Modena, Italia

Yesterday we left Cinque Terre, and headed for Modena.  Juanita's directions were something else this time.  She took us through a tiny tiny town.  We both thought something wasn't right and commented numerous times to each other "should we just turn around and have her recalculate?"  The decision was made to trust the GPS as she had gotten us to all locations thus far.  We sure had second thoughts when we were driving through the middle of this town, and the road progressively got smaller and smaller.  At one point we were headed straight for someone's front door.  Oh but wait if you turn on a 45 degree angle with less then a car length to do so you can make a corner and keep going.  A 99 year old Italian lady was kind enough to let us know (all in Italian of course) that while you make this turn please look out for the stairs that are right in front of you.  Panic sets in a bit at this point as we both picture having to call the rental place and let them know they can pick up their car in some dinky town in God knows where and we're sorry, but even the jaws of life will not help as we had to crawl out the trunk just to get out.  I'm not kidding here - had we have gotten stuck there was max 1/2 and inch on each side of the car.  Plenty of room between the car and stone buildings.  The Italian lady thought so.  We asked her a couple of times if we should be driving down this road at all.  Thumbs up or thumbs down.  "Si, si" and something about the piazza being just ahead.  Never in my life have I ever wished for a video camera more then this moment.  There are not words to describe what happened and what this was like.  Trevor would like me to point out we did not get the car stuck or even brush the sides of the buildings.

After all the insanity, we made it on the autostrata (tolled highway), and finally arrived in Modena.  Here we will try the #4 restaurant in the world, or so we thought.  We settle into our hotel and Trevor pulls up his work email.  There is a message that he needs to contact the restaurant or they will cancel our reservation.  Unfortunately we did not receive this message in time, and they had cancelled.  We had just driven 2 1/2 hours out of our way to come here, and they canceled on us.  Trevor spent the next half and hour explaining that we had come all the way from Canada specifically to go to their restaurant.  However they managed to do it - they got us back in.  The place only has about 10 tables, so I really am not sure what they did, but I didn't ask too many questions.
Massimo, the head chef, took our order, and spoke with us about many of the dishes.  He had a story for all of them, and where he got his inspiration from.  "Imagine a cow grazing in the pasture....." We had a wine pairing with each course as well.  The best part about it was the favourtie (including mine) was the Italian beer we had with the first 2 courses.  It was flavored with smoked chestnuts and jasmine.  Yummy - weird as I am not a beer fan and we tried 4-5 wines after this.  We had one from Sicily that smelled like manure.  Trevor liked it - I did not!
Earlier in the day we walked some of the streets of il centro.  We stopped for a quick bit when an old gentleman engaged in conversation with us.  He was nice to chat with while we were snacking, but then he wouldn't let us leave.  Finally I just got up and said I had to go shopping before the stores closed.  I knew Trevor would pick up what I was laying down and he would spend a few more minutes with the old man before he would tell him he had to leave or I would be worried.  Let's just say the plan kind of worked - "bananas is liquid".  It's a saying from one of the old man's stories that basically means hogwash!  While "shopping" and waiting for Trev, I thought I was going to have a "Pretty Woman" moment.  For those of you that know the movie you know what I am talking about.  I had found myself in a store that I probably should not be in wearing my flip flops, no make up etc etc.  I was all ready to do the scene of "Big mistake.....HUGE," but never had the chance as they ended up being very nice to me.  Oh well I have that one in my back pocket incase I ever need it!
The hotel here was awesome.  It pays to go off the tourist path as the quality and quantity you get for lower prices is great!
We are off to Tuscany for some R&R.


www.hotelviaemilia.it