The Wedding (mostly)

The focus of this trip was Tim and Kate’s wedding.  We would have been away somewhere in Europe anyway but almost certainly not ending up at a villa for a week right in genuine Chianti Classico country.  We’re in a tremendous spot about equidistant from Florence and Siena near Certaldo with a view from our hill-side terrace southwards across a shallow valley to the towers of San Gimignano.  While we’re here it’s been renamed San Jimjams in the same way that Ypres was renamed Wipers by British troops in WW1, but the new name hasn’t yet been adopted by the locals.

In medieval times (probably not strictly accurate but my version of a long time ago) it was the custom in Tuscany to build a tower which was taller than your neighbour’s tower.  Not just for showing off your wealth but so that in the event of an all too common dispute you could pour boiling oil and fire things at them in relative comfort.  Of course everyone with the money was at it and Florence had over a hundred of these towers.  However, San G is the best town to see a goodly number of them still standing.  At one time there were seventy two here, built in the 12^th C and 13^th C and there are still fourteen of them standing.  It is a must-see place and is most impressive from a distance where it has the appearance of an ancient Manhattan skyline on a Tuscan hilltop.  It also has a jolly good ice-cream shop.

As people began to arrive we drove into Certaldo to pick up our daughter Louise who’s doing a multi-city Italy trip by train.  Standing outside the station were three people one of whom turned to Louise as we drove in and asked “are you Tim’s sister?”  They’d all travelled on the same train without knowing each other and it was our English van arriving that caused the penny to drop.  The other two were the best man Dan and his girlfriend Millie.  Millie had flown in from Singapore for the wedding. 

We had a group of four villas for family and friends in a tiny village called San Donino.  The hill behind and to the side of us had been a thriving town of (I think) about 15,000 inhabitants which backed either the Pope or the Holy Roman Emperor.  Anyway, it was whichever one the Florentines didn’t back.  So the Florentines destroyed it, making the inhabitants dismantle all the buildings and forbidding rebuilding.  Even the one church now built on the site has a dome like the famous one on the Cathedral in Florence just to make the point that Florence ruled OK.

Heather had been concerned that her legs had not had enough sun and would be too white, so she’d bought some ‘non-stripe’ fake tan which she used on the way down.   Needless to say it didn’t work totally as expected but then I suppose ‘Tiger Non-Stripe Tan’ might not have been the best one to get.

I’ve not heard cuckoos at home in Dorset for several years although I did on Dartmoor earlier this year.   Once we were into France we starting hearing them and this continues almost every day, often starting very early, sometimes with an extra syllable which makes it sound like a Cuckoo with hiccups.  There’s always a slight frisson of pleasure at hearing the first one. “oh, there’s a Cuckoo, in the distance, can’t you hear it”.  There’s always the same progression from that to “there’s another one” to “there’s a lot of them” and surprisingly quickly to “for goodness sake, shut up !”.  I still like to hear the first one though. 

On the pre-wedding evening Heather and I threw a pizza party for whichever of the guests cared to turn up as a way of breaking the ice between those who didn’t know each other.  This was Heather’s idea and worked brilliantly.  The people renting out the villas were English and in their own villa they had the old village bread oven.  Two locals who had run their own pizzeria were drafted in to cook.  We were due to start at 5.00pm so that a relatively early night could still be taken after a decent length party.  I mention the time because in order to get up to temperature the oven (wood fired of course) was lit at midday and would only be hot enough when the roof of the oven was white-hot.  Just before serving time I went in to see the oven and it was fiercely hot in the room as you would imagine.  If I’d given much thought to it when Heather first mentioned it I would have guessed 20 to 25 people but in the end nearly everyone said they were coming and we ordered unlimited pizza for 60.  They were so good I was completely pizza-ed out by the end of the evening.  The weather was perfect, there were clear views of St Jimjams as the sun dropped away to our right with slanting sunshine side highlighting the towers and the shape of the landscape in front of us.

The weather had been pretty good but not perfect for a few days but the weather on the day of the wedding could not have been better.  We had sunshine with white puffy clouds and enjoyed Goldilocks temperatures, not too hot, not too cold but just right with a warm evening to finish.   Tim and his Best Man Dan came for breakfast and to get dressed.  The breakfast was splendidly put together by Jan and Clive, especially as no preparation had been made for it and an early morning raid took place on one of the other family villas to augment our supplies. The wedding was in the old town and we all got driven into town and got the funicular up to the ancient hilltop village which is Certaldo and then walked the pedestrianised cobbled main street to the town hall.  Kate and her father Terry turned up in a classic old Fiat 500.

The service was in Italian and was translated into English with Kate and Tim reading their own vows to each other.  I speak of course with absolutely no bias at all but it was a wonderful occasion.   Drinks and chatting outside in the main street for an hour and then off to the wedding villa for the rest of the festivities.  This villa was in a different class to ours, sleeping about fifteen, surrounded by grounds and again with views over classic Tuscan countryside, all gently rolling hills with the erect columnar Lombardy Cypresses studded across the landscape.  The whole wedding reception was beautifully designed and presented by Kate, her family and her friends and it would take a couple of thousand words to describe it all.

Afternoon drinks, an ice-cream tricycle, antipasto and the most wonderful softish Parmesan kept us going until the Wedding Breakfast was served outside in a covered but open sided dining area.  As Father of the Groom I even got to deliver a speech which I decided to try to make reasonably memorable by making it short, keeping to three minutes.

Heather and I had no say in the guest list and the split between Kate and Tim’s friends and the families was about 80% to 20% so overall probably a much younger average age than most weddings.   We were the third and fourth oldest people there.  Then to follow, music and dancing out in the open with both Tim and Louise having to suffer a bit of ‘Dad dancing’.  

It really was a fantastic day and the following morning we woke to mist and rain.