Way back in the last Millennium, I had the good fortune to get introduced to an opportunity to invest in a young start-up company that was raising money. The introducer was my long-time banking partner, Bruce, who may be one of the smartest finance professionals I ever met. The 1990s for me were the years of banking wine and roses. I was a partner and member of the management committee of one of the most innovative banks in the world and we were all paid way too much money to guide it through some of the best financial times the world had ever seen. We were in the era of the new new thing of the internet and the possibilities of the world were exploding all.around us. The company he introduced me to was an advertising firm that had morphed into a new media start-up that was aggregating data about the new new thing, writing about it to explain it to marketers so that they could take advantage of it for their businesses. It was called eMarketer.
eMarketer had been started by two Madison Avenue guys named Sam and Terry. So I invested along side a bunch of my banking pals who also had too much disposable income in those days. A few years later, when my bank had been sold to the Germans and I had both cashed out handsomely and had taken the job as Chairman of its asset management business, I was looking to move on from the large investment banking world. Bruce once again interceded and invited me to a dinner with him and Sam and Terry. The subject on the table was for the four of us to gather our different but potentially complimentary skills and form a venture capital firm in the form of an incubator of new new thing companies in which to invest. At the core of this would be eMarketer, acting as a research engine to guide us in all the right directions. It was a hell of an idea, and thus was born Beehive Ventures, a firm I spent several years working full-time on as my post-banking occupation, and that eventually brought the four of us partners considerable financial wealth. But the best and most unexpected pleasure of that set of circumstances is that it brought Terry (and his wife Paula) into our lives as two of the best friends we have the pleasure to know.
We are on our way to Malta from Italy and will be joined there for a week by Terry and Paula as well as Bruce and Sandy for a reunion of sorts to explore the pleasures of one of the great historical vortexes of the western world, set on a small set of islands in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. As I awoke yesterday, it occurred to me to text our gathering friends to choose a spot to meet on our first night on Malta. Terry texted me back and said he and Paula were in Rome, whereupon I jokingly suggested they join us in Orvieto for the day, since we were driving down from Cortona and they were only 90 minutes south of there. Within minutes, what was a casual offhand thought had turned into a plan and we were set to meet Terry and Paula in front of the Duomo in Orvieto at 1pm.
We made the leisurely and pleasant drive down through Umbtia in no time and decided to stop first to check out our hotel for the night. It is just south of Orvieto and is a converted farm house that was now a modest boutique hotel. When we arrived we were greeted by a pleasant man who checked us in and took our bags to the Giardino room adjacent to the main house. We were able to check in early to this amazing and lovely room at this very inexpensive high value hotel that we apparently had almost all to ourselves. My worries about my hotel choice evaporated as we enjoyed the unexpected pleasure of a country villa that looked across the valley at the ramparts of Orvieto with the Duomo set in the middle of that picture, inviting us to come over for a day in our favorite Italian town.
The next surprise when I asked the concierge about the best parking strategy (not wanting to repeat my mistake in Cortona of driving through the rabbit warren of another medieval hill town), was to learn that there was a parking garage with elevator and escalators to take us up to the plateau of this village set on a volcanic dura. That was an unexpected pleasure to say the least and turned a dreaded hill climb into a comfortable ride up the hill to the cobblestone streets of this quaint town. Kim and I took our time walking to the Duomo with Kim shopping while I stopped to bask is the Umbrian sunshine on one bench after another as we made our way through town to the Duomo piazza. We found a pleasant bar in front of this spectacular cathedral facade, adorned with mosaics and statues and straddled with stripped stone walls. We sat to wait with a shared pizza for Terry and Paula, who arrived on time and casually wandered up to our table as though we had planned this months ago. What an unexpected pleasure to gather with some of our favorite people at our favorite Italian spot on a sunny yet cool May Memorial Day. What could make for a better memory in the future than that?
After finishing our lunch, we all was herded into the Duomo to see the Luca Signorelli frescoes depicting the Last Judgment in the spectacular space of this lofty cathedral with its stained glass and alabaster windows on all sides. We also went into the museum and saw some of Orvieto’s Etruscan heritage before wandering through town back to our car. Terry and Paula had arranged to be picked up at 9pm for their ride back into Rome, so we would have the even more unexpected pleasure of their company for dinner. We had been told by the hotel concierge of a hidden Umbrian gem of a restaurant called Da Gregorio. It is in a small village north of Orvieto and we decided to try it out after spending an hour sitting in the hotel garden with Terry and Paula enjoying an expresso while I had my favorite arranchiatta. We sat watching a slow sunset illuminate the distant Duomo with its mosaics sparkling like diamonds in a crown.
We headed to Da Gregorio to get there early and when we arrived at 7pm a nice woman leaned out of her window and told us to sit and wait as the restaurant would open at 7:30. The waiter came out on time and greeted us to show us to a simple but pleasant table set with classic crisp white linen. We then proceeded to order and enjoy one of the most unexpectedly pleasant meals of local fare that we could imagine. What a find we had in Da Gregorio. It was not only great food and wine, but the service and ambiance were world class. Da Gregorio was yet another unexpected pleasure on a day filled with unexpected pleasures.
We drove Terry and Paula to the station to meet their car and driver back to Rome. Besides the endless list of unexpected pleasures of the day was the fact that we said goodbye to our great friends only to know that we would be meeting them in Malta in two days to enjoy another array of unexpected pleasures for a whole week. It doesn’t get much better than this.