We rise early this morning of our departure, a bit sad to be leaving Il Frantoio and Puglia with so much left to do and see and a bit excited to return to Tuscany and our first extended stay in Montalcino. We pack our stuff and I notice that I’m surprisingly short on underwear and must hand-wash a few things tonight while Chris wonders about the number of exercise outfits he brought; no matter.
Chris stops by the office on our way to breakfast to have them prepare our bill while we eat. We’re alone in the breakfast room and upset that we will not have the opportunity to say good-bye to our Swiss friends (or finally get their names) or to our new friends from Luxemburg.
Later, when Chris tries to pay the bill with our MBNA Visa, denied. No matter what they tell you, even when you call them, call your credit card companies and let them know you’ll be away. I didn’t this trip because again, in January, I didn’t need to, ha! When Chris calls MBNA Visa, they do not appear to believe he is who he says he is because I’m the primary on the card and of course, he doesn’t remember my mother’s maiden name and must ask me. I guess they hear him ask and think he’s lying. Then he gets disconnected, as they transfer him to the Fraud unit.
This time, I call back and as calmly as I do not feel, I immediately ask to be transferred to the Fraud Department, explain our situation and within a few minutes, we have a working card and pay the bill. Can you believe, there’s no charge for all those nightly drinks and snacks? Such a bargain!
We pack up Claudio and hit the road about 9:50 am. For the most part we follow the path we took on arrival until north of Bari, where we switch off and take the A16 across Italy. I never knew Campagnia was so mountainous and so gorgeous. We see dozens of windmill farms as we drive; they appear like giant sentries atop these high peaks and really do inspire awe. I wonder, why can’t we set up some platforms off the coast, where it’s usually windy, and use that technology here? Instead of following the Via Michelin directions, which have us exiting the A16 near Benevento to pick up the ss372 (a savings of a bit more than 30K), we decide to stay on the A16 to the A30 to the A1 so that Chris can see Mount Vesuvius all be it, from a distance. Another awesome sight and I’m glad we took the time to do it. So, other than a quick potty break at some overly crowded fake autogrill (the sign on the road said autogrill but when we pulled in, it wasn’t), it’s four hours and 40 minutes door to door from Il Frantoio, to our parking space in Frascati.
We decided to stop in Frascati on Friday because, 1) we couldn’t get into our apartment until Saturday 2) We didn’t think we’d want to drive the entire distance from Puglia to Montalcino in one day and 3) there’s a Buon Ricordo restaurant here.
Getting to Frascati is easy via the autostrada and though we traveled on over four “roads” if you count the A1 sud, we only went through tolls upon entering the first Autostrada (the A14) and leaving the last (A1 Sud). All that time on the autostrada costs us 21.90€. Of course, once leaving the autostrada, trying to find our hotel becomes a tiny adventure; everything is a tiny adventure after trying to find Il Frantoio. We navigate into the city (I won’t call it a town) of Frascati, without a map, but luckily, as we approach a main square, see a sign for Ristorante Cacciani, the Buon Riccordo place associated with our hotel, and follow it around a bend to our residence for one night. We don’t see a parking lot, but do manage to find some street parking for the moment, while we check in and see where we should leave our car.
We walk over to the building, sans bags, and press the button to be buzzed in. Reception is up one flight, on the first floor and someone from the restaurant (they’re both family owned and run) meets us there, takes our passports and gives us our room key. She also tells us there is no lot, and we should park on the street but make sure we pay. At first I don’t see the little pay box from the window but she points it out to me and we’re good to go.
We return to the car, feed the parking box for our ticket (four euro which gets us through until the next morning at 9:00), retrieve our bags and cram into the elevator to our room. We find our room easily enough and to say it’s small and no frills, is a completely accurate description. It has two things going for it though, one English language station on the tube (BBC World News) and a huge balcony with a kick-ass view; the balcony’s almost as big as our room but could use a bit of sprucing up (a good sweep, and some touch-up paint on the wrought iron table and chairs). Hey, for 95 €, I can’t complain too much.
I rinse out some tidy whities and hang them on the balcony, no offense to the people of Montalcino but I need one of these for the morning. We head out to try to find something for lunch but every restaurant, trattoria, and café we pass has stopped serving. While walking around, we stop for some photo-ops because Frascati has some beautiful views out toward Rome and some beautiful villas in the immediate vicinity.
