Saturday 28 April 2012

Yeah baby! Check out our view...

From the front balcony...

From the back garden...


Well, when I say garden, I actually mean estate...



Flossie's bed has a princess canopy and I am in a four poster. Flossie has her own bathroom with a roll top bath. This place rocks!

We arrived in Pisa late on Thursday night after our reasonably uneventful Ryanair flight. Rob experienced the triple whammy of driving on the right side of the road, in a manual car, up very windy mountainous roads to our Tuscan villa - something of a trial by fire! 

Dad and Caroline were there when we arrived, with a very welcome spaghetti dinner and lots of red wine. The children had fallen asleep in the car but managed to stay up 'til after 10 to eat and, in Freddie's case, meet his nana and granddad for the first time. 


Poor Floss looking pretty tired
 In the morning we woke to a spectacular sunny day to go with our 360 degree views.

This is granddad and Freddie with our posh Peugeot

We walked to our nearest village - apparently about 10 minutes walk, but the crutch/pram/Flossie factor put about 20 mins on that.

Corelia Antelminelli our local village
Nana and Flossie walking to the village
The boys having a rest
We stocked up on provisions and then walked up to the church at the top of the village, stopping for a drink on the way. Lunch was a delicious array of local cheese and meats that I successfully purchased with my very limited Italian at the local supermarket. I love Italy because even rubbish old Spar-like minimarts have a deli counter groaning with local delicacies.

We had a lazy rest of the day, although Rob and Flossie tried out the heated swimming pool complete with breathtaking views of the surrounding mountains. A combination being really overtired and having lentil casserole for dinner was not kind to Freddie (or me), who screamed on and off until 11.30pm, when he did a big fart and finally passed out.

Today we have been to Barga, a local village supposedly about 15 minutes away, but the conflicting GPS and WPS (wife positioning system) instructions, as well as novice right-side-of-the-road driving put another 15 mins on that!


Barga is a walled town with a Roman church overlooking the mountains at the top.



We had some lunch and then stopped for a gelato. Freddie worked out that Flossie's chocolate was the pick of the bunch and chased her around the piazza.


We've been swimming again this afternoon and Flossie is working her way through the villa's stash of Barbie DVDs. I think we are going for an apperitivo in the village this evening before coming home to put the children to bed and have some risotto made with the outrageously expensive dried porcini I bought in the market today.

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