In the countryside of Italy

I am writing this whilst sitting outside our Italian villa, with a huge blue sky above, temperature around high twenties, watching the lizards running across the stone walls of the villa. Hopefully these memories will keep us going over the Otago winter, once we get back.

Our trip from France to Italy went well - 550 km in a remarkably short time. I found it quite stressful driving at 'warp' speed (130 kph) into tunnels, surrounded by trucks, buses and cars all doing a similar speed. We had a lunch stop overlooking Monaco and Monte Carlo. David and I spent five days in the area when were were back-packing around Europe and it was just as beautiful as I remember.
The Villa!
The villa is on the side of a valley, below the village of Mantione, not far from Pisa and Florence. It is very rustic. Plenty of room, the only hitch being that the only cooking is a wood oven or gas hobs. Amazing what you can come up with though. The kids are having a ball and coping really well. Ella has been amazing though she is still not keen on trying anything new when it comes to food,
Yesterday we drove to Maranello to visit the Ferrari museum. This satisfied our petrol head side and we were able to actually touch race cars along with road cars. We got a buzz from seeing Chris Amon's name along side the list of races won, over the years. Made us feel proud to be Kiwi's. On the way home David made sure that Ella had been over a 100 mph in the car - so she can tell her friends.

We then met our friends in Florence for a few hours. David managed to negotiate the car right into the middle of the city, find a park and then negotiate our way back again. A beautiful city, but too many people. Fabulous statues and paintings. Wandering across the Ponte Vecchio (- the bridge with buildings on either side ) was great - very bustling with stalls alongside. Coming around a corner to be faced with the Duaomo - cathedral - was breathtaking - made of white, pink and green marble - it really stands out from the other buildings. We all climbed 412 stairs to the top of the bell tower (the Campanile) and were rewarded with views across the roofs of Florence. We plan on visiting Florence again!


The supermarkets are all closed on a Sunday, so feeding everyone last night was
interesting. This morning, in the sunshine, we climbed out of our valley by foot through the olive grove and visited the local village. This afternoon we are off to visit some of the local villages and stock up on food! (And wine, no doubt!) One could get very used to this life!








Ella at the villa window