Today we got to sleep in, well somewhat. Last night as I was doing my Instagram post the internet stopped working. After many failed attempts to reconnect I just went to sleep. When I woke up this morning I got up early and thankfully with the help of the host just had to restart the router. Our issue this morning was figuring out how we would get to our tasting up in the Castle Rigone area at 3pm. We asked Saverio and he said because of the time he worked he wouldn’t be able to take us but could bring us back at 5pm. A taxi was suggested but as I looked I couldn’t find any taxis that serviced the area we are in.

Somehow Saverio got in contact with someone and told us that they would be here at 2pm to pick us up and that it would be 60-80 euros. A taxi man did end up calling me
and quoted 100 euros so my mom and I told him no. I contacted Saverio to let him know and he said his person didn’t have my number and that he was the contact person. Saverio told us his taxi person would be by to pick us up still at 2pm. When the man got here I quickly realized he was the one that called me.

The first question we asked him was how much the taxi was going to cost so we would know in advance and he tells us that it’s 80 euros just for him to come from Perugia to get us and that didn’t include taking us up to the vineyard. This man wanted to charge us anywhere from 160-200 euros for the trip and I know my mom wanted to say, “He’ll no.” She outright told the man she was not paying, she tried calling the State Department and said he would have to call the police (he didn’t want that). We just felt it was crazy that he wanted payment to come to us (we are not used to that).

As I was conveying messages back and forth with Saverio I just asked him to give the guy a call and talk to him because he was pricing us at a crazy rate. He did talk to him and we agreed on a price of 130 euros. Now if we could have we would’ve taken public transportation but the bus in our area doesn’t run on the weekends and for some reason taking the train would take us all the way around with many transfers and would take 3 hours or more even though the place was only 15 miles away.

We hopped in the cab so that we could still make our reservation and oddly enough the two that were going back and forth (my mom and the taxi driver) just moments ago heard each other out and each understood the other’s perspective. By the end of the ride they were buddies and learned a lot about each other. We arrived at Vineria del Carmine. From what I researched this was a highly rated vineyard and I opted to add a pasta dish for us both, a dessert and some freshly baked bread.

I got the classic tasting package and added everything just mentioned and it ended up being a lot (they even threw in an appetizer and soup). Me and my mother spoke about the eventful early afternoon of getting up here and enjoyed our tasting of wines, sauces, honey, meats, cheeses, and bread/breadsticks. Everything looked so fancy and cute as it was presented and we ended up eating everything. You can tell they really appreciate what it is that they do. I texted Saverio around 5:40 and he told me he was there and we asked him to come inside to see if he wanted anything (he said no thanks). We left feeling very full and content but not before I bought some small jars of truffle honey as souvenirs, olive oil and candles.

By now it was dark and the road coming here is not for the faint of heart because the roads were whinding and there are no rails on the side sometimes. Saverio ended up going back a quicker way and we plan to give him a nice chunk of euros tomorrow for helping us so much by transporting us to and from nearly everywhere. Back at the house we took a nap and when we woke up we sat, did a game, talked and ate some of the leftover pasta we made yesterday. We cleaned the Airbnb and began packing things up as we check-out tomorrow but we still have a very big attraction to see before heading to the airport.