So, it is time for Andrew to get his feet wet and DRIVE in Italy! He has been watching taxi drivers how they go in and out of traffic for a couple of days now – it is his turn! So we made our way to the Termini train station to pick up the car that we had rented. After a difficult walk to the car park (you rent in the station and then walk about 6 blocks to the parking garage) which of course was not accessible, we found our silver Volkswagen “Polo” and filled it with luggage and my walker and we were off! A few interesting utterances from the driver which I will not repeat here as we made our way through Rome to the A1 highway, took our toll ticked and we were on a straight line to Arezzo’s exit. What a beautiful countryside Italy has! I last saw it about 20 years ago when driving from Northern Italy with friends to Zurich. Our last trip to Italy in 2019, it was hard to “see” the countryside when going from Milan to Venice and 200+kph. While on the A1 the speed is at least 110 kmp, it does not feel like it as so many other cars go faster than that! After about an hour we made it to the Arezzo exit, figured out how to pay the tolls (including encouraging Andrew to READ the instructions instead of yelling at the machine) and then to our hotel. This is the only time we are staying at a non-Marriott hotel on our trip as the Marriott hotel we previously had booked became a non-Marriott at the end of last year. We went for a walk and found a local pizza joint – only Italian spoken – had dinner (pizza for Andrew and gluten free pasta for me) and then walked back for an early evening. The next day is our drive to Siena, which we planned when out for dinner, which will be a long day of sight seeing and even longer for me as I am doing the GF101 presentation with Nicole at the end of it – 9pm Italy time! It will be a fun day seeing all the places that I have only read about for the last year!
