Don’t let this happen to you

With gas prices at record highs, the folks over at Auto Europe are running a timely promotion where they’ll give you $30 towards the cost of gas on your rental. In the grand scheme of a trip, $30 doesn’t seem much. But, at $10-$12/gallon (depending on the country and exchange rate), for a typical mid-sized European diesel rental car this is 90-130 miles’ worth of gas… which suddenly doesn’t seem so bad.

For more on car rental in Europe see this earlier article: Guide to renting a car in Europe

Auto Europe is at http://www.autoeurope.com/

Their travel blog is at http://blog.autoeurope.com/

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This picture of the gardens at Chiswick House, London was used for the front cover of this month’s “The Green” magazine. Strand-on-the-Green is an area of West London close to Chiswick and Richmond.

Again, this was an agency sale and it was hard to find — thanks to Francesca who ultimately tracked it down.

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One of my images of Villa Vignamaggio appears on the front cover of the Cadogan / Sunday Times guide to buying property in Italy. Here it is:

This image was sold by an agency, and often the challenge is finding the actual usage once a photo is sold — as in this case. I believe this guide has been out for some time.

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When I first wrote a blog posting about car rental, I wasn’t sure it was useful. However, the amount of email it and follow-up postings generated convinced me otherwise (So formal! You can just add comments to the postings rather than emailing). This article is a consolidation of those different postings to summarize everything in one place.

Only rent a car if you need it

In many European cities, it is better not to have a car: parking is difficult and expensive, “one way systems” are confusing to navigate, and a car can be slower than public transport at busy times. Unlike the US, many Italian hotels do not have their own parking. Don’t rent a car if you intend to just sightsee in the city itself, and if you need to get out to visit another town or city, consider a train or bus. Services in Europe can be fast, frequent and reasonably priced. But they can also be slow and inconvenient, so when does it make sense to rent?

When to rent a car

For a larger geographical area like Tuscany or the Dordogne, you are going to need transport and a car is the most efficient way to do so. In these times of eco responsibility, when it seems the only thing stopping eco miltants from burning car drivers at the stake is concern over the CO₂ that would generate, I feel obliged to defend this statement. It is possible to get around by bus and train within areas like Tuscany, but boy is it a logistical challenge. Fundamentally you will get to spend far less time enjoying the area. When you have limited time to vacation, spending it twiddling thumbs on a bus is truly a waste of opportunity. Buy carbon offset to cover the CO₂ emissions of the car (and your plane ride, while you are at it) if you feel bad.

Rent a small car (no, really)

Resist the urge to rent a larger car, even if it is appealing because you have a large family or group on the trip. Get a couple of smaller cars instead. Larger cars are rarer in Europe because running them is more expensive, and also many European towns and cities were not designed for cars at all. As well as being expensive to fuel, large cars are hard to maneuver in narrow streets designed for nothing wider than a few pigs and maybe a horse or two.

On one trip, we stayed a few nights in Florence and then headed out to Villa Vignamaggio. We were to stay at Hotel Brunelleschi, squeezed into the centre of the ancient city of Florence. The hotel is built around a Byzantine tower with Roman remains in the basement - it even has its own museum. The roads leading to it are really, really narrow: even the taxi driver had a hard time getting his small Fiat around the final bend. Some kindly locals stopped to guide him back-and-forth as he edged the car around the corner. With even a small SUV or Minivan you’d be wedged between two buildings several turns back.

Incidentally, we’ll probably never stay at the Brunelleschi again. Not because it was bad - quite the reverse: it is a truly historic hotel with charm, good rooms, friendly staff and a fantastic location. No, I blame Dan Brown: it’s where his characters Langdon and Sophie plan to stay at the end of The Da Vinci Code for a night of passion. I could be wrong about the last bit, but it doesn’t seem like they’re going to sip tea and discuss semiotics. At any rate, ever since then prices have gone up, up, up and you practically have to be Dan Brown to get in.

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Villa Vignamaggio is a charming restored renaissance villa just outside the town of Greve in Chianti. It’s a beautiful location, is exceptionally photogenic and they make great wine… what more could you ask for? How about also being the birthplace of perhaps the most famous portrait sitter ever: Mona Lisa / Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo (a wealthy Florentine silk merchant).  Yes, the owners of Vignamaggio crown the exceptional qualities of their property with the claim that their villa is the birthplace of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa – an assertion that I have repeated on this website. The history of that part of the world and the background information provided by Vignamaggio on its chain of ownership appears to back up the assertion. However, there’s just one problem: I don’t believe it any more.

Farmhouse at Vignamaggio, Greve in Chianti

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Chateau de Biron is in the Dordogne region of France, south of Bordeaux in the South-Western corner of the country. Started in the 12th century, the chateau was in the hands of one family for 800 years, the Gontaut-Biron, and enhanced and expanded until the 18th century.

Chateau de Biron, Dordogne, France

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The chateau of Clos de Vougeot is nestled in the vineyards of Burgundy, the area of Eastern France close to Dijon that brings us delightful red wines. Lighter than the more famous Bordeaux, I like Burgundies because of their delicacy and the way they complement and flatter food. The photograph you see here is of the original 12th century monastery building, built by Cistercian monks from nearby Citeaux (Da Vinci Code fans note: the abbot of Citeaux is supposedly the person who convinced the Pope to create the Templar order to protect the Priory of Scion).

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Eagle (Aquilla) contrade members and their shadows, Siena, Tuscany 

You might be forgiven for wondering what is going on in this photograph. It is a vertical view down onto the heads of a bunch of grown men in medieval yellow silk outfits waving large flags. You can only tell they’re men and flags by the shadows, which is part of what appealed to me in taking this photograph. But what on earth is going on?

Flag throwing is a very serious business in Siena — it is part of a much larger social structure called Contrade that has lasted for hundreds of years. The city is divided into regions, each one the territory of a Contrade — originally these had a military purpose: to help defend against the hated Florentines. In modern Siena there are 17 contrade, but in medieval Siena there were more: six are remembered as the “suppressed contrade”. Every citizen of Siena is associated with a contrade, determined by location of birth or ”inherited” from the parents.

As one Sienese tried to explain it to me, a contrade is like a large extended family. I was also told that non-Senesi cannot really comprehend what it means to be a member! Contrade have a church or chapel, a headquarters (where Palio trophies are jealously guarded), a patron saint, a symbol or insignia and, of course, colors and a flag.

Active members are passionate about their contrade, and flag throwing is a way of expressing this. It’s part of the ceremony around the famous horse race, Il Palio, and quite simply a way for contrade to show off. In the picture, you see members of the Aquilla (Eagle) Contrade practicing in mid June, getting ready for the Palio. The photo was taken from the top of Siena’s town hall tower with a long lens to get the angle and shadows. Luck played a major part in this as I’d just reached the top when I leard the drum beat of the Aquilla as they marched from their part of the city into Il Campo, the main square.

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On the front page of Lodge Photo is a crop from a photo showing a man on a horse with a lance, tilting at a strange target. It’s one of a sequence of four:

This is the Giostra del Saracino - Joust of the Saracens - held twice a year in Arezzo, Tuscany.

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My sister-in-law lives in The Jura, an area of Eastern France near the Swiss border. It’s not a particularly well-known part of the country and you’ll have to work hard to find it in many guide books (honorable exception: The Rough Guide To France). It’s still a pretty part of the country, and plonked in the middle of a forest is a remarkable set of pre-revolutionary buildings: the Royal Salt Works (Saline Royale, for those of you who speak the lingo).

Royal Salt Works, France.

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