The Abbey at Coltibuono

I've decided that my first entry after the long drought will be about the Abbey at Coltibuono...for two reasons: 1) because it came right after Rome, so it makes sense, and 2) because I went out to the rue Montorgueil earlier (it's a great pedestrian street with all kinds of amazing markets) and bought a tenderloin of pork, some potatoes and green beans, a fresh block of Chevre and a baguette. The pork et. al. is in the oven, and I'm dining on some of the Chevre with the baguette as I drink the last of the Chianti Classico that's left from our shipment from the Abbey. Before we arrived in Rome, I had the Abbey ship 12 bottles of their wine to the hotel and the staff at the Hotel Canada were nice enough to put a bottle in each room before we arrived. So...as I sit here and type about the Abbey, with the smell of baked pork wafting through my little rented apartment and a bit of Chevre on my plate, I will drink what remains of the Coltibuono Chianti and try to share the story of our visit there with you.....

The day itself began kind of strangely. Carl, Jeanne and I (oh, and Shakil too), walked over to the train station to pick up our rental cars. After waiting in line behind some dork that was having "issues", we finally got to the desk to discover that two of the cars we reserved weren't available. Uh oh. There's kind of a long story about why we rented the cars we did, but I won't get into it all. Suffice it to say that Carl didn't want to drive a stick shift, so we were limited to the types of cars we could rent right from the get-go, because in Europe in general, there's no such thing as a car with an automatic transmission. Anyway...we were left with one option. A BMW Sport Station Wagon that was twice the amount of one of the cars, and the same amount as BOTH of them. Oddly, another thing a little different about Europe is that despite our complaints that they didn't have the car we reserved, they weren't willing to give us one we wanted at the same price. Go figure. So, we decided that our only option was to go with the two-car option. One 9 passenger minivan, and a 5 passenger station wagon. As we left the Hertz counter and headed toward the cars, I was crossing my fingers that 14 people AND their luggage would fit in the space those two cars had to offer. (I want to get into all the goofy detail about getting to the BMW and neither Carl nor I could figure out how to get the damn thing started...but to save ourselves the embarrassment, I'll skip it. (Note: put your foot on the break). So...off Carl and I go, speeding through Rome to get to the Minivan, only to discover that someone had double-parked next to it, and it wasn't going anywhere. So...now...you have to know that at this point, it's like 10:30, and I was adamant about leaving the hotel at 10. We'd already left John behind before on our way to the Vatican tour, so everyone was on their best behavior to make sure they were in the lobby, bags ready to go, checked-out...yada yada yada, and here we are....late with the transportation.

OK...so anyway...the dude finally shows up to move his car, and off we go again, speeding around Rome like all the rest of the maniacs that should never be licensed to drive a car. We make it to the hotel to the cheers of everyone waiting, and much to my surprise, somehow, the men managed to get every bag into the cars. It really was a miracle. If someone had brought one extra bag, it wouldn't have fit. It was perfect.

I think the pork is done...hang on.....

Oh my gosh! If you've never had farm raised pork with organically grown potatoes and green beans loaded with herbs de provence, butter, salt and pepper...you need to get on a plane and get over here in time for leftovers. And it's perfect with the Chianti. Yum!!!

OK...wow...that was good....now back to the story.....

So...we get the bags loaded, and off we go. I decided that these drivers in Rome ain't got nothin' on a good ol' American from the Midwest, so I head right out into traffic...taking no hostages. Boom! It's probably only if you've ever been in a taxi in Rome that you can appreciate how they drive over there. Apparently, there are no rules. So I just went with it. 0-60 in 4 seconds on a pedestrian filled street?? No problem. Edging your way around some loser that hesitated for half a second?? I'm in. With Kelly in the navigator's seat looking for street signs, we were off and running. Within just a few minutes, we were headed for the Autostrada, whizzing past ancient ruins, plowing over little old ladies (no disrespect intended), and hitting speeds of 80 (kph, that is) without looking back. I even honked a couple of people to the delight of all my passengers. It was a moment worth remembering.

Out of Rome and speeding along on the Autostrada, we were using directions from mappy.com to get us to Coltibuono. Here's hint number one: NEVER USE MAPPY FOR DIRECTIONS! They were so bad, we missed our first exit. That led to the first of what would become many heated discussions about where the heck we were. After zooming through about 18 little towns trying to get us back on the right course, I finally stopped and went to consult with the folks in the other car. OK..um...that wasn't pleasant, to say the least. You see, they KNEW we missed the first exit. So they were just following along behind us wondering what the HELL we were doing. Their patience was running out. I made them take the lead. Which was actually a good thing, because Carl and his sporty little BMW station wagon could take the turns a lot better than my honkin' 9 passenger behemoth of a "mini" van, and after they took the lead, wound up arriving at Coltibuono about 15 minutes before we did. Ah...but alas, 44 missed turns and a few heated moments, and we too finally arrived at the Abbey. Oh my....















I will post all of the pictures from the Abbey on the restaurant website, but these are just a few to give you an idea of how beautiful the place was. On our arrival day, we all met at the Abbey's restaurant to have a little plate of cold-cuts and some wine. After we finished, we decided that since the restaurant was full for dinner, Laurie, Bob, John and I would go in search of a market to find some food to cook, and then we'd make dinner for everyone using the kitchen that was in the apartment that John and David were sharing. So...off we go. Or so we thought. We headed into Gaiole in Chianti, only to discover after talking to a very nice woman that I nodded to several times buy didn't understand, that there was some kind of festival going on, and, it was Sunday, so apparently everything was closed. The best that came from our foray into Gaiole was a private joke for the rest of the trip that included the word "Festa" every time something was going quite like it should. Ah...but undeterred as we were, we headed off to Sienna, knowing that if we made it to a bigger city, we'd find something. Mistake number 2. We did find a huge, (and I mean, really, really big) grocery store...but it was closed. So, still undeterred and with an unrelenting drive, we did what every other red-blooded American would do in a time like this: We stopped at a Pizza place and bought 7 pizzas to go!!! Once we arrived back at the Abbey (only 45 minutes later than we'd planned), everyone met in the beautiful living room, where I tried without success to start a fire in the biggest fireplace I've ever seen, and ate cold pizza. Oh...and we had wine too. Finally, day 1 at the Abbey was coming to an end. Everyone was tired after driving, and our dinner of cold pizza just couldn't motivate anyone to get excited about too much more. So after saying our goodnights, everyone turned in.....