I've said it before and I'll say it again: this is the trip of a lifetime. In fact, as we discussed over dinner last night, it's several trips of a lifetime. Any one segment of our trip so far would be an amazing holiday all by itself. We're piling them all in together in one big adventure. Sometimes it's hard to get my head around, which is why writing about it is quite good.
And for both of us there have been highs and lows; or highs and not-so-highs, probably more accurately. Driving days have been not-so-highs, typically.
Last night I felt I had come to another high. Figuratively and literally. We are in Certaldo Alto; a hilltop village which is the old part of the town of Certaldo in central Tuscany. We can see San Gimingnano from here, and we are a 40-minute train ride from Florence. We're in an apartment which is inside the walled town, which was all once a castle. We're literally in the castle walls. (I've become so casual about living in 13th-century buildings, I can't believe it.) This town is almost exactly what you picture (what I pictured anyway) when you think of a Tuscan town. The rose and terracotta-coloured buildings, the rolling hills covered in olives, the castle, the old men sitting out in the sunshine; it's like walking around in one big film set. Where is Diane Lane? I keep asking myself. Except this is real, and it's our home for the next week or so. I'm quite excited. 
The apartment is quite big - two bedrooms and two bathrooms - and one side looks out on the main street of Certaldo Alto, via Boccacia. The back looks over a courtyard where we park our car; Sandy loves this because he reckons it's the flashest car park he's ever had. You drive through part of the palazzo walls to get to it. The place is furnished, let's say, to older people's tastes - lots of doilies and a few artificial flowers here and there. But it's spotless and in keeping with the style of the building, and very well equipped. There are pasta pots and parmesan graters and excellent wine glasses. Elio, our host, is a lovely welcoming Italian man who retired here ten years ago. This is his wife's birthplace, and he and a few other townsfolk got together a year or so ago and bought the crumbling ruins of the castle walls and made the buildings into apartments. We met Elio's whole family - mother, sister, in-laws - as they sat outside their door in the sunshine. They do this every day - just sit, and talk. Italians certainly love to talk. "My wife and sister are very good cooks", Elio said when I said I wanted to learn the local cooking. "But they don't speak English". I'm hoping we can break down this language barrier a little, because I would love to see and taste their cooking.
In the meantime we've been eating our way through a fair bit of Tuscan fare. Tuscan food, according to Claudia Roden, whose book I have with me, is the simplest in the whole of Italy. I think this is true. It's all about straightforward ingredients, one or two herbs, simple salads, mushrooms, tomatoes, bread, pecorino, grilled meats. "This is like what we eat at Four Winds", said Sandy over dinner last night, "except not as nice". He's very loyal to my cooking, my husband. (Just like an Italian!) He always tells everyone we meet that the best meals we've had here are the ones I've cooked. Isn't that sweet?
Anyway I didn't cook on our first night here; instead we went to one of the local restaurants, also in the castle walls and appropriately called Il Castello. Elio had told us this was his favourite of the 5 or so restaurants in the town. "Good Tuscan cooking", he said. It was, too. We had classic Tuscan dishes, starting in the Italian manner with pasta: parpadelle with mushrooms for Sandy and ravioli stuffed with spinach and ricotta in a sage and butter sauce for me. Both were excellent, mainly because of the quality of the pasta: silky, firm and delicate. It reminded me how much I have missed pasta during all that time in France! Then simple main courses: veal with a mushroom and truffle sauce, and grilled chicken (this they do flat on the grill, splitting the chicken down the backbone and opening it out. These dishes come unadorned; just the meat on the plate. Contorni, or side dishes, are ordered separately; we had some rosemary roast potatoes. Sandy was not as impressed as I was with this meal; he felt it was not as good as it could have been for something so simple. I agreed that I could have had a pretty good stab at this food myself without too much trouble. And with New Zealand ingredients, the results would probably be pretty great. But I enjoyed the simplicity of this food. It is very like food we eat at home, in many ways, and for me it's fascinating to see it done in its home environment. And when you're in a hilltop Tuscan village, what's to complain about?
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