Cartledges Italian La Dolce Vita

Thursday 22nd May

2008-07-27T10:28:00.000-07:00

Cinque Terra (Five villages) is our planned tour of the day, the villages are perched along a steep stretch of the Rivera di Levante, the picturesque coast east of Genoa. The villages were once only reachable by sea and there is still no road that links them all. Today is mainly a fact finding mission to find out prices of accommodation for our upcoming visitors, as we are planning to walk between the five villages when they arrive.

Unfortunately the 2 hour drive to Cinque Terra along the coast was wet, hiding some of the spectacular views. We arrived in Riomaggiore which is the first village in the group, with the sun finally beaming its hot rays through the clouds and where we had booked our overnight accommodation. Parking was limited, as most people arrive in Cinque Terra by boat or train so the $20 euro parking charge was to be expected. After parking the car on a precipitous steep hill, Leon contacted the owner (Claudio) of the apartment that we had booked for the night. Claudio met us at our car and informed us that we would have a bit of a walk to the apartment and some steep steps to descend with our luggage. He wasn’t kidding…. the steps down to the apartment lead us through what seemed to be tiny backyards of the villages townsfolk dotted with fruit trees, small vegetable gardens and washing drying from the shuttered windows. The steps were very steep and narrow and quite a challenge, even when carrying a small amount of luggage!! The tiny apartment was old and quaint with a view of a tiny terraced garden full of lemons trees and an old empty chicken coup.

We quickly unpacked and walked down through the muddle of colorful houses that lined the ravine which forms the main street and on down to the shore which was dotted with tiny fishing boats lining the water’s edge and stacked in the small square. After the customary photo shoot we walked through a long cool tunnel to the train station and boarded the train to Vernazza the fourth village along the Cinque terra. It didn’t take us long to find a charming Osteria for lunch and enjoyed a meal of fresh calamari and squid ink pasta, not to mention the usual vini della cassa bianco (the refreshing house white wine). Vernazza has a small harbour with colourful boats moored in rows along a breakwater and a waterfront piazza with a choice of many pricey cafes, also a serene medieval church built right on the rock face shoreline, with its arched windows looking straight out on to the cobalt Ligurian sea (bella vista). We climbed up to the tower of Castello Belforte to work of lunch and take in the breathtaking views and add a few more photos to our album.

Back on the train again to explore Monterosso al Mare the last village in the Cinque Terra group which has one of the few beaches in the area, with black pebbly sand. While we were admiring the many tanned bodies covered in the attractive black sand, the heavens decided to open and we had a very quick, drenching dash up into the village to find cover. Thankfully the cloud burst was soon over and the sun greeted us again so we could explore the village and check some prices of accommodation for our next visit. Our search for some reasonable accommodation wasn’t going to well so we decided to wrap up our search with a gelato and espresso and continue on back to Corniglia the third village in the terra group. We had left this one till later in the day as Corniglia is reached after getting off at the train station and ascending a 365 step staircase that zigzags up to the ridge top where the village is perched. While exploring the village we were amazed to see a small monorail in action that is used by the locals to service the many terraced vineyards along the steep coastline and is also used to deliver local produce to the small businesses.

The final village of the group and second along the coastline from Riomaggiore is Manarola and is reached from a 150m tunnel that leads from the Manarola train station into the village. This village again had a very attractive waterfront with a rocky boat landing and tiny harbour protected by a breakwater. Furthermore all the villages have a step Reebok workout at every corner and up all the tiny alleys that lead to the small shops and cafes.

We were hanging out for our evening aperitif when we finally arrived back at Riomaggiore and then I enjoyed a tasty dinner of Spaghetti with truffles , while Leon had a dish of scampi pasta and Charlotte, what has become her favorite, pesto pasta, followed by the best crème caramel I have tasted, Buono!!! After dinner we had a challenge in finding our way back in the dark to our hidden apartment and a hilarious scramble down the daunting steps. Allora, Cinque Terra…..

Wednesday 21st May

2008-07-27T10:27:00.000-07:00

A further day at home today and the anticipation that we might be connected to the internet and the outside world with a phone connection, as Flavio has promised to arrive at 3:00pm with a new modem…incredibile (unbelievable)!!!

True to his word, Flavio arrived on the dot of 3:00pm with the box of miracles tucked under his arm and with his usual manner of asking if he had permission to enter the villa, he dashed up the stairs leaving behind a strong scent of expensive aftershave floating in the air. Leon quickly followed in his wake and before long, they were back downstairs with whopping big grins all over their faces…….Bravo, Bravo at long last we have contact!!! I don’t think any of us lifted our head out of the computer for the rest of the day………

Tuesday 20th May

2008-06-26T11:40:00.000-07:00

It was another cheerless sky that woke us this morning and a guilt free day to read a book, as the weather did nothing to inspire us for any adventures out. We made homemade pizza for lunch and once again went down to the convent to access the internet. Later in the day I had my first drive down the Tramonte hill into Ponte a Moriano in the rain*#@!!.... I have no idea why Leon decided to choose this particular day to let me loose in our left hand drive car and start my training by having to traverse the scariest part of our area. But I knew if I was going to have a bit of independence the only way to get anywhere was to be able to drive down the hill first……..All went well and Leon tried to compose himself while I gave him the experience of feeling like you are about to fall off the edge on all the narrow bends. He hadn’t realized that sitting in the wrong side passenger seat and not being in control of the car was just as nerve raking as actually having to drive…. He wasn’t too impressed either as most cars were very considerate and backed up for me and always seemed to give me the right of way he, he. It pays to be female and blonde even when you are driving a French car!! Charlotte stayed at home as she had no confidence in her mamma’s first drive down the Tramonte hill. When we arrived in Ponte safe and sound, we bought some fake wood for our fire, our own wood was wet and picked up some scrumptious pastries for afternoon tea, as Christin and her secretary Fabiana were coming over to check the rooms for the guests they wanted us to accommodate.

Charlotte was very grateful to have her parent’s home in one piece, especially ones loaded with delicacies from the local Pasticcheria! Soon after getting home Christin and Fabiana arrived and had a quick look through the villa, then huddled around the fireplace enjoying the pastries. Christin filled us in as to what help she needed from us during the Classical Music Festival and told us she would also like us to dine with the guests and watch the concerts in the Chapel. It sounded marvelous, but my female mind was in over drive wondering what one would wear to such events when we were expected to help with the setting up (being members of staff), then attend the concerts with guests coming from all over Europe (guests were paying $59 euro to attend each concert) and being amoungst the Opera set (high-class), also then dining with them (language barrier) and after that, helping with the clean up in the kitchen……Allora!!!! The festival was being held over four days, so I could see an array of costume changes being needed…..

Monday 19th May (Bella back)

2008-06-25T13:43:00.000-07:00

It took some effort to arise out of bed, the day was dreary with an overcast sky and rain threatening. It seemed a good day to visit the convent again to check the internet. When we arrived the place was alive with children’s voices echoing through the great marble passageways, this was due to Christin’s sister visiting from Germany with her husband and four young children. Charlotte was soon introduced to the eldest girl Lidia who was the same age as her and needed no encouragement to go play ping pong, especially as she has been missing the company of children, even ones who can’t speak English.

After quite a while we had to drag Charlotte back home for lunch and Flavio was coming with the guys from Telecom Italia at 2:00pm. Right on time, a large Telecom truck drove up our drive and the house was soon filled with technicians and the now common visitor Flavio. I again watched the theatrics of guys running up and down the stairs all looking very official and the rapid three way discussions taking place between the Telecom guys explaining the problem to Flavio and then Flavio trying to translate for Leon…….Allora. At length we were explained the problem, which seems to be that the modem is e rotto (broken) and Flavio ensured us that he would pick a new one up at the Telecom office tomorrow and then bring it back and all would be Tutto bene! So with lots of Ciao’s and Arrivederci’s we were left hoping that we were finally getting closer to having a phone line and internet connection.

Charlotte was keen to return to the convent to play with Lidia and as the weather was still wet Leon drove her over and caught everyone just about leave for Ponte a Moriano. Charlotte was invited to go along and we could join them later for a gelato in Ponte. It was a pleasant break for us, as up until now we had no adult time to ourselves.

Later in the day we joined Christin and her family for gelato and had no luck in dragging Charlotte home with us, so Charlotte ended up going home with Christin and was invited to have dinner at the convent and we had further time to ourselves, Bellisimo! We were quite shocked when Charlotte turned up at the door by herself later in the evening, you see up to now, Charlie has hated going through the main gates of the convent, thinking the ancient angels on the gate posts were far to spooky. So we very proud that she had overcome her fear, but she said she just shut her eyes and ran full blast past the gates and kept running until she arrived home, poor wee darling, he he!

Friday 16th May (By Leon)

2008-06-25T09:22:00.000-07:00

Today we decided to travel back to Carrara and go in search of Casa di Michelangelo Buonorotti. Our guide book had told us that the house Michelangelo lived in while sourcing marble could be found in the Piazza at Carrara, and you could also view some of the tools he used for collecting and sculpting marble. The weather was looking ominous with a cloudy sky, but we decided to go anyway and to take a route through Garfagnana and the Alpi Aquane ranges. Garfagnana is a valley that runs north between two steep mountain ranges and marks the beginning of the Alpine ski area’s for the north western Tuscan region. The area is dotted on either side of the valley with tiny villages, that all have their own church with a bell tower, and seem to hang off the side of the mountains defying gravity in the process. One has to concentrate heavily on the driving here as it is a common truck route and the roads don’t seem wide enough for two cars to pass, so the trucks give little moments of heart failure and sudden pauses in your forward motion, add this to the impossibly gorgeous scenery and you have a recipe for some very tense moments in the car.

Our first scheduled stop was at a shopping centre in Barga, we had discovered on a previous outing that the Gelato here was the best in Tuscano and we now always stop if we are in vicino (near), that done we pressed on up the valley this time negotiating the driving with a delicious gelato as well. Our route was to turn west at Castelnuovo di Garfagnana (try saying that pissed) and head off in the general direction of the coast. Castelnuovo was a beautiful hilltop village with rivers on both side of the town, the streets were only wide enough for one vehicle despite being a truck route and the architecture was mainly of the stone medieval type.

The road out led us up a very nice green and leafy valley that steadily rose and wound its way up alongside a river, giving way to vista’s of tiny villages and the odd banjo playing academy in the middle of nowhere. I could not shake the feeling that anytime now we would breakdown and be rescued by an interesting character with dueling banjo’s playing on his Ipod. ( definitely deliverance country) I was thinking I should practice my piggy squeals just in case.

