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A funny thing happened at lunch the other day.

We were at one of our favourite restaurtants in deepest southern Tuscany. They have fabulous food, fabulous wine and a brilliant enoteca next door which sells wine not only from Tuscany but the whole of Italy and there are cheeses, jams, cured meats… heaven. Our favourite wine from that village costs a mere €7, double heaven.

We got there around 1.45pm and as 1pm sharp is the lunching norm there were only ourselves, a rakish pair of Italian gentlemen and a large party of 7 at the next table.

I wish we’d sat elsewhere.

The large party were Americans being being taken around Tuscany by a British (though she sounded slightly Transatlantic) women and being introduced to hidden towns, unique restaurants and Tuscan cooking. The fact that they were in the restaurant we were showed the guide knew her stuff as it is very out of the way and nowhere near the Florence-Pisa-Siena trail.

However loud and jolly the party got I could not help but feel sorry for them. The tour guide was atrocious. Every sentence uttered was about her and indeed by her. I think I heard everyone else say only one sentence each in two and a half hours.

“You say it like THIS!”
“To say good morning to an agricultural worker you must say it it like THIS!”
“You eat it like THIS!”

Ad nuseaum.

And yes, my Italian was so much better than hers but I digress.

She even we discovered had a ‘dislike’ of the Japanese and the conversation soon became “Don’t mention the war.”

It nearly put me off my fantastic wine.

The comment that will stay with me forever though was made by the restauranter who joined them with some wines for tasting. One of the Americans trying desparately to make conversation in spite of the godawful guide regalled the party with the tale that their hometown was the site of the first coca-cola bottling plant. The awful woman translated this information to the host.

He supped his wine and said in Italian “I really don’t care.”

She translated to the Americans “Oh really?”

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 1st, 2006 at 3:56 pm and is filed under Photomaton, Undefinable, Viaggio. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Subscribe to this comment feed at Bloglines. Both comments and pings are currently closed.