As mentioned in my previous entry, this past weekend requires a separate blog entry of its own. I apologize if you find this story too long and laborious to read, but I want to make sure I have a sufficient account of the events of this past weekend as it was one of the best times imaginable. Uhh, where to begin, where to begin??
It was simply the most amazing time I’ve ever had in one weekend. To explain it fully, I must start with Thursday afternoon. All week we had seen ads all over Florence for “Opera Festival”, which was featuring Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” among other operas. I wanted to see it so badly, but knew that time would not permit it because I had to travel to my new destination on Saturday. But then on Thursday afternoon, our camp director informed the four of us tutors (Jessica, Gabrielle, Franzi, and myself) that we could travel to our new camp locations on Sunday. I immediately blurted out that we should book tickets to see “Don Giovanni” on Saturday night. We got online 10 minutes later and purchased our four tickets for 60 euro each (not a bad price!) with one of the girls’ credit cards. The location on the ticket was an abbey. So we went to the camp director to ask where in Florence the abbey is located. Upon seeing the ticket, a look of horror swept across her face and she informed us that this abbey was 3 hours away by car, in the middle of nowhere.
I thought she was kidding because it was advertised as a Florentine opera festival. After researching on the internet, I learned that each opera in the festival is performed at two different locations; sometimes in the center of Florence, and sometimes in this abbey in San Galgano. We also learned that it would be near impossible to get there. Obviously nobody wanted to drive us because the opera was from 9pm until midnight. We also learned that there is only one bus that goes to San Galgano (from Siena) each day. It arrives in San Galgano at 2:45pm. So we decided that although the situation really sucked, we should call and cancel the purchase. Well, although we had made the purchase less than an hour earlier, we were told (after calling 3 different numbers) that no cancellations or refunds are possible. So now we’re really screwed.
Over the course of the afternoon/evening, we stress out about it way too much and configure plans of trying to sell the tickets to parents at the camps’ final show. By the end of the night, we were so sick of stressing over it and worrying about it that we all just threw our hands in the air and said “F**k it, we’re going to see this opera no matter how we have to get there!”
That meant that Friday, our camp director, assistant, and my host mother were on the phone and internet literally all day trying to figure out how we could get there and where we could stay the night. There was only one hotel in San Galgano and it was full, so we would have to sleep at a hostel in Siena (35 km away). Because there is only one bus to San Galgano in the early afternoon, we would have to wake up pretty early (7am) to start our journey. The plan was to take a train from Sesto Fiorentino to Florence, a bus from Florence to Siena, another bus from Siena to San Galgano, kill 6 hours in San Galgano until the opera, see the opera, then take a taxi back to our hostel in Siena, wake-up at the crack of dawn again (6:30am) to catch the bus back to Florence in time to catch the noon train to Milan that Franzi and I already had tickets for to get to the next camp. (…complicated, I know!)
Our amazing camp director was able to figure out exactly which trains/buses we needed to catch at what time, she found us a hostel in Siena, and she even called a taxi company to ensure that we could get one that late and in such a remote area. We could. Plan set. Well, as any truly amazing story follows, things did not exactly go as planned… and I wouldn’t want it any other way!
Early Saturday morning, we start on our truly epic adventure across Tuscany. We take the train to Florence, then get on the bus to Siena. It was crowded, so we had to separate to get seats. I sat next to a really nice Swiss woman who was in Tuscany for a few weeks to take an Italian course. Anyway, we arrive in Siena (which was beautiful, but we didn’t have time to monkey around). We had planned to walk to our hostel to drop our things off, but a man at the tabacchi told us that it was a 35 minute walk. So we have to get on a city bus to take us across town to the hostel. We only had an hour before the bus to San Glagano (which we couldn’t miss because it was the only one).
Arriving at the hostel, we are informed that the rooms aren’t ready yet and we will have to wait half an hour. So we sat in the lobby, eating our packed lunches and packing our day bags with a change of clothes for the opera. Finally, we were allowed to drop off our things in our rooms. Franzi and I shared a room that made my university dorm room seem like a spacious villa. We were told that the bus to San Galgano was to leave from the train station (which is far from the bus station), but that we must buy our tickets at the bus station. Deciding that a taxi was the only way to make the stops in time, we called one. It was about this time when I realized that this little excursion was going to cost me a lot more money than I anticipated!