But we made it safely through and even Karen had turned an eerie shade of green, she was either getting motion sickness from the bends or we were travelling through national park? We climbed steadily upwards and the leafy green soon gave way to rock and baron earth. Before we realized it we were at the top of the mountain and the temperature had dropped from 21 to 12 degrees. We were now in the marble mountains near Carrara, The guide book tells us that this area is the oldest continuous industrial zone in the world, and the site where Michelangelo sourced the marble for his statue of David in 1504. The colossal statue of the biblical hero who was responsible for the killing of the giant Goliath, is 17 ft tall (5.2M) and stands nude in the Galleria dell’ Accademia in Florence. Michelangelo was 29 when he carved it, and, having seen where he got the stone from I bet he was cursing David for killing the Giant as he would have come in handy for getting the stone, once tamed of course!

The mountains sit high above Carrara and command a very good view of the Ligurian sea to the west, allegedly, as we were in white out conditions and given the marble was white it all blended very well. Never the less we were able to marvel at the feet of mining 20 foot chunks of stone without the use of truck or Makita power tools, and then of course you had to get the stuff to Carrara to carve it, truly amazing!

We stopped at various points where the weather opened to reveal a Kodak moment and on one such occasion I entered one of the abandoned mining huts to take a snap; OH MIO DIO, I was immediately reminded of the fact that Italy never provides more than one toilet per 10000 head of population, as, as soon as I entered the hut my nostrils were assaulted by the stench of the biggest freshest human Doo Do I had ever encountered, now I have to say, that after 25 + years in the health industry I have come across some pretty impressive doo do, but this one had me all wide eyed and bushy tailed and so I took the snap and got the flock outa there, upon getting back in the car neither of the girls believed me about my encounter, and, neither would go and check it out for themselves. With the cold fresh breeze in my face and a foul after taste on my senses we started down the mountain.

The drive down was as beautiful as it was confronting, with vistas to die for and cliffs that would help you achieve it, we twisted and turned down the mountain through tiny villages that appeared to be glued to the mountain side rather than built on it.

We arrived in Carrara just before Siesta finished and took the opportunity to check out the local school of art and the interesting shops and Piazza in the town, after an exhaustive search we finally found Casa di Michelangelo, it was now converted to shops and apartments, though we were able to view his tools, they were stuck on the wall next to the plaque on the front of the building, the house was very ordinary and we had walked past a few times in our search to find it.

The sun was starting to peer out from behind the clouds and so we decided to partake of an Aperitivi prior to our return on the Autostrade. We sat down in the Piazza at Leon di Oro Bar, (Leon of Gold) very appropriate I thought, and enjoyed some drinks that were served with five or six differing types of nibblies, we sat and watched the passeggiata; this seems to occur around six PM when the locals come to the Piazza to meet and greet and catch up on the day’s events, it is a charming custom and makes the sport of people watching all that much more interesting.

Wednesday 14th May

2008-06-25T06:42:00.000-07:00

An outing to Sienna was on the itinerary today, so we got up and out of the house as soon as possible, as we fancied taking the scenic route to avoid the autostrade. This ended up to be well worth it as we came across a stunning field of poppies that up until now I hadn’t been able to capture on the camera as Leon has always been flying past these vistas at an amazing speed. But today luckily, we had been enjoying the scenery on the way and we were able to stop without causing a major road block. I was dying to jump amongst the poppies but my hay fever was telling me otherwise, nevertheless Charlotte was too excited to worry about her allergies and ran full bore into the field while Leon took the appealing photograph. This had to be taken very quickly as Charlotte soon realised that a field full of poppies also has a field full of bees….he he!

As we approached Siena the usual parking problems arose as Siena is on the tourist route and parking is near to impossible to obtain, after several tours around the walled city, I was quite ready to walk miles and park back at our villa. Leon finally spotted a car park that I was sure only a smart car could park in, but Leon amazed us with his incredible parallel parking, while I had a cow or two watching the traffic jam we were causing while trying to park with not a centimeter to spare (no wonder everyone thinks Leonardo is Italian).

Siena’s claim to fame is its exciting Palio horse race that is held in its medieval square twice a year, one in July and another in August and its neighbours or “contrade” of Siena have been competing since 1656, so rivalries run deep. It is a bareback race first recorded in 1283 and only lasts 90 seconds! Since we would be here and are close to Sienna, our mission of the day was to enquire as to how to go about getting tickets to watch this exciting historical event. But it was not meant to be, our budget couldn’t afford the $360 euro’s per person to watch the acclaimed race!!!! A gelato was in order to curb our disappointment……But you could imagine our delight when we went to explore the famous square, to find a film crew and actors reenacting the Palio. We got to see locals dressed up in the traditional clothes and colors of the race and lots of Italians chanting their rival banter for the filming, so by chance we got to get a glimpse of what it might be like anyway.

We enjoyed exploring Sienna and after a lot of walking through a maze of narrow streets we headed back to the car, to the challenge of releasing it from its tight position. Thankfully the Italians are very patient when they can see you in such a snug park or maybe it just that they want to jump straight into the one you have just left.

Tuesday 13th May

2008-06-25T04:11:00.001-07:00

Quite day spent at home today, potting around the garden, reading and the usual frustrating effort of getting Charlotte to do schoolwork……

Monday 12th May

2008-06-25T04:10:00.002-07:00

We got a phone call this morning on the mobile letting us know that a guy would arrive this afternoon to sort out our cable T.V. and that Flavio would also be here to have another go at getting our internet and phone sorted. Fingers crossed that this is the day!! In the meantime we visited the convent to download our emails and pay some bills. Christin was very busy preparing for a classical music festival they would be holding at the convent at the end of the month and asked us if we could maybe give her a hand over the days of the festival and if we could lodge a few people as they didn’t have enough room to house all the musicians, singers and media. Of course this sounded very exciting to us and we happily agreed.

Later in the afternoon we were invaded by Italian experts in T.V. and Internet connections. It still amazes me the way they dress for such an occasion, not at all like our tradesmen, these guys look like they are about to head out for a very important business meeting, immaculately dressed, reeking of aftershave and showing complete confidence in what they are about to do for us! Leon is yet again thrown in the deep end, trying to understand the language and using gestures and some Italian to explain our problems. With the usual theatrics and lots of rapid speech and not to forget lots of bravo’s the Italian T.V. stallions fixed the cable T.V. We now have lots of channels to watch but unfortunately they are all in German and only MTV in English…..Allora! This was the best they could do and it was just tooooo hard not to join in the Bravo celebrations and explain that we don’t understand German*#@!

Still no success with the internet, Flavio decided it was time to call in the big guys from Italy’s telecom, but we would have to wait (of course….).

Sunday 11th May (Leon didn’t last long he he!)

2008-06-25T04:10:00.001-07:00

Not a lot happened today, started the day with a nice sleep in, then cooked up a big brunch of Italian sausages, beautiful golden sunny eggs and vine ripened tomatoes all served on crusty Tuscan bread……. I then spent the rest of the day staring to write this blog on Microsoft word and hopefully be able to past it into our blog when we finally get connected to the internet….Allora!!!

Saturday May 10th ( Leon Again)

2008-06-25T02:54:00.000-07:00

We awoke this morning to a beautiful day, the sun glistened on the surface of Como di Lago and we were looking forward to an interesting drive back to our hillside villa. We went down for breakfast and were quickly reminded that we were still on terra firma, as the milk tasted a little funky and the coffee was very dodgy and dispensed from a machine akin to one you would find in a Laundromat, it was in complete contrast to the evening before where everything was perfect (Tutto Perfetto). We brushed breakfast aside and got on with the business of departure.

As we were checking out it became evident that they had not charged our dinner to our final account, and so, (allora) ensued possibly the most effort I have ever taken to pay a bill they did not know we owed, it was one of those classic dilemmas of conscience and honesty, we could have easily walked away and skipped the 70 or so Euro’s, but we couldn’t do it and after much gesticulating and the usual impromptu game of charades they understood we owed more. That settled we set off for Milano. We approached Milan from the north and I was very pleased to see an outlet store for Diesel clothing. Most of the outlet stores are very slimly disguised as normal shopping centers here in Italy and very rarely offer any real savings, however, much to my delight this one was a genuine factory outlet and offered very cool gear at a fraction of the usual outrageous retail price, one or two items later we resumed the journey to Milan.

All the stuff you hear regarding Milan suggests that you are visiting a very stylish and exclusive city, inhabited by the cool and the chic! Truth is Milan, apart from a very old and beautiful shopping centre and a gothic cathedral in the main Piazza, it is like any other big city, smelly, dirty and busy. It gave me distinct memories of Melbourne with its trams and old buildings but otherwise it was fairly nondescript. It is fair to say ,that we didn’t give the place much of chance at charming us, Milan is of course the home of the famous fresco; the last supper, but to view the masterpiece one must book days in advance, and of course cough up for a substantial entry ticket, while we are always ready for the latter the booking thing foiled our plan and so we headed again for home.

We decided to take the road less travelled and asked Karen to avoid the autostrada on the way back, we found ourselves visiting numerous interesting places and at one stage were high in the Alpi Aquane above Carrara where we stopped for a break and a coffee in a charming hotel / Ristaurante , upon resuming our trip we traversed down and across the ranges, on some spectacular roads both for the views and the frightening nature of the roads, in places the car seems to teeter on the edge of the precipice and a glance down while driving reminds you that you should just drive and not look down, living in Kuranda did nothing to prepare me for this. We arrived home at about 9 pm and crashed for a nice long sleep in.

Friday May 9th

2008-06-14T11:12:00.000-07:00

We departed our attic room for a nice breakfast in the hotel and a pleasant sunny day to explore the Lake. A cruise around the lake seemed the obvious option until the information centre explained that due to a strike, the boats would not be working until 1:00pm. Mercifully our time was one thing we have plenty of in Italy so this little hiccup did not dampen our day compared to the rest of the touring population. So on to another plan and this one was a scenic ride on a very steep tram up to the top of the mountain that surrounds Lake Como, to take in the stunning views.

After lots of photographs, we then had to quickly go back down the mountain to feed our never ending hungry parking meter, unfortunately like most of Italy car parking is not included in your daily needs, most hotels don’t even have it. I suppose when most of the town planning occurred a few thousand years ago they weren’t to know we would need parking for more than a donkey or an ox!

While Leon got his daily exercise in and ran back to the parked car, Charlie and I found some cool paddle boats and thought this would be an entertaining way to see some of the Lake while the other boats weren’t working. Leon wasn’t as keen as us after power walking a good distance to the car and back and knowing he would probably be called upon to do most of the paddling once Charlotte realised how hard it was! But of course his Queen and Princess got there way and after paying our $15:00 euro’s for half an hour we paddled out into the Lake for our half hour of pure torture!! I’m sure this wasn’t as hard when we were kids? Leon sat in the back at first, taking in the sun’s rays without his shirt on until the slow pace and uncontrollable steering by Charlotte got the better of him. Leon and I changed positions without capsizing the boat and after a very short time kicked Charlotte out of the front into the back, and then we paddled with as much steam as we could muster back to shore. After our efforts we were in need of refreshments and due to the high prices of the rich and famous who live in this part of the world, we succumbed to a McDonalds and still hurt a bit when our burgers cost us the same in euro as it does back home in aussie dollars!

