The day started on a plane; overnight I watched Cloud Atlas, and while the film couldn’t compare to the beauty of the book, it stayed with me all of the following day.

Morning arrived and I got my first glimpse of the Alps:

Sleepless, stumbling and plane grimy, we survived the process of picking up a rental car, navigating the Italian Autostrata, and with the aid of a GSP and three different sets of directions found our way to Cascina Sant’Eufemia with only one minor wrong turn.

The countryside is beautiful here – sharply rising hills carved into orderly rows of grapevines, and hazelnut trees, everything is still green, wildflowers are abundant in fallow fields.

Dinnner tonight, at a neighboring village, was 8 courses, and only 8 and not 10 because we began refusing dishes, strategically, in order to save room for dessert. Possibly the most important thing we learned on our first day in Italy: if you throw up your hands and say, “non capisco”, they will bring you a sampling of all three desserts.