Italia Julia & Nicole Style: Part Quattro: Italian Driving Rules, Getting Stoned & Analyzing our Boobs

We arrive in Siena to find Blue without a ticket…we thought for sure we would be towed or have a ticket because of our illegal parking during the four days we were in Northern Italy. However, my friend Mauro did us a huge favor…he wrote an Italian note that said “Sorry, but my car is broke down and I will be able to move it soon.” He left this note on the windshield and voila!…it worked! I thought this strategy was obsurd honestly and would never work, but…I think Mauro knows someone who knows someone who knows someone, get my drift?

The plan now was to relax, and visit Perugia (famous for the chocolate), Assisi (St. Frances), Lucca, Montalcino (famous for great wine) and Cinque Terre (5 villages along the coast). All of these places we would be driving to and experiencing once again the Italian way of driving (Rule #1: drive very, very, fast. Rule #2: don’t use turn signals. Rule #3: don’t take it personal if you get honked at. Rule #4: Stay out of the way. Rule #5: Always have cash for the tolls. Rule #6: Understand Italian road signs AND hand gestures. Rule #6: Learn to sing to Italian music… etc, etc, etc.)

We visited Perugia and Assisi on the same day; they are within 30 minutes of one another and are about 2 hours from Siena. First to Assisi, we visit St. Frances church and walked around the town for a bit. The most exciting thing that happened in Assisi was when we were in a gift shop in the church and were surrounded by Japanese tourists…pushy, aggressive Japanese tourists. Well…I was losing my temper quickly…about as quickly as the Japanese women were invading my personal space. About this time, Nicole also had had enough and shoved a Japanese lady who had just pushed Julia. We were all hissing by the time we decided to make way to the exit.

Then we headed to Perugia, which is not the quaint, small chocolate village we all imagined. Rather it is a big town, with not much going on and there were no cute little chocolate shops around each corner (I think we imagined this picture of Perugia from watching the movie “Chocolate”, but that wasn’t even based in Italy, but somewhere in France.) Anyway, we still indulged in a gelato, some shopping and we did find some great “Chocolate with Cannibus” in a little café. After taking a few hits…or bites rather of the chocolate, we headed home. So…no Johnny Depp and not even a slight buzz from the chocolate…still we were content and enjoyed the day.

The next day we were scheduled for a spa day at Bagni di Lucca. We were all looking forward to this because all of my other spa visits had been divine (Linari, Chianciano, Petriolo, Positano, Saturnia). Lucca is about 4 hours from Siena and we planned to drive there and spend a day in the thermal baths. Let’s just say, this was a day from hell and was anything but relaxing. To make a very looooong story short (and so that I don’t get post traumatic stress from reliving the story), I’ll just tell you that the scenery was gorgeous, but we were in the car so long and had gotten lost because of the confusing signs. By the time we arrived, we were so disappointed by the spa because the pools were closed, I was too tired to speak even a little Italian and the only thing we did at the spa after being in the car for 3+ hours was sit naked in the steam room (we used this time to criticize our boobs – I was pissed because mine had shrank and Julia and Nicole were not happy with their cup size either.) So if you can imagine, we are in the middle of fucking nowhere, sweating in a sauna, and self-criticizing our boobs…oh God we were desperate for something. After deciding we couldn’t take another moment of the heat, we walked out and then were instructed to nap for 10 minutes in the relaxation room. Okay…. We all just lay there starring at the ceiling, thinking, “Just get me the hell out of here.” That was Lucca. Of course, by the time we were on the road again, we found the whole thing hysterical, laughed our asses off again and then searched desperately for JT on the radio (in the midst of all of the Italian music, once in awhile they will throw in Justin Timberlake or Gwen Stefani.)