Our next mission for the day was a quick trip across the border into Switzerland to have our passports stamped so we didn’t have to pay the tax on Leon’s pinky ring( you must leave the country within 2 months so as to not pay the tax on gold in Italy). We drove for about ten minutes from Como when we came across the Swiss border, but alas, we weren’t stopped by the custom officers yet again. Leon wasn’t sure what to do, so he parked the car and then walked back to the border to enquire how to get his passport stamped. The custom officers weren’t impressed by the way Leon was going about not paying the tax. They informed him that you had to leave the country and return to your own country to not have to pay the tax, not just come across the border and then drive back into Italy!!! But with Leon’s persistence and charm, he finally got them to stamp his passport out of sheer frustration I think, to get rid of the annoying Aussie, he he! Mission accomplished, we then drove around to other villages surrounding the lake to find some less expensive accommodation for our next night in Lake Como.

We settled into a lovely little hotel called Villa Linda in Cadenabbia, then set out for the ferry to explore the villages of Bellagio and Varenna. We meet some Aussies in Bellagio who ran a water taxi service( apparently they had just been featured on Getaway) that took you to the famous locations of movies that had been set on Lake Como and some famous Villa’s, only there $150:00 euro price for a two hour cruise stopped our enthusiasm. In the pretty village of Varenna we enjoyed an aperitif and Charlotte her daily gelato and gazed out over the lake in a dreamy state when all of a sudden we realized the ferry we were watching coming into to dock, was the last ferry back to Bellagio for the day and then we had an extremely fast hike back along the rock wall to the ferry about to raise its boom deck. By chance there were a few other people in the same predicament and the ferry men had seen us and called out that they would wait.

Once back at Villa Linda we decide to eat at the hotel’s restaurant, outside on the veranda overlooking the evening lights sparkling on the shore of the lake. We had one of our most enjoyable evenings, the food was magnificent, waiters friendly(and could speak English, yay)we also meet the owner who had enjoyed living in Australia for six months while he helped coach our Winter Olympic free style jumpers. We marked this hotel and restaurant on our GPS to definitely return when our visitors arrived.

Thursday May 8th

2008-06-14T05:45:00.000-07:00

There was a hive of activity around the villa this morning, with the electricians and the gardener all arriving at once. Our internet is still a quandary, we now know that the bill has been paid to the phone company from Eleanor and it appears that we have a phone line connected but as the phone works through the internet it seems the problem is with the internet connection. So we still wait in hope that the phone crisis will be sorted soon!!!!

As soon as all our Italian visitors left for siesta we packed our bags and started off on our planned journey to Milan and Lake Como. We had a long four hour drive ahead of us, so we took the autostrada as to not turn it into an even longer journey. After travelling at break neck speed for over two hours we pulled over to an Autogrill for a loo stop. These amazing structures span across the top of the autostrada and we had thought they were a very large restaurants, but once entering through the doors we came across an immense Italian deli with a vast amount of chocolates, candies, and snacks also large varieties of salamis, cheeses, wines and beers and not to forget the customary café. It took all our strength (especially controlling Charlie) not to buy everything insight and just have an espresso and use the toilets before continuing on our journey!

Our plan for the day was to drive to just before Milan and look for an Agristurismo to stay for the night and then drive on to Lake Como the following day. As we got close to Milan we realized that the outskirts were mainly industrial and massive and it didn’t look like the place to find a comfy farm stay, so the next decision was to drive on past Milan and look on the other side. Unfortunately the Milan traffic had other ideas and it took us two hours to just traverse Milan. Leon had to concentrate fiercely to drive in the Milan traffic and my nerves were starting to fray as it was getting later and the hope of finding an Agri was diming every second. Happily after getting through Milan and noticing the countryside appearing again, we came across a sign to an Agri and drove along heavily wooded lane and finally came upon an eye-catching large stone dwelling surrounded by attractive gardens. Charlotte and I waited in the car while Leon went to enquire if it wasn’t too late to get accommodation; nevertheless it wasn’t to be as apparently there was a large culture festival on in Lake Como and the surrounding areas that week and accommodation was scare. *#@!!! If only we had our internet we would have known before planning our trip……

An exhausted Leon had to drive us on to Lake Como and hope we could find somewhere to stay there. Needless to say we did find the last room available at an affordable hotel, only they decided to charge us $180.00 euro’s for a room in the attic up with the pigeons!!!

After checking in at around 9:00pm we went in search of some dinner and then had a nice stroll around the lake. Charlotte enjoyed watching the swans and ducks on the water’s edge, while Leon enjoyed watching the expensive cars and motorbikes roaring around the Lakes boulevard and I kept an never ending vigil on spotting the gorgeous George Clooney, he he!

While walking we heard music coming from a park on the Lake’s edge and went to explore its source and we were delighted to find a free concert going on and a happening bar set up in the park. Leon quickly bought us some liquid refreshments and we joined the Italian crowd with not a tourist in sight except us, but hey we live in this country now! Once settled we realized that the entertainment was a one man impersonator act with a talented band. Charlotte was glued to the amusing show this guy was putting on, he was a quick change artist that could sing and dance and take off numbers from the Blues Brothers, Mika, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder and many more, even many female artists like Kylie Minogue, Maddonna, Britney Spears etc…. After two hours of nonstop songs and dances he finally finished his act by getting everyone dancing to some traditional Italian funky songs. Our day finished on a high note at 1:00pm in the morning…….

Wednesday 7th May

2008-05-30T11:27:00.000-07:00

We had a hard time getting Charlotte out of bed today, until I suggested that we might go in search of a Chocolate Factory that I had heard of on the Slow Travel sight. Charlotte soon jumped out of bed like it was Easter Sunday!

Apparently the Amedei chocolatiers were a few miles from Pisa in the tiny hamlet of Cascina. So with the promise of sampling delectable chocolates, we punched in the address of the Amedei gourmet shop that I had taken from Slow Travel into the GPS and looked forward to our scrumptious outing. We arrived in Cascina after about a 40 minute drive and searched for the Amedei shop, now this we thought would be simple as I had a photo of the Tuscan home which housed the shop and it looked quite unique with Cacao beans frescoed all over the exterior. But after driving around Cascina, which to us did not look like a tiny hamlet but a major town, we had no luck in finding the shop.

It was now time to rely on the locals and god forbid ask for directions. Lunch time was drawing near so Leon went into an inviting looking delicatessen, bought some cheese, prosciutto and panini then enquired as to where the chocolate shop was. Apparently after the helpful owners had a heated discussion between themselves ( Italians just won’t ever agree on anything) and then a few phone calls later – they very kindly rang the chocolate shop to get exact directions, Leon came out very satisfied as to where the shop was. As per usual it wasn’t in Cascina but the next town along.

We decided to find a park to eat our lunch and then headed on to find the Amedei chocolate shop. Our new directions took us to an industrial estate that didn’t look anything like the area of my photo! But after more endless driving we came across an Amedei chocolate warehouse that didn’t look at all inviting. A couple of factory workers were outside smoking and pointed us into the direction of the actual gourmet shop.

This time we were sent off into the picturesque Tuscan countryside and things started to look promising. The area was looking like my picture and we were truly ready to eaatttt chocolate!!! Regrettably after another long search we still hadn’t found the shop, now it was time to ask a Nona who was walking along the road. As soon as Leon mentioned the Amedei name she became very animated and with lots of pointing and gestures, which we understood only a little of, we resumed our quest.

Driving along a narrow country laneway we came across quite a few cars parked on the edge of the lane and knew at last we had found our chocolate shop, yey!! But could this be right, there was huge gates closed in front of the property and looking at our watches, it was *@#! Siesta time. Nooooo…… we parked the car and noticed people still inside the shop and there was also an intercom on the gates. So Leon spoke into the intercom and the gates opened. Hooray we were in luck!

Leon entered the shop to ask if we could park within the gates and if they were still open for chocolate tastings. Returning to the car with a smile on his face, Charlotte and I were already salivating ready for our tasting, but soon realized this wasn’t to be as you wouldn’t believe it *@#! They no longer did tastings or sold chocolate from their property anymore but only sold them in an outlet in Pisa, Florence and a in a small café in a village near by-Pontedera!!!! Okay I was ready to give up and eat a whole jar of nutella instead, only Leon wouldn’t give up and continued on our quest to eat Amedei chocolate- Amedei chocolate incorporates flavours of Tuscany using the flavours of lavender, olive oil, balsamic, pistachios and rosemary in some of their unique chocolates.

We did find the tiny café and had to wait for siesta to be over before completing our mission. When the café finally opened we were greeted with an array of chocolates down one wall and enticing sweets on the other, they also had an amazing looking coffee machine in the centre. Unfortunately you couldn’t taste or sample the chocolate before buying some. So $30 dollars later for 260 grams of chocolate( this was equivalent to two small blocks of Cadbury chocolate) we exited the shop a little disappointed – especially Charlie who had been very patient in our quest of chocolate tasting, to be told she could only have one small square a day as it was so bloody expensive!

Our chocolate quest ended up taking the whole day and we have never let a box of chocolates last so long in our lives, he he. Oh, sorry I forgot to tell you it didn’t taste any better than Lindt , it just seemed to be another Italian designer label! Another interesting fact is that Lindt and other premium chocolate brands in Italy are very cheap the equivalent amount of Lindt chocky would have cost about $4.00. I guess we were sucked in by the hype and very good marketing or it could have been the quest that made us do it ?????

Tuesday 6th May

2008-05-30T11:16:00.000-07:00

A pleasant morning spent around the villa today, then the early afternoon was spent on our exercise routine of walking the Lucca walls. We are still enjoying exploring Lucca and spent the rest of the day seeing some more sights. The day got away from us as usual and we realised it was quite late( still not getting used to it being daylight until 9:00pm), alas it was too late to cook dinner, so we had to yield to dropping in at Emma’s restaurant for a late night pizza.

Monday 5th May

2008-05-29T01:54:00.001-07:00

Florence and the quest for the Pinkie ring (Leon again)

The day started like any other, the sun came up, we had breakfast, everyone in the car and off. Well, looking forward that‘s how simple it looked to me. The reality is that I always forget I am travelling with two females and as they are carbon copies of each other, the delays are usually twice as long. So as I skulked around and waited for the hair and beauty routines to be completed, I punched the address of Stazione Centrale di Santa Maria Novella into the trusty GPS and in no time flat Karen had calculated our route and given me the ETA. (Karen is the voice of the GPS and she speaks with an Australian accent) The weather was overcast but dry and today’s top temperature was to be 19 c. As I mentioned earlier I have a personal check list of things I would like to achieve while in Italy and among them is to purchase a pinky ring as a momento of our visit.

