Saturday 26th April.

Another bright sunny day and as the cupboards were bear it was off to Lucca for a shopping day followed by a walk on the Lucca walls. This evening we visited the Convent next door and were introduced to Christin’s Partner Maestro Gustav Kuhn, we had arrived as they were finishing the evening meal, after we had availed ourselves of the internet connection we were about to leave and the Maestro very graciously invited us to join them for wine and sweets, he was dinning with a Tenor form Bulgaria, who’ first name escapes me. They introduced us to what is considered one of Italy’s finest wine varieties “Brunello” which proved to be very nice drop indeed we sat and chatted for a few hours and learned that the Maestro had conducted for some of the greats in the European opera scene including a tour of Australia with the late great Luciano Pavarotti. We were suitably impressed to be in the presence of such salubrious company, the Maestro proved to be a gracious host and a fairly down to earth guy by the end of the evening we had also been engaged as a surrogate boarding house, the Convent is to host a five day music festival and we were asked to provide lodgings for some of the staff that will be coming to help with the production, by all accounts it is an annual event that is attended by numerous VIP muso’s and press from all over Europe, we look forward to listening in from over the hedge.