I left my tears in Venice and we came back for another taste of Tuscany.
We’d had enough of big cities and hotels beyond or budget and decided to settle in Impruneta, a small town outside of Florence.
We followed the winding streets past fields of olive trees into the main square. Here we found Hotel Bellavista, which translates to beautiful view.
In the hotel the owner smiled at my bottle of Chianti and said it was a good choice. He provided us with two wine glasses for our room and we felt at home immediately.
When I asked about the restaurant inside the hotel he said, “We are closed tonight. I guess you will have to stay another night!”
We laughed, but after seeing our room with a view of the main square and the terrace overlooking the town and the surrounding hills, I said “Let’s stay another night.”
We did. We spent the first night in bed watching Life is Beautiful and Schindler’s List while drinking two bottles of Chianti.
In the morning I asked the owner’s wife, who spoke French, about any olive oil farms nearby. She gave us rough directions and wrote down the name of a chateau nearby. The sun was shining so we decided we might as well walk.
We stopped into a patisserie on the way for a sandwich and a selection of chocolates before attempting to figure out the directions.
When I realized I had no idea where we were going I called out to an older woman on a balcony: “Scuzi, uh…Castello di Cafaggio? Olio?”
The woman looked confused, then smiled, and pointed in the other direction. We set off on the small road before coming to a dead end. Luckily, we saw a woman and two older men talking outside. “Bonjiourno! Scuzi, uh…Castello di Cafaggio? Olio?”
One man pointed to his green stained jeans, “Si, olio!” From what I understand of Italian he had been working on the farm all morning. They yelled back and forth in Italian before waving their hands and pointing up at a hill.
“Grazie!” We said, and kept walking.
We followed more winding streets before not knowing where to turn. We approached a sturdy older woman closing her gate and asked for directions. She spoke in rapid Italian, before motioning for our stunned faces to follow her to a small dirt road. She pointed to a chateau in the distance. “Oh wow! Grazie!”
We followed the road which revealed a deep valley of olive trees and vineyards and our town in the distance to a stunning castle. A small sign on the stone wall outside read Castello di Cafaggio, and I pressed the buzzer beside the gate.
A voice answered “Bonjiourno?” and I answered, “Uh…bonjiourno! You speak English? Olive oil? Can we buy some olive oil?”
A smiling man with grey hair came out and lead us inside. “Have you come to see how it is made? To buy some?” I told him I would love to do both, but since the work wouldn’t start until the afternoon we settled on buying some instead.
He spoke of flying to Montreal to sell his olive oil and took us inside his office where awards for the best olive oil were hung all over his wall. We bought two large bottles of deep green olive oil and knew we had found the right place.
Rather than venture into Florence and try and see too much we decided to enjoy our surroundings. We strolled around the small town, bought some groceries, and took advantage of the large empty terrace at our hotel.
The kind owners provided us with plates, glasses and silverware and we set up our table outside. In the summer the terrace is used for the restaurant, but being November it was all ours.
Under the sun we ate salad drizzled in balsamic reduction, bread cheese and ham while looking over the town. We sat for hours, brought some music up, and I used the space to stretch my tired body as the sun went down.
In the evening we celebrated our belated one-year anniversary and popped a bottle of champagne in our bedroom before heading to the restaurant downstairs.
In the dining room the owners welcomed us and recommended the evening specials. We ordered some wine, an artichoke salad, roasted potatoes and a stewed spicy beef dish.
The artichoke salad was made of raw chopped artichokes tossed in olive oil, pine nuts and Parmigiano. I have never eaten raw artichokes but I was pleasantly surprised by the light crunch and bittersweet taste.
At the end of the night the owner bought us Limencello and we raised glasses with him and his wife and the friends he had sat down to talk with.
When we were the last people in the restaurant I told him, “I never want to leave,” and he smiled his kind smile and said “You can always come back.”
We left the next morning, but something tells me I will be.
Stay tuned for the sweetest goodbye and a suitcase full of oil and vinegar…
