Death on the Appian Way

11, September

One last breakfast at the Hotel Scacciapensieri, bill paying and group pictures and we load up the van one final time. We hit the freeway towards Rome to turn in the rental car and catch a series of trains to Volterra. Better stop for gas on the way in, don’t want to pay those ridiculous rental car rates for gas! How about this one…no they always rip you off…how about that one…nah….ok, this one will work. Deisel? No, nothing on the tank, nothing on the keys…must be regular gasoline, wait, you must wear gloves to pump your own gas here…. you know once on “Amazing Race” a couple put gasoline in a car that only took diesel and the car died right there….good thing we checked it out. Back in the van and we are ready to head into the heart of Rome, traffic and all. Hmmm, that’s odd, don’t remember the van idling so rough before. We are finally at Termini, about 4 blocks from the car rental drop off spot, Uncle Jim pulls into a “taxi only” parking space and sends us to the car rental counter…”you must not park it in the taxi spot, bring it here”. Back to the van, no problem, Uncle Jim plans to just back the van back up the one way street the four blocks to the car droop off zone. Envision backing up against traffic on say…. I-5, but add pedestrians and Uncle Jim saying “I really can’t see out of the back of this thing”, all the while the van is shuddering in what will soon be death throes. We make it only 2 ½ blocks before Uncle Jim gives up, pulls into another taxi only spot, turns the van off and goes to the counter giving them the keys proclaiming “I’m not driving it any more you move it” in Italian. The van of course will not start now….what did you do fill it with gasoline….ummmm…yes??!! Does anyone remember the couple on “Amazing Race”…well, I guess we’ll have something to blog about now!

We bid Uncle Jim good bye and head for binario 25...about a mile and a half from our current location, certainly hope there isn’t any last minute changes to the track location. The ride is relaxed, we enjoy the lunches we prepared, read and knitted until we reached Cecina for our first train change. Where is the binario for the next train…hmmm…what does that little bus picture mean? Oh, no train, bus to Volterra-Saline. No train, no problem we hop on the bus and head off. From there we catch a smaller second bus and we are almost there. When we arrive in Volterra we are greeted with hugs from our friend Lisa at the hotel and relax until dinner. There is some sort of medieval festival with costumes and flags…very festive welcoming for the anniversary couple!! Jim calls home to let everyone know we have made it safely to our next stop, but Uncle Jim has beat him to it and already spun the van story so he is totally blameless for the van death. Jim: “But I didn’t pump the gas Ma, Uncle Jim pumped the gas”, “where the hell Bill? He never even got out of the van!” We have a delicious dinner and the join all of Volterra in the main square. Every window in the square has a candle in it and the medieval festival presentation is full of fire and singing and fireworks and costumes. It was breath-taking.