Page 23 of A Wedding in Tuscany

Tuscany, Autumn

Three legs, two stopovers, and thirty hours after leaving Sydney, we are finally in Tuscany.

Whose idea was a destination birthday-slash-wedding anyway? If I didn’t love Josh and Cat as much as I do, I’d be cursing them both. Kidding! Well, mostly.

At least the flight from San Francisco to Zurich was in business class. Josh cashed in some frequent flyer points?thank you, babe!?and we got five-star treatment and a decent night’s sleep. But after this long in transit, I am desperate to get out of these stinky clothes and take a shower.

International travel is so glamorous! Hah! I stand by my long-held belief that travelling is fantastic but transiting sucks.

Cat and Jean-Luc should have arrived in Florence an hour ago and will be meeting us on the other side of Customs and Immigration. ‘You okay?’ asks Josh as we shuffle along in line to show our passports. I smile up at him, only allowing the kiss that comes because I’m still chewing my ‘landing gum’ and at least my breath is fresh.

Eventually, we are at the front of the line and, as always happens when you are ‘next’, all the frustration and stress of waiting dissipates and soon I’ve been welcomed to Italy and have another stamp in my passport. I meet Josh on the other side of the Immigration booths and we grin at each other. Our first time in Italy together?actually, his first time here at all.

Our bags don’t take too long and when our luggage tumbles onto the carousel intact and unscathed?surprising after being routed through two other international airports?I feel awash with relief. Many of my flights over the years have ended far less successfully. Josh collects our bags and we load up the trolley, adding our garment bag and two carry-ons. Trolley first, we emerge into the throng of people awaiting the arrival of loved ones, scanning the crowd for ours.

‘Sez!’ For a little person, as she likes to call herself, my sister has a big voice. We grin at each other across the expanse and Josh manoeuvres our trolley through the throng to Cat and Jean-Luc. Cat and I hug tightly and I’m vaguely aware that the men are greeting each other with chatter and back slaps. Cat and I finally pull apart, her smiling up at me and me smiling down at her.

‘How was your flight?’ she asks.

‘Long. How was yours?’

‘Short, but the side trip to Milan … Oh my, g?’

‘Hello, Sarah.’

‘Hello, you. Happy wedding week,’ I say, getting a hug from my soon-to-be brother-in-law.

‘And happy birthday week.’

‘Don’t remind me.’

When we let go, Josh and my sister are hugging. He’s even taller than Jean-Luc and she looks absolutely tiny in his arms. The four of us share excited grins, momentarily oblivious to the people bustling past us. We’re sort of in the middle of things.

Reunion over, Cat hooks her arm through mine. ‘Come on, let’s get the rental car sorted and I’ll fill you in.’

Cat leads the way out of the terminal, practically dragging me by my elbow, and Jean-Luc and Josh follow, each pushing a luggage trolley. Outside, the sky is brilliant blue and after being inside for a day-and-a-half, I squint against the bright light. ‘So, where to?’ I ask my sister.

‘We’re catching a bus to the rental car company?there.’ She points towards a bus stop that’s crowded with people all vying for a spot on one of the shuttle buses. I look at the enormous amount of luggage we have between us?even an intimate wedding requires a plethora of accoutrements?and at the ‘queue’?a.k.a. the swarming mass of impatient travellers.

If we get to the rental car place inside of an hour, I will eat my hat. Of course, I will have to dig it out of my suitcase first.

‘Are we having fun yet?’ I ask with false cheer. Cat throws me a look that tells me my attempt at humour has failed.

‘Come on. The sooner we get sorted, the sooner we’ll be in Montespertoli and then we can relax.’ Now may not be the time to point out that they’ve only travelled here from London?with a brief stop in Milan?and that if anyone deserves to relax, it’s me and Josh.

Three buses fill up and move on before we’re able to board one?and that is a feat of speed, agility, and outright rudeness as we pass our luggage between us and stake a claim on enough floorspace to accommodate it and us. It’s a relief when we get to the other end and decant onto the pavement outside the rental car place. Jean-Luc disappears inside while the three of us bake in the autumn sun, an unspoken agreement between us that we won’t properly have arrived in Italy until we’re en route to our home-away-from-home in a Tuscan castle.

Three hours after landing, I rest my head against the back seat of the four-wheel-drive, grateful that Jean-Luc is driving and Cat is navigating and Josh and I have been relegated to ‘passenger status’. It allows me to watch out the window with growing glee as we leave behind generic motorways and fast-food restaurants and head southeast to Montespertoli.

Soon enough, the countryside I’ve been dreaming of for months surrounds us. As though the entirety of the Tuscan landscape has been painted by a giant artist, we pass patchwork fields of emerald-green, dusty-sage, and tawny-yellow blanketing the rolling hills, their borders lined with Italian Cypresses?tall slim conifers?as well as the much-anticipated fields of sunflowers. They may not be as abundant here as they are further south but even the occasional sight of those yellow ‘faces’ all tipping towards the sun is enough lift my spirits.

It’s silent in the car?the others must feel it too, the reverence at being in such a beautiful location?and I grasp Josh’s hand across the back seat. When he turns to smile at me, his eyes are alive with delight.

Montespertoli, as the name suggests, sits atop a sprawling hill?not quite as impressive as the Tuscan walled cities, but still a beautiful town with its pastel buildings and terracotta rooftops and clumps of bushy dark-green trees. A castle tower stands above the other structures. ‘I wonder if that’s our castle,’ says Cat, pointing to the mottled stone structure.

The road gets windier and our view is swallowed up by greenery, the afternoon sun breaking through and dappling the road and our car with spotted sunlight.

At the top of a rise, we arrive almost unexpectedly at our destination and Jean-Luc makes a sharp left off the main road into the driveway of Castello Tranquillo, parking next to a two-storey, pale-coloured building with a terracotta roof.

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