Is there any excuse? Is there any reader really waiting with baited breath? Is it really worth it for me to try to remember what I had to say 7 months ago, or should I just throw some pictures on this thing and move onward and upward, including getting to the honeymoon post (and if I know my audience, that's where the interest is, amirite?)
So way back in June, I went to Italy. My dad's parents had rented out a villa in the Tuscan countryside for a month, inviting my huge family to come and go as they pleased. Armed with wedding planning folders and a love of pasta, I hopped on the red-eye with my parents and sister (them in first class, us in coach, naturally.)
Upon landing late, we decided to stay at a nearby airport hotel before driving up to the villa. This was the first geographical headache, a memory of bickering and round-abouts that came flooding back from my first time there as a pre-teen. We checked into a cigar-smoke filled room and finally slept and began our drive North the next morning. A stop along the way at Orvieto, a hill-top town that coincidentally we had been to before on the aforementioned trip, where they were having a parade. A very serious, solemn parade.
We ate at the restaurant we had, yes, eaten in 15 years prior - a grotto tucked into the hillside of the walled city.
Finally on the way to the villa, we floundered with moot maps and connectionless GPS devices. We stopped at a vespa rally to get directions (!) before finally finding the villa, where a chef named Matisse was cooking us a welcome dinner.
The next day we relaxed and only ventured out to walk to the sole restaurant nearby. There we made friends with the toothless owner Pasquale, not by using common language, but only through large hand movements.
The next evening we entered the nearest city, Siena, to walk around and to celebrate me eating the world's largest calzone.