After visiting Ponte Vecchio the first time I decided that it would be fitting that I should get the ring from one of the world’s most iconic jewelry places, the night before I consulted the guide book on where one should start such a quest and with the addresses and map references recorded we were ready to go, well almost, no we are, here are the beauty queens now. I had decided we would avoid toll roads today so Karen was navigating through a lot of smaller villages until we reached the highway, one can take the Autostrade however they are expensive and usually the time you have saved by travelling along at break neck speed, is lost queuing at either end to get on and off and pay.

The traffic was fairly light so we made it to Florence and parked in about two hours, we parked under the station as this was somewhere we were familiar with and I was sure we could wonder all over town and always find our way back. We arrived at about 12.30 pm and so everyone was ready for lunch, Belinda had read about a Trattoria in Florence that served good cheap local cuisine and was located in the middle of town. We found Ristaurante Del Mario and also discovered that a lot of other tourist had read the same guide book. Mario’s was a tiny establishment about 4 meters wide and twice as long with the counter and a very busy kitchen on one wall and table and chairs in every other vacant piece of floor on the other side. On our arrival we noted that there were a lot of folk just milling near the door, I went passed them and inside and realized why they were outside, Mario’s was chocker’s! Fabio at the counter appeared unaware of the chaos in his restaurant and asked me my name and how many I had to seat; he scribbled this on a large scrap of cardboard with all the other names and numbers and told me my table would be ready in 15 minutes, OK, Alorra.

We decided to have a look at the market we had walked past just across the Piazza, and to our delight discovered that we were in fact at Mercato Centrale which is renowned as the biggest food market in Europe. Our fifteen minutes were gone in no time, as we wondered through the market, Charlotte was grossed out by ducks and chooks that were missing all of their clothes but still had their nice faces attached to the otherwise cleaned and ready to cook bodies. We returned to Mario’s and enjoyed a very nice simple meal, shared with an Italian man who was squeezed on to the spare seat at our table.

Charlotte had a new experience here, not only did she eat with a strange Italian she also had her first encounter with a squat toilet,(we were going to save this experience for Vietnam but here it was in the middle of Florence) Charlie can be forgiven for what happened next as she had not had a chance to practice, but she came back to the table slightly shamed as she had managed to pee on her shoe in her effort to do the perfectly aimed squat, I am afraid that I could not offer any advice here as contrary to Belinda’s ravings my aim is always perfect and I never pee on my foot. (Sober) Thank god it was not number two’s she had to complete.

It was time we left the restaurant and headed for the first Jeweler on the list Torrini’s, according to the guide book had they been making jewelry in Florence for over 600 hundred years and so I thought they should get the first opportunity to provided me with that which I seek. Torrini’s was a very elegant shop where we were ushered into a private viewing room to view the Jewels, with much pomp and ceremony we were shown the full range of Uomo (men’s) rings, it only took a few seconds to realize that despite 600 + years of experience they were still shyte at making men’s rings, we left and arduously traipsed all over Florence gradually ticking off all the suggested Iconic jewelers off the list, while they were superb at things for the girls, men’s rings were in short supply and often the usual black onyx with a gold band. (Not my idea of a unique momento from Florence)

Up until now I had been avoiding Ponte Vecchio as I was sure in my mind that I would pay the tourists premium for purchasing on the bridge. But, to my surprise the bridge is exactly the place we should have been, the jewelers here are mainly goldsmiths and as it turned out produced beautiful work for both men and women, it only took four or five shops before the quest was at an end, after much encouragement from the fact that it was tax free and from a discount from the boss and oohs and aahs from the girls that worked there and Belinda and Charlotte, I was the owner of my first pinky ring.

With a successful quest under our belt it was time to think about heading back to the car and home, we stopped along the way and sampled a glass of Grappa from a bar and were very surprised that they cost 9 Euro’s each (ouch), and tasted like petrol.

Back at the car we punched home in the GPS and Karen awoke from her slumber and gave us the ETA of about 1 hour 30 minutes, yeah right! 4 hours later we were home. Karen had failed to let us know about the insane traffic we were about to encounter, Florence can only be likened to fish schools negotiating obstacles, as while the traffic moves in a general direction, there are no lanes to stay in and the only rule seems to be go where you have to go just don’t hit the thing in front of you. Stop signs mean niente (nothing) and stop lights were taken as only if it was convenient to stop. Forget about roundabout etiquette just enter and go with the flow. Then add a million or so Vespa’ that squeeze into every available space that might help them progress forward, throw in a Nonna or two on bikes and hundreds of double parked cars that seem to stop for mainly conversational purposes, and you are getting close to a picture of Florentine traffic, oops I forgot the trucks and the buses and the trams, and of course everyone is sending a text, and in a terrible hurry to get to their destination where they will probably sit and drink coffee for three hours. Our car has very conspicuous red number plates trumpeting to all of the other Italian cars that we are in fact French, given the rivalry with France and Italy Charlotte thought it prudent to make a sign which she placed in the window saying that we were not French but Australian, surprisingly you could see the occupants of other cars read the sign and there features would lighten with recognition and what appeared forgiveness. Hehehe ( in this traffic anything can help). Home at last ahhg. It is hard to know if train is better than car?????

Sunday 4th May

2008-05-29T01:41:00.001-07:00

We elected to stay at the villa again today, we were really taking pleasure in potting around the villa in the sunshine and nothing opens on a Sunday here. Some more school work was on the agenda for the bambina and sitting out on the terrace reading was on ours! Again in the afternoon we decided to walk to the very top of via Tremonte where a small church sits right at the peak of the hill. Today being Sunday all the church’s around were tolling their huge bells and they seemed to be calling us!!! We have got a lot of enjoyment from walking around our hill, the views are stunning, watching the vineyards and olive groves come alive is striking, the smell of wood burning and the trees blossoming around the villas, is particularly fragrant. Not to forget the scattering of adorable squirrels when you surprise one occasionally!

We have also spotted woody wood peckers (they’re real and sooo cute!!) I only thought they existed in cartoons! Have I told you about our resident barn owl? He is huge and gives Leon regular frights when he decides to leave the barn in search of food. We also share our terrace with lizards just like home, but they have the most gorgeous patterned, bright green backs (even Italian lizards like to dress up) and also try to dart inside every chance they get.

At about 6:00pm an Ape putted up the driveway and we were delighted to see that it was Ernesto, but curious as to what he might want as we have such difficulty trying to converse with him. Ernesto is a bit hard of hearing, so when we try and work out what we want to say in Italian, most of the time he can’t hear us (He He). Today however he handed Leon a piece of paper and we thought immediately he has had someone write down what he wants in English! But we weren’t to be let off the hook so easily; Ernesto had given us the address of his brother in Melbourne, who he hadn’t seen in 54 years. We had an idea that he had hoped we might know of his brother, but it was just too hard to explain otherwise. We stood around for a while laughing at our difficulties in trying to communicate and then we tried to invite Ernesto in for a coffee or wine. He declined, but did let us know that he made a good grappa and we should share some sometime.

Saturday 3rd May

2008-05-27T07:58:00.000-07:00

Another pleasant mild and sunny day in Tuscana but, alas, domestic duties were once again calling!

With the recent sunny weather the grasses around the villa appeared to be growing a foot each day and as yet we have only had one visit from our Gardener, Carabino since first meeting him. Leon fixed an old push mower he found in the barn and we both had fun, trying to cut the grass around the path to the laundry and up the back near the wood shed. The grapes vines are also developing at an alarming rate. Charlotte has been enjoying the flowering rose bushes and is even making her own potpourri.

Later in the day we went for a long walk down the hill to pick some poppies that have sprouted all over the sides of the hills, but as luck would have it, when we arrived at a particular area that has had a mass of poppies every time we have driven past, today someone else must have had the same idea and they were all but gone! Allora! We had to be content with picking other wildflowers instead. Christin was driving past and stopped for a chat and offered us a ride back up to the top of via Tremonte, but we declined as we were enjoying our pleasant walk in the sunshine.

Friday 2nd May

2008-05-27T07:50:00.001-07:00

After our big adventure yesterday we thought we might just explore some more of Lucca’s old town within the walls. We found a very trendy home ware shop and surprisingly a Chinese food restaurant which we marked on our map, so we could come back and enjoy another time. We also found a nice little Trattoria in the back streets and sat in the sun and enjoyed a scrumptious pizza for lunch.

The pizza’s here are bigger than a large pizza at home and you order one each! Now this might seem like a lot of pizza for one person, but the pizza crust is super crunchy thin and the toppings are always kept to a minimum so that you can flavor the delectable fresh vegetables and thinly sliced salami’s. No ham & pineapple or meat lover’s here!!! If you do try and ask for more variety of toppings on top, you end up with four different quarters, as they hate loading them together (how can you taste the flavors if it’s all mixed together?) Italian pizzas are to die for and we nearly always get through a whole one each!

In the evening we cooked our first meal on our custom made barbeque. It was a lovely mild night out on our terrace and it has been staying daylight here now till about 9:00pm. The barbe was a huge success, made even nicer to be eating the tasty kebabs outdoors. When the evening started to cool down we relaxed in front of the fire and read our novels. Estasi!! (Bliss).

Thursday 1st May (I’m back!)

2008-05-27T07:22:00.000-07:00

Bagni di Lucca was our destination for today as the sunny spring weather was back. According to our guide book, Bagni di Lucca is known for its therapeutic, thermal hot springs and by the GPS only 20 minutes up the road. Not only did it end up taking us 4 hours to find them, they weren’t even in Bagni di Lucca but the next town along near Borgo a Monzano. The interesting thing is that even on the maps you buy in Italy they don’t show all the villages! Today was also a public holiday so only the little cafes where open and the ones we approached to ask directions, hadn’t been able to tell us to look in the next village, but only gesture directions. Leon wouldn’t be put off and drove up every tiny lane leading to the top of the hills, near the beautiful stream that you could smell the sulphur fumes coming from!

We even got out of the car and explored narrow paths up the sides of hills with still no success. Finally we decided to put it down as a nice day exploring around Bagni di Lucca and started to head for home, when on our way out of the village we noticed a small old, traditional shoe shop open that was having a sale and thought we would take a look. After buying pair of shoes for Charlotte for only 3 euro’s we thought we would try one more time and ask the shop owners if they could tell us where the springs were! The friendly elderly couple with no English skills were determined to help us and after an amazing rapid and long conversation with us, not to mention a bit of arguing between themselves and a million arrivederci’s and ciao’s we exited the shop, looked at each other to determine if either of us understood what they had been saying(He He)! We both picked up on them having relatives in Australia and that the springs weren’t here but over, maybe a road with two bridges back on the main road and up roads into the mountains. Alorra!!! Armed with our new insight into the general direction of the springs our search continued.

Amazingly we did go back onto the main road and crossed two bridges when we noticed a curious looking sign that looked like a fountain with an arrow pointing up the hill, could this be it! We followed a few more of these signs until we were lead straight into a tiny piazza with what looked to me, nowhere else to go*#@!? But as always in Italy you should just follow the signs even when they point up a road no wider than a billy-cart track, when one finally commits to this ideal, you also have to contend with the insecurities of; what if a car comes the other way, what if we can’t turn around, etc… you get the picture, so, up we went, the road was narrow, extremely steep and winding, and at one stage we went through a tiny low arch which needed the mirrors to be folded in, to be able to drive through*#@!

