More Notes from the Cheap Seats

The Children’s Meal – My father, ever the tester of boundaries, uncovered an important line in the sand for future reference when dining on Spanish cuisine in Andalusia. By the fourth day of our journey through Spain, the lack of variety in Spanish cuisine had gotten the best of him. We stopped in an ancient village called Rhonda which is situated on a sheer cliff with remarkable views. A suggestion from our travel agent Linda was to eat at the Parador Hotel. Candidly, the restaurant was a little “Stuffier” than what we were looking for after four hours in the car, but the views were nothing short of breathtaking so we decided to give it a go. Following a review of the menu, the waiter arrived to take our order. Anna placed the order for THREE kids chicken nugget meals with fries. The waiter did a double take, glanced up at the table, scanned it with his eyes and said “Signora, you mean dose chicken nuggets si?” Anna then had the enviable job of explaining that her father en law wanted one too! Well, the story doesn’t end here. About forty minutes later when the food arrived, there were two chicken nugget lunches and a grilled chicken breast with fries for my dad! The moral to the story is that you can act young in Spain, but apparently you’re not allowed to eat young :>)

The day the Power Went Out - The need for services (Or anything for that matter other than good food) is something that you can’t count on in Italy. Sunday is a day of rest, with the streets mostly vacant and most every store, gas station and service provider closed for business. It’s definitely not a day for one to have their electricity go out when its 45 degrees outside!!! Well, that’s exactly what happened in mid October. As the sun began to set and the prospects of a freezing night without lights and heat became a reality, we scrambled to find someone with electrical experience (We checked all circuit breakers both in the flat and the main breakers outside and none were tripped). Well, in the end our pal Simone came to the rescue again, getting a hold of an electrician named Marco, who came to the castle as it was getting dark. He opened the internal breaker box, took one look at the breakers, pushed a small button in the box and all the lights came back on! To say that Anna and I felt like a couple of gringos would be an understatement. What made matters worse was that he refused to take any money from us!!!

More about the castle – The lore of Il Castello A Marignolle continues to grow. In early November we had our downstairs neighbors (The Nardi’s) over for a drink. The Nardi’s live on the third floor of the castle and have for nearly 35 years. During our time together they shared a couple of very interesting facts about the castle that we were unaware of:
a. The view – When commenting on the amazing view from our flat, Piero Nardi informed us that its considered to be one of the greatest views in Florence. This is supported by the fact that in 1977 the Italian Air Force came to the castle and spent considerable time in the tower. It seems that its 360 degree view provided exactly what was needed for them to create the government’s official aerial sketch of the city of Florence that is still used to the day!
b. During the German occupation of Italy in World War II, Hitler’s forces occupied the castle as it provided an ideal vantage point above this Renaissance City.