Once on the bus, I understood why it only went to San Galgano once per day. There were only two other people on the bus, and the nauseating sharp turns and swerves through the narrow roads of Tuscany were far from pleasant… but the view was stunning! I watched the time closely to make sure we got off at the correct stop (which was supposed to be at 2:45pm). We got nervous when the bus stopped at 2:50pm and it wasn’t San Galgano. I asked the driver in my simple Italian if the San Galgano stop was next. He said that San Galgano was the previous stop, about 5-6 km back (although I think it was much further). I asked if he could turn around for extra money, but he said the bus is too big to turn around on the tiny road. He told us we would have to walk. After staring at each other in disbelief for a brief moment, we filed off the bus. As it rolled past us and out of sight, we realized that we were in the middle of nowhere Tuscany… esentially lost. We only had basic directions from the driver that we were hoping our brains had translated correctly.
We also realized at that moment how beautiful our mistake could become. We had six hours (until the opera started) to wander through the Tuscan countryside, our only goal being to enjoy ourselves… and that is exactly what we did! We marveled at the thought of being masters of ourselves for a day, no camp directors or host families to answer to, no children for which we were responsible. We were completely alone in paradise. Halfway through our walk, we were nearing the end of our water bottles and very thirsty. When we crossed a house on the side of the road, we asked the woman in the driveway (who must have wondered why on earth these foreigners were here, of all places) for water. She pointed to a spicket near the garage where she allowed us to refill our bottles.
During the three hours of walking that it took us to reach San Galgano, we took in as much of the beautiful view as we could (both with our eyes and with our cameras). We ran through a field of grass on a hill and spun ourselves around, pretending to be in “The Sound of Music”. We climbed atop massive hay bales and sat there for half an hour, talking about how fortunate our misfortune had turned out to be. And we laughed more than I thought possible in one day. We laughed at our predicament, we laughed at each other, we laughed at ourselves, we laughed at bad jokes, good jokes, everything. The whole time we were walking, I just kept thinking that it was the kind of experience that only happens in movies, not in real life. And the true beauty of it was that it was completely unplanned and unexpected. Even if I tried, I don’t think I could replicate the experience and the feeling of those three hours.
When we finally reached San Galgano, we saw for ourselves why this place was chosen as the location for an opera. The abbey is an enormous building (obviously centuries old) that had been preserved without the roof or glass windows, making it open-air. It was surrounded on three sides by massive fields of the most yellow sunflowers I have ever seen. The sight was the epitome of a scene on one of those greeting cards that one would buy for a grandmother. To the right of the abbey was a hill, on top of which was an ancient church that was erected in the twelfth century as the quarters of a knight who renounced his worldly life to become a hermit. Upon doing so, he thrust his sword into a stone to symbolize giving up his lifestyle. The sword in the stone remains there today, where people like me can peer through the glass case and wonder if a human being could actually have the power to create such a symbol.
Having arrived at our destination, we now had about three more hours to kill before the opera. We decided we should first rest a bit at the only bar/restaurant, eating the best popsicle (or ice-lolly, as my British colleagues call it) that I think I’ve ever had. Then Jessica and I walked around the abbey and the old church, exploring every room that we could while Franzi and Gabrielle took a nap on a picnic table. We decided to call the taxi company again to confirm our late-night request, but the man on the phone said that it was too early to call and that we should call back during intermission of the opera.
By about 8pm, the whole place was abuzz with opera buffs who had undoubtedly not had near as much fun as we had getting there. We ordered the cheapest dishes we could for dinner at the restaurant so that we wouldn’t feel as bad spending money on a bottle of wine. Since the restaurant was full, we took or food and wine outside and ate in the grass adjacent to the sunflower fields. The sun began to set, turning the sky into brilliant shades of pink, orange, and yellow. Once again, while enjoying our meal and laughing even more, we reveled at our movie-like, picture-perfect situation.
We found our seats in the abbey as the opera was preparing to start. Our seats were about halfway back, but the stage was elevated higher than usual to ensure that all could see the spectacle. When pointed out that there was no screen on which English supertitles could be projected, the girls were extremely grateful that I had printed out the opera’s synopsis and read it to them on the bus ride earlier that day. As soon as the conductor waved his arms, signaling the orchestra to begin the overture, a gust of wind rushed through the abbey—as if moved by the music, blowing just hard enough to give me goose bumps. It seemed magical. Predictably, the opera was an exceptional production with excellent singers (the soprano playing Donna Anna was particularly incredible). I breathed a sigh of relief at the end, having finally seen an opera in Italy—in Tuscany—the birthplace of the art form itself!