We knew we had reached the top as we came to a small car park with steep villas surrounding it and this time definitely nowhere else to go. We parked the car and then climbed up a lot of very steep steps and at the top to our sheer delight and disappointment, we found the springs. They were housed in a few old private villa’s/pay for spa’s or bars and looked quite exclusive, expensive and closed. We had however achieved the day’s goal and were happy for that. Apparently the spa’s came into their own in the early 19^th century when Bagni di Lucca reached its heyday as one of Europe’s most fashionable spas, frequented by emperors, kings and aristocrats. But now the towns around the spas are rather sleepy and obviously only reached by determined tourists (He He) in their own vehicle!!!

We drove back down to the little piazza at the bottom of the hill and enjoyed a gelato while taking in the beautiful scenery around the spa town.

Mamma Mia another fun adventure in Italy!

Wednesday 30th April

2008-05-25T12:49:00.000-07:00

Florence ( still Leon)

Alorra, up at six am this morning as we had to get down the hill and on the train by 8.00 am, now you may think that two hours is a long time to get up and travel 3.7 K’s to the station, but then you have to add the inevitable parking hassles and almost certainly an impromptu game of charades to buy the three tickets for our train Journey to Florence.

We parked the car near the Police station that also shared the train station building. Tickets were purchased from the Tabachi/Bar next door to the station and needed to be validated in the machine on the platform, this all went fairly smoothly with minimal charades required, though we were to discover the validation machine to be il rotto (broken) so we were unsure what would happen there after, all of the info sources stressed the need to validate prior to travel and the fines that may follow if you fail to do so. The train arrived dead on time and our first encounter with TrenItalia was on some of Italy’s smallest and possibly oldest rolling stock, it was a two carriage rail motor, but was comfortable and thankfully well heated, the ambient temperature outside was a frosty nine degrees and quite brisk for a gaggle of North Queenslanders on an adventure to Firenze (Florence). We all made it to our first change of train’s station without incident and managed to validate the tickets at Lucca. Our next train was a modern intercity electrified outfit, and was about fifteen carriages long, the total Journey was to take 1hr 45 min’s according to Trenitalia’s schedule, and after a short delay we were off to our final destination Firenze. About half way through the trip the train stopped at a station and went from being partially full to completely overcrowded and busting at the seam’s, we had just acquired a large gaggle of German oldies. In Italy it seems that personal space does not exist at all, and sundry were pressed up hard against one another. Having recently travelled on Hong Kong city trains we were accustomed to full trains, but this was beyond ridiculous, and as it turned out the train itself agreed, as at the next station it was also il rotto and refused to go on, after much looking underneath and gesticulating by the conductor and the guard we were all ushered off the broken train and directed to a new one waiting a few platforms away.

Possibly because we did not have a clue what was going on, it took us a little time to relinquish our comfy seats and head across the tracks to our new non il rotto train, and to our dismay this train now resembled the one we had just broken, as it now had its original passengers plus all of ours. We walked along the platform and were greeted by the crush of passengers packed in tight on both train and platform, I noted that way down the other end there appeared to be know one so we lead a charge to the back end of the train and surprise, surprise! the last two carriages were nearly empty, we secured some very nice comfy seats and watched the rest of the losers gradually filter down and take up the standing room available. We arrived, Firenze Santa Maria Novella Stazione about 1 hour late.

Our first port of call was a quick visit to the stations tourist info office, and armed with our map and my pocket lighter by one Euro, we were ready to hit the big smoke, we stepped out of the station to a cold bleak looking day but thankfully the rain was patchy and light when it happened at all. Belinda was keen to visit a Pharmacia that had been peddling its wares for a few centuries from the same spot and is world renowned for its beauty products and in particular moisturizers and fragrances typical to Tuscany.

We got our bearings and went on the search, of course we were looking for a big brassy shop front with windows displaying the wears, but, what we found was more akin to a gallery, with the main shop located behind very formal looking doors, at the end of an elegant palazzo. Upon entering, one is greeted by a huge chamber with a large ornate, beautiful antique counter, and the walls lined with antique, floor to ceiling display cabinets that appeared they would be at home in any stately mansion or regal palace across Europe.

We wondered the rooms which consisted of a museum and library and also herbalist and fragrance chambers. It was so over powering and formal that we left with a copy of the bill of fare, as we felt too intimidated to even ask how much things might cost, we left and decided to return when we felt braver and considerably more cashed up.

We wondered down the street and headed in the general direction of Ponte Vechio (the gold bridge across the river Arno). Florence as we are discovering is like all Italian cities that has a centre, that is the oldest section, that consists of the main Piazza and the Duomo, Piazza seem to be built wherever a building is, that was essential to the day to day life of the cities inhabitants, for instance a piazza will be near the Cathedral, a market or the municipal office most of which were formally the monarch’s seat in days of old. We found Ponte Vechio and noted that a few thousand other tourists had managed the same feat. When you think that Florence was one of Italy’s most visited cities, I guess we were not doing too bad to be able to visit with only a few thousand instead of the usual crush that the locals speak of. We wondered up and down the bridge suitably dazzled by the bling on display, I made a mental note to return soon for the purchase of a pinky ring, which was on my personal tick list of things to do in Italy. It was my little heart’s desire to indulge in a bit of bling for myself and I was hoping for something typical of Florence and hopefully a one off handmade piece. (one is allowed to dream;-) We went in search of lunch and dined in a Turkish establishment just near the bridge that served micro zapped Italian cuisine but very good bread less Kebab’s!! Food is proving to be a bit hit and miss and seems to be expensive for the quality of food served in most instances.

We left the bridge and headed in the direction of Piazza Della Signora, we strolled along the front of the Uffizi and were sharing the space with statues of the great masters including the likeness of Leonardo Di Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti to name just a few. The piazza at the end is home to some of the icons of Florence, including a copy of Michelangelo’s David, in the same spot where the original stood until the mid 1800 when it was sifted for preservation purposes.

Strangely I kept losing sight of Belinda in this piazza, but I could always find her gravitating towards the same spot gazing up at David and his allegedly perfect form! Charlotte’s only comment on seeing these famous statues was ‘Thank goodness they invented clothes!’ Belinda was in hysterics!!! Several photo’s later we left Piazza Della Signora and went in search of the Duomo, all one has to do to achieve this is to look up or follow the biggest throng, like migrating salmon we seemed to be swimming upstream towards our goal, Florence’s Duomo gives new meaning to the word detail. The plans for the Façade were submitted by Michelangelo and it is mind boggling to see the amount of work that was done to complete the work, and at a time when one could not reach for a handy Bosch power tool to help things along.

It was getting late and we had to start back toward the station for our trip home to Ponte A Moriano. The trip home was uneventful by comparison to our earlier one and we made it home around 8:30pm and collapsed after what proved to be a fairly big day for us all.

Tuesday April 29th

2008-05-25T12:41:00.000-07:00

Our eyes opened to a dodgy day with the hill in white out and the mercury on the way down, today was a day on the hill so we went to the convent to do some emails and Christin attended to our heating needs by donating some very good wood for our fire, it was like luxury to be able to sit in front of the fire without having to constantly feed it with the rotting or wet stuff we had had to use to date. We spent the rest of the day planning our first deliberate trip to Florence and thanks to the internet connection next door we were able to get an insight into the local train schedules, we thought this would be the best way to do Florence as we would not have to contend with traffic or parking hassles.

Monday 28th April.

2008-05-25T12:04:00.001-07:00

San Gimignano (by Leon)

Today was San Jimmy day, the weather was fine and we managed to get away from the Casa, around 10 ish. San Gimignano is a smallish medieval village about 2 hours south of Lucca. It is located right in the middle of the Tuscan tourist route, and is visited by countless tour groups and coaches per day. We approached San Jimmy from the North West and as we rounded the top of a spur, San Jimmy came into view, one could be forgiven for thinking you were about to enter a modern metropolis, as the villages numerous towers built at the height of San Jimmies popularity give it a skyline like a mini Manhattan. As with most Italian towns the central part of the town is surrounded by walls and Ramparts, that at one time would have shielded the inhabitants from the marauding Sienese or other miscreant’s hell bent on rape and pillage.

Following a fairly colorful and verbose search for a car park, we entered the Village via the usual large arched Porta and were immediately in the middle of the hustle and bustle of one of Tuscany’s busiest tourist towns. San Jimmy consists of three main Avenues that intersect at the main Piazza’s. The town is geared mainly for tourists so photo opportunities and retail goods are in plentiful supply, it is set on the side of a mildly steep hill, so one can fill the memory card fairly quickly with the views and streetscapes that present themselves.

We visited the museum and Duomo and were surprised by the fresco’s in the Cathedral that pictured quite graphically what might happen to you should you stray from the path of righteousness and be delivered to evil. Fresco’s of demons performing all number and variety of violent and canal acts were there for all to heed their warning. Charlotte was quite confronted by these historic images and was happy to see the back of her spookiest church yet. Following a fairly ordinary lunch, Belinda ticked one of her personal boxes and soothed the urge with a little retail therapy, alorra (and so) sporting a big smile and a new hand bag we departed San Jimmy for home.

On the way home it was beginning to get quite late, we still have not come to grips with daylight until 9.00 pm, so we decided to have dinner at “Emma’s”; this is the local Roasticheria/Bar that is located at one end of Ponte A Moriano’s Piazza, the place was recommended by our Neighbour the Maestro, and he described it as one of the best and most reasonable places to eat in all of Italy. As this came from a fellow who looks like he knows a good meal when he sees one, and is also extremely well travelled, we decided we had better check it out, Gustav had told us to be sure to mention his name when we went, alorra, as we entered we asked after Emma and were introduced to our host by her daughter Valentina. Emma’s is a deli and bar in the front and has a large well appointed kitchen and a huge wood fired Pizza oven in the back, with room to seat around 60 customers. True to the Maestro’s words we were treated to some very simple but delicious local cuisine and the charming surroundings were typical of a family restaurant that had been doing business for generations. Later we were to discover that Valentina the Maître de was in the process of finishing her Masters in art history, though at the moment she chose to toil away here and carry on the family tradition of catering splendidly for the locals and visitors to Ponte A Moriano.

Sunday 27th April.(by Leon)

2008-05-25T11:56:00.001-07:00

It seems the weather is here to stay, as we awoke to another brilliant Tuscan sun in the sky. We had promised our land lady that we would shift some rocks that were in an unsightly pile by the driveway, rather than just shift them though we decided that we would build a Barbeque from them so after a few attempts and with expert designing by Belinda we managed to put together what we thought was a pretty good looking out door Barbie, it remains to be seen if the land lady likes it also, as it may still be that we will shift the rocks again in the future.

