We woke up after a great night’s sleep in Tuscany.  We made coffee Americano and sat enjoying the pleasant Tuscan morning.  Before too long, the ladies of our group started raising questions about when are we going to go shopping for groceries?  We know from past experience, that on Sundays, nothing is open in Pergine Valdarno.  I tried to clarify the question that our brides were asking.  Are you asking when are the four of us going shopping for groceries? Or are you asking, when are you two guys going to drive unknown miles (or kilometers) for groceries while we stay here and enjoy the Tuscan morning in the sunshine?  Ahhh, the real question they were asking was the latter.  Doug and I have never shied away from a new adventure so we asked them to assemble a shopping list for us and we left Villa Fracassini and walked down to the parking area to find our Mercedes chariot.  Of course, the left rear tire was flat.  Sooooo, we got out the toy electric air pump and set about pumping it up.  With the tire inflated, we set off towards Montevarchi, a much larger city probably twelve to fourteen miles away.

As we drove into Montevarchi, there were no establishments that we saw open.  We headed towards a large supermarket where we had been on past trips but that was closed.  As we wound our way through the narrow city streets, it looked like our mission to buy grocery supplies was not going to turn out well.  We stopped and checked our right rear tire again because the low air alert went off once more.  After pumping it up one more time, we finally found a business that was open, probably a bar (pretty much any establishment that is open when others are closed is called a bar) and I walked in to see what they had available for purchase.  It was a bar and they had very little.  I asked the older lady behind the counter if she spoke English.  She screwed her face up in a discouraging sort of twist and finally said NO.  In Italian, I asked her if she knew of a supermarket that was open today.  She listened to my broken Italian, pondered it a bit, and then yelled someone’s name who was in the other room.  A gentleman appeared who had a big smile on his face.  “You speak English? he asked.  Yes, I told him.  He told me he was Lithuanian and he spoke a little English but not much.  He said that besides a little English, he spoke Lithuanian, Italian, French, some Arabian, and Spanish.  I said, Habla Espanol?  Si, he responded.  He asked me in Spanish where I was from.  I told him Washington State.  His eyes grew big and he asked if I was from the United States.  Yes, I told him.  He held out his hand and grasped mine as I offered it and as he shook it, said he was so happy to meet me.  What a sweet man.  I asked him in Spanish if he knew of a supermarket that was open today on Sunday.  He said he did know of one.  As we discussed the particulars of where we would need to head to find this store, he shook my hand again and told me that if he is ever in the United States he will look me up.  I thanked him profusely and welcomed him to do that.

Doug and I set the Google maps to the name of the store and off we went.  After about ten minutes we arrived at the supermarket.  It had a great big sign that said “Domenica Aperto” or open Sundays.  The parking lot was deserted as the pictures show.  Here is one from one end of the parking lot shooting towards Doug and our car, and the other of Doug shooting back towards me taking the picture.  The place was closed.  Although it had a sign saying it was open on Sundays, that doesn’t include the typical time during the day that all businesses are closed in Italy for two to three hours…commonly known as the Pausa.  The store would reopen in an hour and a half…at 3:30.

Doug and I sat by ourselves there in the empty parking lot and waited until 3:30 arrived.  We rushed in with other late comers who arrived after we did and did most of our shopping by looking at pictures of the various products we were purchasing.  Hmmm, that looks like shampoo, or that looks like pepper.  Anyway, we made it through the check out line without raising a scene (Check out the Thief of Venezia blog post from Venice on May 6, 2013.  https://camanoescape.com/2013/05/06/the-thief-of-venezia/

As we came out of the store and loaded our groceries into the car, we had to break out the toy air pump and again inflate the tire.  With tire up to pressure, Doug and I found our way back to the open arms of our lovely brides.  It is about 5:30 now and we are eating our first meal of the day.  Timing is everything, and failing to stock up on Saturday when you know Sunday is coming was a dreadful mistake when everything shuts down on Sunday.  But again, all is well and we are relaxing now under the olive tree that is under the Tuscan sun.