Amazing Italian Race

As I closed the heavy wooden door behind me and turned the stone corner of the building, I stopped suddenly as if I had encountered a glass partition. In the gravel courtyard below, my rental car was snugly nestled in by a car I did not recognize.

It was the morning after the wedding of two dear friends in Tuscany, and I woke up feeling a little rough around the edges. When I was planning the details of the trip, the idea of heading to Munich the day after the wedding seemed like a reasonable itinerary; except for the minor detail that the train to Munich left at 10am from Florence. And I was staying outside Siena, 90 miles away.

During the week-long wedding festivities, I had made friends with an English couple and offered to give them a ride to Florence that day since I had a car.

At 7:30 that morning I met Ruth and Gareth outside the Tuscan villa, where all the wedding guests were staying, and an unexpected sight greeted me. My car was completely blocked in by a car that I did not recognize. As the shock of the situation quickly sunk in, we began to formulate a plan.

We first deduced that it wasn’t a car of anyone who had spent the week with us. We highly suspected the car belonged to a friend of the best man, Ollie, who arrived late yesterday, moments before the wedding. There were 80 people staying at the villa and the dilemma was finding the best man’s room. We sped off in separate directions and started knocking on doors. More often than not, no one answered. The wedding celebration had lasted until the wee hours of the morning and no doubt people were deep in a drunken slumber. The villa was a maze of rooms and passageways. Each door opened to reveal another hallway full of doors.

After an hour of this, alarm started to set in. Time was moving at what felt like an accelerated pace. I decided to retry a set of doors that I had knocked on previously. As panic set in, I started to knock louder and more aggressively. Finally, I heard some movement.

“Please, please be the right room,” I prayed.

Ollie, the best man, grumpily answered the door. "What's going on?" he mumbled. I breathlessly explained the situation. He nodded and stumbled around the room looking for the car keys. I snatched the keys from his hands and literally flew down the hallway and across the gravel courtyard of the villa. We collectively held our breath as we tested the key in the car. It worked!

In a blur of activity, we moved the offending car, quickly said goodbye to the bleary-eyed guests who had gathered to watch the morning drama, and piled into the rental car.

As we raced along the motorway towards Florence, we tried to relieve the tension by reminiscing about the marvelous week we had exploring Siena, San Gimignano, Montepulciano, and the fantastic wedding itself. This was a distraction since I knew I still needed to navigate through the ancient streets of Florence, drop off the car, and walk to the train station. Time was slowly running out.

After a few wrong turns, unanticipated one way streets, and maneuvering through the crowds of tourists and nuns on bicycles, I screeched into the rental car facility. With a quick goodbye and heartfelt thanks to Ruth and Gareth, I raced towards the train station, with my luggage flying wildly behind me. As my train came into view, I noticed the large overhead train clock. 9:57. Three whole minutes to spare.

As the train sped across the countryside, I wistfully thought of the days when I was a student backpacking in Europe, with no responsibilities or obligations. When part of the adventure was missing the only train of the day and being happy about it. I vowed to try to recapture some of that spontaneous spirit on my next journey.