We were going to Sogliano al Rubicone. A few days before we left for Italy I saw its picture on the Internet, a hill town above the Adriatic.
Over here we collect hill towns. They’re all kind of the same. The narrowing roads that rise to passages into the old fortress town. A church, a news stand, a tiny grocery store, a fountain. A couple coffee bars and a trattoria. We park and walk, have a coffee and pastry. If it’s mid-day, we’ll have lunch.
A few days before this, a pretty woman in Santarcangelo, at the Fiera di San Martino, had handed me free samples of their red wine, first the novello, then another sample, last year’s Sangiovese, then a business card. In Italian you call it their “biglietto da visita.” On it I saw agriturismo. A country inn. When I clicked on the menu I knew: we better go.
When we arrived in Italy on October 28, we got into a rental car in Bologna. I rent the smallest car we can get, with four doors. Fiat makes the standard issue model, called a Panda. Of course there are many Panda surrogates. I feel no particular product loyalty. I just want a small car with four doors. On the 28th at the rental desk I was handed keys. Out in the rental lot, when I pressed the button on the key fob, the car that chirped was a Ford Focus. Four doors? Check. Standard transmission? Check. Six-speed trans.
It was a long car. “It’s big,” I said.
Tizi opened a back door and shoved a bag inside. “Let’s go.”
“We must have been upgraded.”
“Your irresistible charm,” she said. “Let’s go.”
Who turns down an upgrade? When I swung out onto Bologna’s tangenziale, I felt a surge of power.
“It’s got a lot of pep,” I said.
“Don’t say that.”
My mother said that once. I thought it was cute and have used that descriptor on many occasions. I know it annoys Tizi.
“I think I feel turbo-charger.” I stepped on it in third gear. “Feel that?” It would be fun on curvy back roads.
Pep.
It’s raining the day we drive up to Sogliano. I have directions on my phone, which executes a bluetooth connection to the car as soon as I lower myself onto the driver’s seat. (The Focus is low. You climb down into the car, which I recognize every time I drive it is a young man thing.) In the hills I think about vineyards. Those that still have leaves are yellow and orange. Autumn in the vines. Beautiful.
As we rise into the hills, easing around curves, holding the car’s pep in check, along with light rain there is fog. We drive the SP’s (strada provincial) on good pavement, narrow roads that open onto roundabouts. To get to Sogliano from San Marino there are 35 turns. Around the time we start seeing signs for Sogliano, our navigator dies.
At the base of the hill rising to the town, rising into more fog, thicker fog, we can’t see much. On a clear day you could make out the town up there. Not today.
“Which way?”
“Don’t pause here,” Tizi says. “You’re on a curve.”
She’s right. I tell her there’s no traffic.
“That way,” she says. “Go that way.”
We go.
The surroundings are non-descript post-war residential Italian. No sign of the medieval world. The good stuff, the old stuff, will be in the upper town. We look for a Centro Storico sign, turn in what we think is the right direction. I urge Focus up at walking speed. On the biglietto di visita I was handed, I saw “il mare vista da nuvole.” The sea seen from the clouds.
Right now all we see are clouds. I bear left where the road gets steep, anticipating it opening into the Centro Storico, onto a piazza hundreds of years old. Ahead, where I take a blind curve, both side mirrors on the Focus go thunk, thunk, and we are wedged between two old houses. Dead end.
“Now what?” I say to Tizi.
“Back up.”
I’ll need to unthunk the mirrors. There’s a button for that somewhere in the Focus. Fiat Panda is made for moments like this. Note to self: In the future, remember, remember to insist on a small, small car.
Visibility is terrible. We inch backwards, to the bottom of what is apparently a private drive. Who knew?
“Sogliano,” I say.
“I think we’ve been here before,” Tizi says. “A few years ago.”
I think so too.
We start coasting down the back way out of town.
“Do you know where you’re going?”
“Watch for the blue signs,” I say. They come with arrows. Montebello, that way. Torriana, that way. San Leo, that way. Pennabilli, Santarcangelo, Montefeltro, that way. Roma, every which way.
So much for the autumnal vines.
Between the fog and confusion and wedging to a stop, today hasn’t been much fun. Lunch will fix that, it can fix almost anything, if we can find our way to Torriana. There’s an osteria there I want to try. It’s called The Poor Devil. It’s probably a good place to eat.
“Lunch?”
“Yes.”
“Too bad about the vines,” she says.
They’ll be there tomorrow. And so will we.