While the building activity was going on we were also reproducing the delectable meal I had had a few days before at Bolgheri, I am happy to say that we managed to copy the recipe fairly well and that evening we sat down to a delicious meal of slowly broiled beef in red wine, balsamic vinegar and some other secret herbs and spices. It was a very nice end to a productive day under the Tuscan sun in which we had placed an Aussie stamp on Casa Cantante. ;-)

Saturday 26th April.

2008-05-25T11:41:00.000-07:00

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.

Friday 25th April.

2008-05-25T11:11:00.002-07:00

The Tuscan sun was shining down upon our villa today and the stone staircase amazingly didn’t freeze our feet as usual this morning! It was a perfect day to explore the beach at Viareggio, about a half hour drive North West of here.

We travelled through amazing tunnels again, and came out with the glittering Liguiran Sea shining ahead of us. On arriving in Viareggio we were startled by the Art Nouveau style of architecture seen in the grand hotels, cafes and bars lining the esplanade. The place seemed to be unnaturally busy for a week day and then we finally realized it was a public holiday (Anzac day for us), and being a bright sunny day everyone had the same idea as us! Every vehicle in sight seemed to be searching for a park and in our own search we came upon a market with a carnival atmosphere on the foreshore, down the far end of the very long esplanade. We eventually found a park and thankfully Charlotte had her scooter in the boot so we were all set to see the sites of Viareggio. The colorful market was filled with the most mouth watering temptations of cheese’s, salami’s, amazing pastries, candies, chocolates and huge selection of delectable hot dishes! At one end of the market a colorful carrousel had been turned into a bar and looked right at home serving drinks to the locals in the carnival atmosphere. Ironically this was one of the few days we had done some forward planning and had packed a picnic lunch from home, which we enjoyed sitting on the beach, watching the boat’s cruise on the clear emerald green sea.

The bambina was not content with her Spartan meal and so we had to bribe her with a bag of sweetie’s from the market, not to be left out we also sampled some of the pastries on offer, and to our surprise they looked a lot better than they tasted, I think we must have chosen badly as the vendor was doing a roaring trade with the passersby. For the rest of the afternoon we joined the rest of the in crowd and strolled up and down the esplanade. It was not like anything we had experienced before as the beach is lined by café’s, spas and Restaurants, and in the high season you must be a patron of one of these establishments to be allowed a spot on the sand, accept for three meters from the shore line the beach is privately owned by the bars etc... and, rented out to sun lovers by the towel space, we were informed that in summer space is at a premium and one must book a towel space ahead of time so as not to be disappointed and have to sit on the road. We finished our visit in Viareggio with a gelato and on the way home called in to Torre Del Lago A Puccini, this was the place where Giacamo Puccini spent most of his time with his wife after he was ostracized from Lucca from stealing another man’s wife, it didn’t seem to bother him as we know he went on to be one of Italy’s most celebrated opera composers.

Thursday 24th April.

2008-05-25T11:11:00.001-07:00

Fairly uneventful day spent home at the villa today. I enjoyed doing a jigsaw puzzle without having to be watchful of any clocks……..pure bliss, Charlotte settled down into doing her diary entries, while Leon went off on a electrical plug finding mission. We had asked Leon to bring us home some fresh bread to make some panini’s for lunch. Alas we didn’t get lunch till after 3o’clock, waiting for Leon’s return as he had had, his usual misdirected sojourns around Lucca!!!

Wednesday 23rd April.

2008-05-25T09:54:00.000-07:00

The Tuscan sun was out in all its glory waking us up early this morning. Pisa was our destination, only a 30 minute drive away. The landscape was scenic and after entering a very long tunnel that cut its way through the mountains we came out with the Leaning Tower visible in the distance. This was dreamlike after only seeing this great wonder on numerous documentaries, travel shows and in history books! We found parking fairly easily, wonder of all wonder’s and then just headed in the direction of the tower. Pisa’s old centre was again enclosed by large imposing walls, so we had to find the right entrance, which didn’t prove too hard as all of a sudden we came upon our first encounter with a huge throng of tourist’s.

Up until now, we had been extremely lucky and hadn’t yet had to share our touring with masses of other tourist’s! We threaded our way through the crowds and came upon a huge open area of neatly manicured lawns, with the Baptistry in the foreground, then the wonderful four- tiered façade of the Duomo and finally the surreal spectacle of the Leaning Tower. This area is known as the Campo dei Miracoli (Field of Miracles). We decided on this visit just to explore the Duomo and Tower as we would no doubt be back with our visiting friends in the future.

Once we purchased our surprisingly expensive tickets, we only had a half hour wait to climb the tower. In the meantime we explored the elaborate and impressive interior of one of the finest Pisan-Romanesque buildings in Tuscany, the Duomo. As they say a picture paints a thousand words, so, here are some pictures (He He).

After exiting the Duomo, (Charlotte couldn’t get out of there quick enough, maybe it was the crypt that freaked her out), we locked our belongings up in lockers as the tower is to narrow to drag any belongings with you, except camera’s, and ventured towards the big queue’s. Luckily as we weren’t part of a tour we went straight in before all the other groups!

As we entered into the cold marble interior and started up the steep, warn and off kilter steps, Charlotte kept making sure I wasn’t going to pass out on her due to my claustrophobia. But I was fine in this situation, as I knew there was fresh air to be had; the stairs wrapped around the outside of the tower with views all the way up. After what seemed like a Step Reebok class, we came to a viewing point and walked around the weird tilted edge, took a few pics and proceeded up even narrower steps. With Charlotte calling ‘are you alright Mum?’ making me feel like everyone must think I was considerably unfit or invalid, when she was yet again worried about my claustrophobia!!!

We then came out on the level with the huge bells that add to the leaning pressure on the tower! It was now time for more pictures and then the final climb to the top. Charlotte wouldn’t come any further as she was positive we would fall off, the lean seems quite substantial at the very top…..you feel tipsy like you’ve had a bit too much chardy! A beautiful view was had from the top, over the Baptistry and Duomo, although the wind was quite blustery. On our way down we came across a large group of very noisy and pushy students. I was thankful we had got to enjoy our experience at the top without a huge crowd! After our visit with Pisa’s miracles, Leon wanted to find a tiny village called Bolgheri that was in a book he was reading at the moment called ‘Vroom by the sea’. We came across the picturesque village at the end of a cypress lined avenue with its quaint arched porta (entrance).

As is becoming a habit we arrived at the village right on siesta, and as we walked through the porta the place seemed deserted. The tiny village consisted of only three little streets so we took a look around and discovered the most appealing little restaurants lining a street with pretty views out to the sunny Tuscan hills. This was exactly how we had imagined Tuscany to be and I couldn’t wait to be seated under the flowering creeper that shaded a particularly inviting part of an alfresco restaurant. We sat and had a long, leisurely, typically Italian lunch of grissini (cut up breadsticks) antipasti, primi piatti and secondi and of course a glass of the best red wine we had tasted yet! Leon enjoyed his secondi which consisted of medallions of beef, slowly broiled in a sauce of red wine and balsamic vinegar. He had a hard time keeping Charlotte from pinching the delectable morsels of his plate, despite her tucking into a delicious meal of pasta made especially to entice the bambina!

Before we knew it, the town came alive again as siesta was over and the streetscape had transformed, with the opening of charming stores for us to explore. We bought two bottles of the local wine and upon returning to the car we saved this delightful place to our GPS for future visits.

Tuesday 22nd April.

2008-05-25T09:47:00.000-07:00

Another quiet morning today spent around the villa, doing the usual domestic chores, which I hate to admit, but I actually enjoying hanging out washing while looking down into the vineyard and the valley below with the pleasant, recurrent sound of church bells chiming in the distance.

We went into Lucca after siesta and explored the many appealing boutiques. I played Cinderella once again, trying to buy a pair of leather boots. After numerous disappointments of finding a boot that fitted (it is near to impossible to find my particular size hear in Italy). I finally purchased a pair of black leather boots with quite a high heal that should stand the test of time as they are a classic design, we then proceeded to find the nearest shoe repair man to put sole inserts in them, as the heels make the balls of my feet suffer as soon as they are put on! Mamma Mia what my poor feet put up with just for the sake of fashion! (another fashion victim)

Before leaving Lucca we had our customary espressos and gelato, bought a few more food supplies, braved the frenetic/mad traffic and headed for the peaceful hills of Ponte A Moriano.

Monday 21st April.

2008-05-25T09:36:00.000-07:00

I woke this morning with a very unpleasant, sickening headache and with the sunny warm weather of yesterday being replaced by a rainy wintry one, I decided to indulge my headache and nuzzle back down in my cozy bed. Leon feed me the required pain killers and opted to go to the village for groceries. Charlotte thought she would take up the chance of snuggling in bed with me.

Later in the day, I ventured out of bed feeling weak and still sporting an aching head and back, Ughh! So I then just sat in front of the fire for the rest of the day while Charlotte, amazingly, did some schoolwork and my wonderful hubby cooked roast pork and veggies, including the most delicious asparagus that is in abundance here at the moment. We can’t get enough of this plump scrumptious vegetable; we have it on our home made pizzas, in our scrambled eggs, pasta dishes and our Italian style stir-fry’s…….

Sunday 20th April.

2008-05-25T09:28:00.000-07:00

Sunday 20^th April.

Woke up with a ray of sunshine beaming through the tiny window in Kathy’s bedroom in a dreamlike state, speculating how many generations of Italians had slept here before us……looking at the same painting surrounding the room!!!! I started the day with a freezing cold shower*#@!……how was I to know, you had to turn on the heating and then wait for the old pipes to warm up, before jumping in!

After everyone else had their waaarrm showers, we had a leisurely breakfast and then said our goodbyes to Kathy and Harley. We drove in brilliant sunshine through very busy traffic on the roads. Being Sunday and most Italian’s only full day off…. there were high powered motorbikes, convertible sports car and heavily decaled, lycra clad cyclists everywhere. I think the beautiful weather had bought out all the Italian’s showy road toys, to enjoy their love for speed and dare devil overtaking!!! It didn’t take too long after examination of the madness on the roads that we opted to take the autostrade…..I think a safer option to travel at 150kph than wonder which bend would be our last!

We arrived home mid afternoon and I relaxed on a sun lounge out on the terrace, soaking up the warmth of the sun……..Dolce Vita (sweet life)!

Saturday 19th April. (Charlotte’s 11th Birthday!)