Earlier, when we drove in, we spotted a porchetta truck near a park but both of us deem it to far to walk. We end up with a small gelato each and then, from the local supermarket, we purchase a small wedge of parmigiano, a small salami and three types of foccacia, mushroom, zucchini and eggplant. With this and a bottle of not so cold Frascati wine, we make a nice picnic on our balcony.
After a nap, we head out to do a bit of shopping and to explore. We’d brought with us a small “transmitter” that you plug into the ipod, program it to an “empty” FM station, and then it transmits on that band and you can receive it on your car radio. Well, even in what appeared to be the remotest parts of Puglia and Campagnia we couldn’t get the darn thing to work without a ton of static. So we’ve been on the lookout for electronics stores that might carry the tape thingy that plugs into the ipod.
Earlier, on our hunt for food, we spotted a record store closed for siesta; we head there first. They do have a bit of electronics but not what we’re looking for. Next we stroll down a couple of streets we missed earlier and I find one of these multi-purpose electronic stores crammed into a tiny space (the kind you may have seen run by an old man about thirty years ago in Brooklyn). Again, Chris wishes me luck trying to explain what I want to the woman inside but I persist. Don’t get me wrong, listening to Italian stations wasn’t bad but I can’t sing to the music.
I enter, and I pull out my ipod to show her the plug, then I say “per la machina, una cassette” and mime, plugging it into my ipod. She nods, opens a small glass case, digs around and pulls out exactly what we need. Seven euro later, I can look forward to listening to music during our ride to Tuscany tomorrow and I also get to do my “told you so” dance in front Chris.
We continue walking around and much to our chagrin we stumble upon, Piazza de Porchetta! Seriously, an entire piazza surrounded by porchetta wagons! How could we miss this earlier! I’m seriously bummed and even try to convince Chris to share one with me now, but we’re getting close to dinner and he passes.
Eventually, we stop around the corner from our hotel, at a café to enjoy some pre-dinner drinks; a coke for Chris, he has a craving, and some blood orange juice for me. About 8:45, we head over to Cacciani
for our 9:00 reservation.
Again, another Buon Riccordo and another huge establishment, though we get to see this one at dinnertime and it does have a decent crowd. We sit outside with a decent view of the city that Chris enjoys but my back is to it. Now somehow between ordering and our first course, we get into our one and only fight on this trip, which probably taints my view of this restaurant. I just want to say that now, so you can take most of what I say with a grain of salt.
I start with an order of cacè e pepe; it’s okay but cheesier than I expect or am used to; perhaps I’ve been making it wrong. I find it’s so rich that if I eat this huge portion, I probably won’t have room for dinner. Chris orders amatriciana, which he says is “okay,” but not as good as others he’s had. I like it though. For our secondi, I get the Buon Riccordo dish, Chicken Romana, but later wish I had passed and gotten the piseeli, fava and artichoke dish I see being brought to another table. Chris gets the polpettone, which is good but later he too wishes he’d ordered the fried octopus, which looks more like cuttlefish and zucchini flowers. With dinner we enjoyed a Chiarlo 2002 Docetta D’alba, surprisingly good considering the bad things we heard about 2002 and it’s light, a nice compromise between the white I craved and the medium-body red Chris wanted.
By dessert, whatever stupid thing we fought about earlier has been resolved. We want to share something since neither of us feel capable of finishing an entire dessert alone, besides, if you share a dessert, it has no calories. First we order a chocolate torte and some moscato but our server explains that a vin santo will go better with the chocolate than the moscato so we bow to his judgment and go with the vin santo. Then he returns to tell us, unfortunately, they have run out of the torte, so now we can’t decide between a crème brulee and a pastry of some sort filled with zabaglione. The waiter offers to make us a tasting plate, with a bit of each and also recommends that we change our order back to the moscato now. We do and he brings out a lovely dessert for us. The brulee is more like a crème caramel, which I like better than Chris does but they’re both good.
It takes a bit of time to get our check because it seems only one young lady is responsible for tallying up all the bills and the two larger parties sitting to either side of us got their requests in first. Finally, it arrives, lacking the ten percent discount for being hotel guests but they quickly remedy and 96€ later, we’re off to the room to enjoy some BBC World News before going to sleep.