Unfortunately, my sense of relief and satisfaction was short-lived. During intermission, we had called the taxi company, as we were instructed to do. This time, the man said that he wasn’t sure he would be able to send a taxi that late in the night and that we should have called earlier. Franzi, with her no-fear/no bullshit British attitude, made it quite clear that we had called three hours ago in addition to the phone call that had been made two days ago to ensure we could get a taxi. Unrelenting, the man told us that a taxi to San Galgano at that time was impossible. With no taxi, no form of public transportation available, and no vacant hotel rooms, we would either need to hitchhike back to Siena or sleep in the grass. I wasn’t opposed to sleeping in the grass there, but that would mean that we would get to Siena too late the next morning to catch the bus we needed back to Florence. The next morning was Sunday, after all, and not as many buses/trains run on Sunday.
We devised a plan: Franzi and Gabrielle would go into the restaurant and ask them for names/numbers of other taxi companies (if there were any) while Jessica and I would beg for rides back to Siena from the other opera-goers.
I began by asking people walking by if they spoke English. If they did, I would ease into the question by asking if they knew of a bus back to Siena (even though I already knew the answer). Then Jessica and I would get a really concerned look on our faces and ask if they knew of any way for us to get back that night. The first two groups of people we asked, one Italian and one French, both said they were driving back to the seaside, not to Siena. Then I spotted a group of the orchestra musicians walking by. I asked them if they were going to Siena. They said they were sorry, but they weren’t. As everyone got into their cars and drove out of San Galgano, leaving it once again like a ghost-town, Jessica and I realized that our plan was failing.
We went back to the restaurant, where Franzi and Gabrielle were having better luck. Apparently, a waiter named Andrea (who we nick-named ‘Angel Andrea’) had come out of the kitchen and asked if they needed help. They explained our situation, and Andrea was on the phone for 20 minutes, persisting until he found a taxi that would drive there so late. HALLELUJAH!! The taxi from San Galgano back to our hostel in Siena was a hefty fee of 80 euro for the four of us, but beggars (literally beggars!) can’t be choosers.
We arrived back in our hostel at about 2am, only to discover that our room had flooded… I guess from a leak in the sink?? All of Franzi’s luggage was completely wet. For no apparent reason other than luck, I had left all of my luggage on my bed, so it was fine. We were too tired to call and try to get a different room, so we just waded to our beds and collapsed. Then all of the sudden, as we were attempting to fall asleep, Franzi and I started bursting out laughing about how crazy everything about our day had been. Coming back to a flooded room was just the cherry on top of a series of extraordinarily unusual and unexpected events.
The next morning, we woke up at 6:30am (meaning we were only able to sleep for about four hours) to walk to the bus stop where we would board our bus back to Florence. The hostel didn’t serve breakfast until 7:30am, so again we found ourselves begging—this time for food. The best the man at the front desk could do was crackers and jelly, but that was good enough for us. We still had a few snacks left to eat as well.
Upon arriving in Florence, Franzi and I awaited our train to Milan for our next camp and Jessica and Gabrielle were going to spend the day in Florence. (They were put on hold for the next week, so they had nowhere they needed to go.) We went to McDonald’s where we spent over an hour eating lunch… and oddly, it tasted sooo good. Then we walked back to the train station where Franzi and I had to say our goodbyes to Jessica and Gabrielle. It was the most genuinely sad ACLE goodbye that I’ve had to do. We had gotten quite close over the course of the three weeks that we had all four been working together, and overcoming so many obstacles over our unforgettable weekend really allowed us to bond. I will miss them dearly, but I know that we will all remember our adventure together for the rest of our lives.
…So this concludes the story of the best adventure of my life. It took us 4 trains, 4 buses, 2 taxis, and 3 hours of walking in a matter of 36 hours—all because we made a 1 second decision to see “Don Giovanni”. I think it’s safe to say that we are capable of making it to any opera in the world, no matter how remote the location may be. If there is any way to get there, we can figure it out! Seeing “Don Giovanni” also cost us about 800 euro in total (about 200 euro each).
In case you’re curious, here’s the price breakdown:
60.00- opera ticket
01.10- train (3 trains paid for by ACLE: 120 euro)
18.40- buses
22.50- taxis
20.00- hostel room
19.00- souvenirs
20.70- food
11.00- wine
TOTAL = 172.70 euro (In US dollars, this equates to well over $200!)
…but the experience = PRICELESS!
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