Of solstice and modern chariots

Where myth meets dream between Prato and Casale

Pilot and copilot with the Punto after we parked in Casale. Photo credit: Bikar.

Happy solstice, everyone. Here in Tuscany at 43 degrees north the morning light kicks in before four in the morning and night returns sometime well after ten. Spain beat Italy in the UEFA playoffs last night, which could not be viewed in its entirety at our home because the signal disappeared sometime before the end of the ludic drama.

We’re in Casale with a houseful of guests, every bed taken including one ad hoc twin-size mattress that we placed on the rug of the floor in the future library for our eleven-year-old nephew, just arrived from Connecticut. The linen cupboard held out and dressed every bed in summer weight with plenty of textile to spare. A medieval Italian housewife would nod in approbation at the white sheets and clean cotton throws folded around thirty-two corners, and eleven full-sized pillows at the head of every bed (Jason bought himself two new pillows yesterday since we are also at Maximum Pillow Occupancy). We have Jason’s parents and his older brother, wife, and kids here - testing capacity at no. 26! Seems to be holding up just fine and the house is alive with family energy.

I love hosting and I love a full house, even as a summer cold (Covid? mini flu?) seems to have settled into my lungs. The reddish sky and dusty raindrops borne northward from Africa by the scirocco have not eased matters; the layer of sand insulates the air between earth and sky and feels like a humid wrap.

Very importantly, and monumentally, on Tuesday I drove my own person in my own car here with Eleanor in the backseat. The Fiat Punto that we purchased for me earlier this month wait for us in the car lot at Prato in the morning, washed and ready to go, as the salesman Marco hovered with an uneasy smile, making me wonder if he knew something about the used car that I did not. He quickly explained that an indeterminate warning light refused to shut off. The brakes okay? Jason quickly countered. Sì, sì, i freni stanno bene, he clucked reassuringly. We all three decided it might be the fog lights or some other light, a short in any case, and I worried for a second if the car had water damage. But we paid for the car two weeks ago and the paperwork was done and I wanted to go to Casale in my own ride so we loaded up the bagaglio and put my crate of geraniums and succulents in the backseat with Eleanor. I followed Jason out of Prato and onto the autostrada where my Telepass chip beeped twice like an incantation toward freedom, and we were off! Monica, behind the wheel of a Fiat in Italy, joining the traffic on the A1, direction Roma!

I drove with the massima prudenza - tons of caution - but it felt great to be behind the wheel again. I’ve always loved driving a manual. Riding versus driving are two very different activities indeed. As a passenger I am usually staring out the window so don’t remember specific turns. (My son Victor, on the other hand, has a photograpic spatial memory, so notices in an instant and recalls everything perfectly.) If I drive it once, though, I’ll always remember the turns. Fortunately the route to Casale is familiar enough.

The gas light came in a dark galleria. Jason called us a few times to see how it was going. My co-pilot Eleanor staffed communications from the back seat. He suggested that we get to Casale first and worry about gas later but I don’t know the car that well yet. I was also a little miffed that I had understood from Marco that the car would be gassed up before I picked it up. No worry, I had money, I was driving my car in Italy, I could certainly get gas at a station before we got to the autostrada.

We exited smoothly and Eleanor complimented my calm driving, the baby geraniums nodding in agreement from the back seat. These plants smell amazing, she said, rubbing the leaves. They make the car smell nice. I agreed and followed the roundabout to the gas station. Some confusion and minor drama ensued as the Fiat gas cap is provisioned with a complicated twist-and-lock feature that requires the ignition key, and then I messed up the pump by inserting the hand into the car before paying at the kiosk. A friendly Italian filling it up at his van asked us if we were from here. I said we lived in Florence and were on our way to our house outside of Loro. He calmly helped us out and soon we were on our way.

Eleanor was starving and we knew there wouldn’t be much to eat at the house so we popped into Canu just before Loro Ciuffenna for takeaway pizza. We put the box with half a wurstel and a slab of salsiccia e carciofi for me, and began to pick our way through Loro Ciuffenna and wind our way up the last three hundred meters of elevation. The mountain lane between Loro Ciuffenna and Casale is narrow, fast, and full of blind curves that the locals take without hitting the brakes. The Punto didn’t seem too fussed so we took it easy and didn’t encounter another car the whole way there.

This was the greatest length I have driven in Italy by a long shot - perhaps since 2005, when Jason contracted a suspected case of in-flight food poisoning and I drove our rental Ypsilon on the autostrada for hours. The inclines were so steep that I repeatedly had to put the Punto in first gear to make the curve, but we never stalled. A few times it felt a bit like Kitty Hawk in that driver’s seat, especially as we pulled up out of the last steep incline from the forest below Casale and swung out to the edge of the hill from which the entire plain of the Valdarno is laid out below on the valley floor, five hundred meters below.

I mention elevation often because it is a major reason we chose the house in Casale. With elevation comes cooler temperatures, lower humidity, fewer mosquitoes and far better views. It is amazing what a topographical lift of 700 meters will do for your wellbeing. The way up here can feel harrowing but gets easier with time. I am sure I will have my hill-shifting down soon.

Victor bounced out of the house to greet us and admitted that yes, he had missed us in his days away from Florence, on duty assisting the grandparents with local language and grocery shopping.

In any case, I feel like a latter-day Phaetona, piloting my silver chariot across long distances, in concert with the summer solstice, grateful for goals met and long-wished for scenarios coming to pass: driving myself around Italy. After eight years of always needing a ride if I was going out of town, or tying my schedule to another driver’s schedule and availability (thank you Jason, patientest of husbands), it feels wonderful to now be eighteen in Italian driving years with keys to my own little Fiat. (With nowhere to park it in Florence, and no way to get it a parking permit, oh Florence… c’è sempre la logistica ….)

I was going to write about writing this morning, but who cares about writing when there are actual things to write about! On that, more later …