Heavy heartedly we packed our bags, this took a very long time so luckily I had told (lied) Eric that his cousins were coming in half an hour as it took us an hour and a half to shower and pack. We couldn't even have had breakfast if Bar Ico had been open as before we knew it the cousins were ringing the buzzer.
Although it was only three days ago ( I have been up since 330am in Florence blogging because Eric has a very noisy toothache) i can't remember the order of the day. We raced out of Treviso actually not sure where we were going as the explanation was in rapid fire Italian - Eric by the way is getting really good at communicating with his cousins.
Two bouquets of flowers behind us should have revealed the first stop which was the cemetery. Apparently this was a church the last time Eric's parents came to visit. Patrizia and Joey's mother had passed away this February so it was a very emotional visit. We also saw Eric's paternal grandparents vaults - Italians aren't buried underground - and his father's deceased brothers. I was able to film the church bells ringing for Serge. We bid the dearly departed farewell and then drove into San Biago to the family vineyard.
Joey maintains the property, it is not a vineyard anymore and I'm not sure if he leases it to someone else as the fields were freshly tilled. There was a walnut and chestnut grove, a little stream out the front and an overwhelming sense of peace. He has planted bulbs and peonies and some of the tulips and daffodils were flowering, he proudly showed us the cherry tree he'd grafted when he was only 14 years old.
He proudly led us into the house, apparently he is restoring the house and nothing has been thrown out. It is kept in complete memory of their grandparents with Nonnas hair still in her brush. When Eric was 3 his family lives here for 6 months. He said he could remember the water feature and rabbits. Joey cracked us some nuts and toured us through the house.
I made a 16min film for Sergio of the cousins showing off the house. Patrizia took Eric for a walk down the little street to the next farmhouse. Joey gestured for me to come in the car and he raced across the road and parked crookedly on the grass. Meanwhile an old lady had come out of the house with a middleaged woman trailing behind her.
Patrizia started kissing her all over her face and patting her I asked "Zia?"
"Si, si, Zia"
Confusion reigned in my mind I thought that Zia Maria was in a retirement home, obviously I'd gotten it wrong . I asked where our present was for Zia Maria. Joey got it out of the car and we gave her the present. I then took some photos of her for Sergio.
Volute - Joey started the car, we hurriedly scrambled in, as was his pattern, he took off while we slammed the doors shut, pulling in our legs. We waved goodbye and went left on the main road rather than right. It turned out that the route we'd entered from was a detour due to the bikeathon that we'd witnessed. A sign pointed to Mare.
Maybe we were going to the beach??? "Beaca??" I enqired, (not knowing the word for beach i stuck an 'a' on the end and hoped to make myself understood.
"Si,si" said Patrizia. A heated debate was going on in the front of the machinna . Joey slammed on the brakes and questions were asked off a lady walking along the footpath. After some vigorous pointing and nodding we took off again. Joey veered left into a car park and hastened us across the road to a flash looking building - a retirement village.
Patrizia rang the buzzer and I heard the name 'Maria Spigariol ' 'cugini Australina' being bandied about. The gateway clicked open. We basically ran down the path and entered the building. The nurses were questioned. One seemed nice the other not so.
She was obviously denying the visit based on the time and told us to come back later. A very emotional exchange occurred and finally she agreed to 5 minutes.
We walked up the staircase and a white haired old lady was wheeled out. This was Eric's real aunty the other was his aunty in law. Mystery cleared up although I felt terrible that I'd inadvertently given her present away.
Once it was explained that this was her piccolo nipote Eric from Australia she was so delighted and asked him all about his family in Australia especially her brother. Once again i did a little film for Sergio as it's unlikely that he will ever see her in this lifetime. We were alerted when our 5 minutes was up. After tearful goodbyes she was wheeled off to eat her gruel.
We also went to eat beside a delightful lake at a pizza chain. We ordered a pizza to share but when they arrived we each had one. I also ordered an aperitif and Tiramisu which was apparently not the correct eating order!!!
Before long we were at the station all saying tearful goodbyes. Franco appeared out of nowhere with a book about Treviso for us and introduced us to his workmate Cinzia who was catching the same train. It was lucky that she was on board because i got off at the wrong stop and she ran onto the platform and helped me back on to the carriage.
Things going wrong on board the train were elevated to a new level when we had comfortably hung up our jackets, stored our suitcases and were settling in for a nap when some other passengers wanted to sit in their allocated seats, Hmmm it seemed that we were in the last carriage. So we had to push our suitcases through the other carriages until we reached our seats in which other people were sitting. After some shuffling around we were finally in our seats, somehow the Swiss girl beside me couldn't understand why we wanted to sit together and the other person beside the window sans myself thought the Tuscan landscapes were not worth looking at and kept lowering the screen. Please don't think he was blocking the light due to wanting to nap as he was having one extremely loud conversation after an other.
We arrived in Florence and followed Alessandro's great instructions to the bus stop with a quick detour to the Maccas toilet, I wanted to use the free wifi but the form which wouldn't translate into English was like a Centre link form so thank God I'd had the foresight to screenshot them on all three devices. Overkill you think? ah ah, although I received my new phone battery a few days prior to our departure it's usually on ts last legs or completely dead by 2pm.
Just to keep our public transport jinx going we caught the bus (the wrongone) to our new airbnb and at the end of the line realised we were a bit off track, luckily it was only a 2km walk and a kind passerby on a vespa gave us instructions. We finally reached our destination and settled into our amazing room which was a 15th century chapel in a monastery. The Frescos in the alcoves made it very special. It was a tranquil space , just what we needed after our 'incredible ' journey. After a top class dinner in the pizzaria down the road - no we didn't have pizza, we had an antipasti platter, fried calzone, gnocchi with pine nuts and gorgonzola and Tiramisu - yep, still loving them! After a short walk home we were soon in bed.
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