  Trains, planes and automobiles...and a bus or two.  We were trying to sample every mode of transportation that was available... including shank's mare.  

As I write this entry to the journal on the train, Marsha is trying to read, but is distracted by the view going by outside the window of the Napoli to Trieste Express.  It just happens to land us in Fiorenze a little earlier than expected.  One of the rail conductors turned us on to this uniquely off schedule trips by the railway.  It doesn't run on time, so it can be caught in Chiusi long after it was due in to the station but long before our next regularly scheduled trip to Fiorence would be available to us.  We are in a commuter car with business men, and a convenient electric outlet for me to plug in and write.

A NOTE:  This is a postscript to the above entry.  I gave up on writing to watch the scenery, and packed the laptop away early.  Well, it was not early, as this was an EXPRESS and the time our normally scheduled train would have spent stopping here and there was cut significantly.  The laptop and 400 lbs. of luggage were ready to get off the train on very short notice as Fiorenze arrived sooner than planned for...or were it we..was it us that arrived...Hell, we got off the train in one massive motion a lot sooner than expected!!!