Traveling with family members can have both it's high points and low points. As teenagers my sister and I traveled to London together on our own, no parents (late 1980's). I look back now and think my mom and dad must have really trusted us, because how many parents these days would send their 19 and 17 year old daughters to London for a week by themselves? Well, OK, we had been there before with a group of students, a teacher and a couple parents (including our mom) a few years before, so we did know the layout of the city and there were some familiar areas, and we were pretty savvy having traipsed into NYC alot as teenagers on our own, but on the whole we were totatlly on our own in a foreign city.
Now, my sister and I get along pretty well for the most part, but we do have our "moments". Like the time in the hotel in London when my sister threatened to burn my face with her curling iron (over something stupid I'm sure, because I can't even remember what the arguement was about now), or was that me threatening her with my curling iron? Must have been her curling iron, I didn't own one! :) Then (and this is no exaggeration) 30 seconds later we both plopped down on the beds in the room and wanted to know what the other felt like "doing for dinner"? So, traveling with family has it's advantages because there are pretty much no boundaries, we can be completely ourselves, even if it's the good, the bad, or the ugly...imagine not being able to curl your hair because your sister's skin was all over the curling iron! :) OK...other feeble attempt at humor there! :) So I think for the most part family members can be compatible travel companions, at least my family members.
As I've mentioned in this blog I enjoy traveling solo it allows me to make all the decisions and not worry about upsetting or offending anyone by doing something they don't want to. So when the opportunity came up to meet up with a group of friends inTuscany and rent a villa I jumped at the chance, but was a bit cautious at first not knowing some of the participants and how things would "play out". Well, my concern was for naught because I have to say that was the best (ok, maybe it was one of the top 5) travel experiences I have ever had.
The story goes...
My friends Sandy and Alan who live in London were deciding how to spend their 5th wedding anniversary. They sent out an email to everyone who had attended their wedding asking if any of us would be interested in renting a villa in Tuscany to celebrate their "anniversary week"...well, who wouldn't want to do that, or at least in my mind that's what I thought. And God bless Sandy and Alan for coordinating the villa rental and a couple little extra treats. So, it was set that 20 of us would be renting the Villa Carvachione in Gaiole in Chianti about half way between Florence and Sienna.
Sandy & Alan the perfect hosts!
So when we all got the original email I quickly sprang to action typing to 2 other friends on the list to see if they wanted to go too. One did so we started to plan. See, Sandy and Alan were doing the villa rental end of things and then we had to get there and plan any other activities we wanted to do and others could join it or sit it out as they wished. So Scott and I decided we were going to "team-up". He would fly from Atlanta to Rome and I would fly from Savannah to Rome and we would meet up at the airport in Rome, get the rental car Scott booked and drive the 3 hours to Gaiole. Things worked out perfectly. I did a ton of research on the things we could do while there and Scott was the "designated driver" since I don't know how to drive a standard (stick shift) car.
Scott and Me in Sienna
One of the things that worked out well was that both Scott and I had been to Italy before, several times, but never together. So, we had seen some of the same things and some different things. I would keep throwing out suggestions of things I would like to see or do and Scott was always game for doing it, or if he wasn't he would just do his "own thing". The other thing that worked on the site seeing end of the spectrum was that our friend Ally and her husband Jim were pretty much on the same "wave-length" that Scott and I were on. So usually in the mornings when everyone at the villa was getting ready to begin their days we would all figure out what we were doing and just go do it. Then at night everyone would "reconvene" at the villa, with copious amounts of vino of course, and talk about what they did or saw that day. Sometimes we would all have dinner together (yes, 20 of us!) at the villa, or small groups would break off and go out on their own.
Ally, Scott & Jim...
Gelato in Firenza...
doesn't get much better then this!
I have to say that putting 20 people together for a week in a villa in Tuscany, some who had never met before Sandy and Alan could have been in for an "interesting" experience, but from my view, most everyone got along well and had a great time. Talk about interesting travel companions!
The Tuscany Gang
So, the best part of this Tuscany villa vacation was finding out that I was a pretty compatible travel companion with a few friends I had never traveled with before. I was concerned about this because (again) I didn't want to seem like the "trip navigator" telling everyone where to go and what to do. I tried to ask opinions and get a consensus, but honestly, Scott was so easy to travel with, I'd pretty much just point in a direction and say that's where we need to go and that's were the trusty little Nissan Micra took us, of course under Scott's expert guidance, because Lord knows I don't think I could have maneuvered on some of the roads that he was able to!
So now we are anxiously waiting Sandy and Alan's 10th wedding anniversary...can anyone say "The South of France"???? Hey, we've done the red wine thing in Tuscany, it's time to try the white wine thing in France! :)
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