2008-05-25T08:49:00.000-07:00

The sun was beaming off the rooftops in Anghiari today……a beautiful day to celebrate Charlotte’s birthday! All she wanted to do was leave Anghiari to finally meet Harley! We slowed her down by tempting her with a delicious breakfast of pastries and hot chocolate in a sweet little café, we had discovered in our exploration of Anghiari the previous day. After our full fat breakky we drove straight to Sansepolcro….. Leon put Kathy’s address into the GPS and we found ourselves driving right into the middle of the old walled centre of town. I am quite calm about entering into the bowels of these medieval towns now, after surviving Florence……..so it was with excitement and not terror, I realized that Kathy lived right in the heart of town and we would get to experience what is actually behind a historic doorway!! Kathy’s apartment was up, of course, a one way narrow lane with limited parking. We located a park not too far away and Charlotte rang Kathy to let her know we had arrived. Kathy was amazed we had actually found her without masses of directions, not realizing we had our little friend on board (GPS), she was quite concerned as to where we had parked the car as the local authorities were particularly savage on bad parking habits. We started to walk towards her place when we spotted her walking towards us, after huge hugs and kisses all round, Kathy wanted us to take her straight to the car so she could find us a park where we didn’t have to pay or wasn’t a local park where we would get a hefty fine.

Harley was still in school, the Italian kids even have school on Saturday’s, but only until 1:00pm, poor Charlie still had to be patient for a while longer, until she finally got to meet her email buddy. It was wonderful talking with Kathy, we had so many questions about Italian customs to find out and general everyday problems we knew she would be able to solve for us.

First we grabbed our overnight bags and headed to Kathy’s apartment……..down a cobbled lane through huge rustic double doors with wrought iron fittings, then into an anti chamber (palazzo)that was cool and dark, we then climbed up two, steep and extraordinary tall flights of old stone stairs and then finally through another heavy old timber door.

Kathy’s traditional Italian apartment was absolutely delightful. The views from Kathy’s windows gave an intimate view of life within the village. The open spaces below were dotted with vegetable gardens , large blossoming trees were given pride of place, peoples washing hanging to catch the sun and the family pets perched high on the window sills trying to do the same. Kathy and Harley have two cats and Charlotte was frightened that they would fall from the windowsills, we were more concerned of where do they do their do do’s!

Remarkable original frescos wrapped around the walls of Kathy’s bedroom and a marble fireplace dominated the wall opposite her bed. Charlie once again thought it was quite spooky! Once we off loaded our bags we went to explore some of Sansepolcro, the markets were on around the main piazza and incredibly the shops hadn’t yet close for siesta. We bought a small scooter for Charlie as a birthday present (she has already had her main present since HK a small digital camera). Now she will be able to use this to get around the Lucca walls….instead of hiring a bike, each time.

After some shopping we went back to Kathy’s place and used her wireless internet connection to send off some our first photos, this was the first time we could do this (our internet and phone is not working at the villa*#@!). Charlotte went with Kathy to pick Harley up from school. When the two girl’s got back with Kathy, you’d swear they had known each other for years……non stop chatting continual giggling and not a mouthful of our yummy (spinach) pasta lunch was eaten!

As soon as lunch was over, the girls took Charlie’s new scooter out for a test run and gelato, since they were starving from not eating their lunch!! Later in the afternoon after siesta, Leon, Kathy and I went in search of a birthday cake for Charlotte. This is one of the easiest things to acquire in Italy, there pasticcheria’s are brimming over; with sweet delicacies, the biggest problem was deciding which exquisitely decorated one to buy. Once we had made our choice, the cake was superbly wrapped up, just like a present and the ribbon expertly made into a handle to carry it with. I never wanted to unwrap the cake!!!!

Now, the cake was an easy purchase but, finding candles was a very fascinating and charming experience…….even Kathy with her local knowledge and good Italian wasn’t sure where to start our search. After being sent to different locations by the local’s we ended up in the most unlikely little shop, it would have been the very last place we would have thought sold candles. From the outside it looked like an old junk and hardware store, inside it was so narrow we could only stand along the long counter side by side. Kathy thankfully asked for the candles and the elderly store owner came around to our side of the counter, I had to back out a bit so he could fit, then he bought out an old wooden ladder and attached it to the top of the numerous shelves running right up to the ceiling, and searched through copious old boxes till he found what he was looking for. Unbelievably he asked what color we would like, pink! and how many? After all this effort I wanted to say just give us the whole box but Leon had decided on two as they would make the number 11. The old gentleman then began the search for the little bases to fit them in. I was feeling quite embarrassed about making this dear old man put all his boxes back and climb down the ladder for two measly candles, worth 30 cents! But still smiling and chatting away, he got his wife to wrap them, while he tidied up ………..I swear I felt like I had just walked off the set of Little House on the Prairie or the Walton’s (He He).

Kathy had booked a table at a favorite Trattoria, for Charlie’s little birthday dinner celebrations. The Trattoria staff were happy to hide the cake and bring it out at the end of our meal, while Leon, Kathy and I talked non stop and enjoyed the delicious antipasto’s and pizza’s, the girls ate in between playing with their connected Nintendo’s…….some things just don’t change no matter where in the world you are! Charlotte was delighted with the surprise birthday cake and we all took pleasure in eating it.

We finished a fun day sitting in the piazza, sipping wine and watching the locals nightly ‘la passeggiata’ (this when people have an evening walk in their piazza’s, where they all meet up to catch up on the day’s news, and when boys and girls have a chance to meet under the watchful eyes of their parents, and the little ones get to play ball in the open area of the piazza). We also got to sleep in the fresco bedroom at Kathy’s…….surreal!!!

Friday 18th April

2008-05-25T05:40:00.001-07:00

Today we thought we would venture over to Sansepolcro (this is on the Tuscan, Umbrian border) where we will finally get to meet Kathy and Harley. Kathy Jacobson is an expat American living in the small town of Sansepolcro. It was Kathy who reassured us it was possible to reside in Italy without paying outrageous sums of money for accommodation. We met Kathy through our Internet searches and we were initially going to rent an apartment within the borghetto (apartment complex converted from an historic building/gaol) where she was living, until circumstances changed. Kathy is our age (a bit freaky that we keep meeting people our exact same age) and has two daughters, Zoe and Harley. Harley is the same age as Charlotte and they have been email buddies since we first made contact with Kathy over a year ago.

As we were about to leave, Kathy sent us a text that she had forgotten a previous engagement and wouldn’t be free until tomorrow but to still come on over anyway. We decided to leave for Sansepolcro, but visit Anghiari on the way, and maybe stay there for the night. It turned out to be both a delightful and stressful drive over to Anghiari.

After driving for about an hour through tiny picturesque villages, we all of a sudden found ourselves smack bang in the middle of Florence! Leon and I were commenting how the traffic was getting quite busy (thinking this was due to everyone leaving work for siesta) when all of a sudden to our right appeared…. what I jokingly said looked like the Arno River! We were trying to decipher where the GPS had led us, when I spotted the famous gold bridge to the right of us and realized we were indeed in the middle of Florence. The traffic was unbelievable….. But Leon was having a ball playing dodgem cars with the Florence drivers, while I didn’t know whether to scream, cry, laugh, pee and poo my pants or wish yet again that I had access to some valium! Meanwhile, Charlotte is busy texting Harley working out our ETA and asking the most useless and annoying questions…..not realizing that her Dad seemed to be possessed by some formula one, racing drivers ghost and not listening. *#@!..all the while I’m thinking about the extent of injuries we might encounter if we collide with the masses of over powered motorbikes, vespas, scooters, Nona’s on push bikes, buses, sports cars, dogs, cats and every other imaginable vehicle that has wheels……… also that maybe…*#@! It was likely that one of these vehicle’s might just not judge correctly how quick they can stop or that it’s not possibly feasible… to squeeze another car in here without damaging our panels! Oh! I forgot to mention their lack of respect for pedestrians, cross walks, traffic lights and even stop signs!!!!!

It was pure torture trying to work out if there were actually any road rules… or how many vehicles can enter a roundabout at the one time, and mind-boggling, wondering who gives way to whom!!! Leon just kept up his demon driving not letting other drivers think that….. because of his French number plates, he was going to back down meekly and let them get in front of him. I thought maybe if I compose myself I could suggest to him that, ‘Darla you do realize that you don’t have your sirens and flashing lights with you and maybe you could slow down a bit or just give way to few vehicles?’ Unfortunately my suggestion wasn’t taken, and I was told to just sit back and relax… or would I like to drive? like yeah!!

Before I lost all self-control, we incredibly broke free of the senseless and wild Florentine traffic and thankfully started to head towards the Tuscan countryside again. The demon left Leon and was replaced by the wanna-be Opera singer in full voice… and all was cheery for the remainder of our trip.

We arrived in Anghiari at about 3 o’clock , Anghiari is a small medieval town perched high up on a hill, still unchanged in centuries and not yet discovered by tourists. We parked the car in the tiny piazza after driving down the most amazing narrow streets that reminded us of a ski jump. Very steep, long and narrow, with cobbled paving that gave the bones a sound shaking. Anghiari was delightful and the locals very friendly, so we sent a text to Kathy and told her we would find somewhere to stay here for the night and meet up with her in the morning. We booked into a hotel after having a look at the rooms. You have to be careful in Italy as there is a huge difference in rooms, but not a lot of difference in the price. So we were shown the 80 euro room first, which was a newly renovated room, tiny but clean and with a modern bathroom and a spectacular view over the rooftops of Anghiari. Then we looked at the 70 euro room…. that could only be described as something forgotten since the 1960’s with 3 single beds, with the most delightful (not) toweling bedspreads, no windows and nothing else in it. So of course we spent the extra 10 euro’s and enjoyed our view. After checking in, we needed to park the car for overnight and with our limited Italian tried to explain our situation to the ‘non speaking the English’ Nona. A man appeared (I think he was the Nona’s son who had been having a snooze out the back) and gestured to park outside, but to us this was another small piazza with only about half a dozen tiny parks that were already full. We walked back to our car in the other piazza and proceeded to find the hotel amongst the small maze of one way narrow streets. Thankfully when we finally found our way back to the hotel, the Nona’s son was there making someone shift their car so we could have their car park. Leon and I were a bit concerned as it had a ‘no parking’ sign above it and Italy’s parking fines are expensive in the extreme! Again we tried to explain our concern, and the gentleman quickly disappeared, he came back with something written on a piece of paper, he stuck it under the wipers and gestured that it was okay now!

We were now free to explore Anghiari. It was quite surreal walking through the steep and narrow meandering alleys. The steps outside the terraced dwellings had an abundance of colorful flowering pot plants and the occasional customary pussy cat catching the last rays of the sun’s warmth. Charlotte even found a friendly dog sitting in a window with his head poking out through the decorative wrought iron screen. Every time we turned a corner there was another enchanting vista to enjoy. We truly felt like we had been transported back in time, and that we could be part of a segment of Getaway that you only ever dream of experiencing!

After an enjoyable and strenuous stroll through the village we walked up the very steep main street and poked our heads into most of the appealing old –fashioned shops. Leon found a traditional old news agency that sold hats and Leon bought himself a very stylish Fedora, and I purchased an Italian birthday card for Charlotte. We also came across a stylish shoe shop and I was tempted to buy my first pair of Italian shoes, they looked far too expensive! Leon scolded me for not asking the price and walked back into the shop and asked in his confident manor, ”Quanto costa questo?” How much are these? Quickly doing the conversion of euro’s to our aussie dollar….. I was astonished that they were within our price range. So then the fun started of working out my shoe size and trying to explain this one was too small, this one is too big and this one is just right…. but too wide! Mamma Mia, I wished I had finished my Italian language lessons! But fortunately the very patient sales girl (I think we had actually given her a bit of entertainment for the day) called in a gentleman from across the street and explained the problem of the shoes being too wide. He showed us that he could fix the problem by building up the innersole and to our amazement we were asked to wait a momento, while the gentleman headed back across the street to fix my shoes. When he was done, he slipped the shoe back on my foot and feeling just like Cinderella….. they were a perfect fit and the alterations were completely invisible. Now that’s service for you, I was one very happy Signora!

Thursday 17th April

2008-05-24T03:03:00.001-07:00

We woke up to a delightful sunny day and knew today was a good day to fulfill our promise to Charlie and take her back to the snow. Thanks to Christin, we now knew that there was snow within only an hour’s drive away, at a small ski village called Abetone, this is known mainly by the locals and kept a bit of a secret from us tourists. In what seemed like quite a short trip we came upon an appealing little village that reminded us of something you would see on a Swiss postcard. There was still a fair amount of pure white, icing cake style snow all around and we couldn’t get Charlie out of the car quick enough. So this time with our woolen gloves, covered in plastic gloves( sneakily grabbed from the fruit section at il supermercato)we ventured out into the virgin snow and started a snow ball fight. This was super fun for a while until the cold little particles of snow started to creep down into our coats and come in contact with our skin, to Charlie this was worse than any ice block shoved down your top when your home in the tropics. Suggesting that Charlie should build her first snowman… woops it was a snow lady, seemed like a good change of activity. But, alas this didn’t last too long. It was all a bit, like too much hard work for both Leon and Charlie, so Mummy was left to complete the snow lady, while Leon went in search of coffee and chocolate and Charlie made snow angels. Before long I had a crying daughter on my hands…. from now being completely soaked through from rolling in the snow and a husband that couldn’t be found to unlock the car, so I could put on the heater and defrost Charlotte!

Finally Leon returned after enjoying a nice hot coffee in a cozy warm bar (none for mummy, as they don’t do takeaway very often here in Italy) and unlocked the car for us, then tried to calm Charlotte down by reassuring her she wasn’t going to die of frostbite, yet again. While our little bambina stripped of all her clothing and wrapped herself in our jackets and put Leon’s gloves on her apparently frost bitten toes (He He), we went on a picturesque drive with the heating on full blast and enjoyed checking out the rest of Abetone. Leon had bought chocolate, so after a while…. happily munching away on her sweetie and feeling nice and cozy, Charlie was back to her chirpy self.

On our way home in the afternoon we stopped at Lucca and enjoyed another walk on the walls and indulged in a coffee, sitting down in Piazza Napoleon. We needed some supplies for dinner, so a trip to the il supermercato was next on our agenda. Eleanor had showed us a good one in Lucca when we were driving her around, so we thought we would give this one a go.

Charlotte enjoys shopping at the supermarkets here, as in the fruit section you pick up your fruit or veggies with the plastic gloves provided, then place them in a bag, weigh them and put your own price sticker on the bag. Charlotte gets to work out what the Italian name is for the fruit and veggies then selects it on the computer above the scales and gets to attach the price sticker and barcode, just like she was a deli girl. What cracks Leon and I up is the check out staff sit down…. don’t pack your groceries for you and you are charged for the amount of plastic bags used. If you are not quick enough getting the groceries in the bags the next person’s items come flying down at you also! The shopping seems to take us about two hours to buy food for just the three of us and for only a few days supplies. Maybe it’s because they have the most amazing delicatessen sections with a grand variety of delectable mouth watering items and every kind of pasta, fresh or dried that you can imagine. But trying to find healthy brekky cereals and low fat yogurt is near to impossible. The wine and spirit sections are substantial and super cheap, but it takes us forever to find a cut of meat that isn’t pork or sausage and doesn’t cost a small fortune.

Even in our local little butcher in Ponte we had a lengthy, but hilarious time trying to get a cut of lamb to roast. Of course the very friendly and charming butcher’s couldn’t speak any English so Leon proceeded to explain what we wanted with what seemed to Charlotte and me…. a game of charades. First he started with trying to explain he wanted lamb not pork so he put his hands on his head in the shape of sheep’s horns, but hilariously the butcher’s thought he wanted goat, we knew this as both Charlotte and I amazingly knew the word for goat in Italian. Leon then started to make baa baa noises, this proceeded into making the butcher’s even more confused and Charlotte and I trying to contain our giggles. Charlotte then magically produced a picture of a lamb on her mobile phone ……the butcher’s took a look and told us they didn’t have Agnello; (lamb). Leon then thought he would try for some rabbit and started hopping on the spot, looking more like a kangaroo than a rabbit. Luckily before I pee’d myself, another customer came in and could see we were having a bit of trouble. Thankfully she could speak a little bit of English and explained to the butcher what were after…… but after all of Leon’s efforts we just took what the butcher suggested was a good cut of meat to roast. He very nicely seasoned it for us and wrapped it up beautifully and 15 euro’s ($26.00) later, we took our very small roast home and discovered after cooking it……it was pork after all!

Wednesday 16th April

2008-05-24T02:29:00.001-07:00

Another day spent enjoying our villa, we had a fire burning all day today to try and dry the washing. Leon went into Lucca to do some messages however, as per usual with Italian time, it took him half the day to find what he needed. The very helpful Italians appear to be very creative at giving directions…or maybe it’s our bad translation of the language (He He). Anyway it doesn’t discourage us…. we shriek in frustration or break out in laughter, and realize how lucky we are to have lots of time and that we are on no particular schedule. While Leon was sent on a voyage of discovery, I yet again tried to make my little pupil settle down and tackle some school work, ( my highest regards to all you wonderful teachers out there) I am not succeeding very well.

We cooked up some pasta and veggies for tea….Leon finally has given into accepting he will have to eat some pasta everyday as the meat here is e troppo caro; too expensive. But the wine is very cheap, so we are in high spirits!

Tuesday 15th April

2008-05-24T02:28:00.001-07:00

Today over breakfast, while browsing through some old brochures of Eleanor’s, I discovered a large outlet shopping village selling designer wear at discount prices. So in no time flat we were in the car, driving on the autostrade for two hours heading to the outlet village. The village was a very classy shopping mall, with still very expensive…..but apparently discounted, high end designer wear! Leon did buy an attractive leather jacket, Charlotte and I bought a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle for the nights in at home and some woolen gloves ready for our next visit to the snow. It had been quite a cold day but we still managed to eat gelato! The autostrade cost us 16 dollars on the way over so we decided to take the longer way home through the small villages.

Monday 14th April

2008-05-24T01:50:00.000-07:00

We all got up early today ready to meet Eleanor, but our gardener Carabino arrived first. And for all those who have been waiting for a photograph of the gardener….. I’m sorry but he is not as either Leon or I had imagined. Carabino wouldn’t take up the offer of coming inside out of the cold and just paced up and down the portico apparently waiting for Eleanor. He seems sort of grumpy and is probably about 60 years of age, speaks no English and not real photo material!

Eleanor arrived about an hour later and introduced herself, all this time we had thought she was a German lady, but she turned out to be an expat American living in Germany for the last 15 years or so. Eleanor has invested in Italy and “Casa Cantante” is her second foray into the holiday Villa market.

We walked around the Villa with Eleanor and Carabino and asked as many questions as we could regarding the Villa and the surrounds, we also set a date for a future bottling day of last season’s wine harvest which we are eager to experience. Carabino also promised to come back at a later date and show us how best to use the wood fired pizza oven known locally as a forno legno.

Eleanor took us to meet our closest neighbour Christin, who is in fact a German lady the same age as us, Chrisitin is the manager of the convent Del Angelo, and runs it for her partner Maestro Gustav Kuhn. Christin and Gustav are the patrons of an Austrian music foundation that has its setup at the convent, up and coming movers and shakers of the European opera scene come to study under the Maestro’s tutelage and further their craft. Christin is a delightful lady and has been an invaluable source of information and support, and has lessened our stress by helping in many ways.

We spent the rest of the day getting to know Eleanor and driving around meeting the various service providers. Eleanor left us in Lucca and got the train back to Germany leaving us to the mercy of our unfamiliar surroundings.

Sunday 13th April

2008-05-24T01:13:00.000-07:00

Enjoyed another day at home today and cleaned the Villa ready for our first visit from our landlady who is arriving tomorrow from Germany. I also thought it was a good day for Charlotte to do some school work(almost an impossible task!). In the afternoon we had a visit from a old Italian man named Ernesto, who drove up our driveway in his little Ape {Ah-pay} (this is a tiny three wheeled truck made by Piaggio the makers of the Vespa). Ernesto, who speaks no English introduced himself in Italian then sort of just stood there and smiled. Leon who seems quite confident in trying his limited Italian language skills, worked out that Ernesto’s family were the original owners of the villa and Ernesto had lived here, most of his life selling it only 5 years ago. Ernesto seemed to be looking for Eleanor our landlady and Leon tried to explain to him she wasn’t arriving until tomorrow. With lots of arrivederci’s and ciao’s Ernesto drove off.

Saturday 12th April

2008-05-24T00:46:00.001-07:00

We drove into Lucca to the markets this morning and purchased some towels and a blanket hopefully that would fit the bed. We also enjoyed our usual espressos, doing it the Italian way and standing at the counter. The coffee here especially the espresso’s, are delicious and its fun to enter various bars and watch the locals down there coffee like a shot and go. It is also the only place you can find a toilet, public ones just don’t seem to exist. So when Charlotte needs a toilet or if we do, we know to just head to a local caffe bar down an espresso then ask for the nearest gabinetto (toilet). The Italians don’t always have a separate toilet for male and female so you line up with the boys and wait for the one and only loo on the premise and pray they have one that flushes, has loo paper or even has a tap that works!!!

Friday 11th April

2008-05-23T14:23:00.000-07:00

Today we thought we would stay at home after our big day out yesterday. I caught up on the usual domestics of washing clothes etc and Leon cleaned out the small barn out the back so we could stack some wood to dry.

In the afternoon we played some soccer with Charlie and got quite a bit of exercise chasing the ball down through the vineyard. As it was a rather sunny and pleasant day we then went for a walk up the road , enjoying the picturesque views and picked some pretty wildflowers.

Thursday 10th April

2008-05-23T13:23:00.001-07:00

Today we decided to drive to the Garfagnana Alps to show Charlotte some snow before it melted. We travelled through some charming villages and then started the steep climb up the mountains. The higher we got the narrower the road became, the weather started closing in, and we ended up in white out conditions. Poor Leon’s driving skills were really put to the test, with me, having my usual mild to severe strokes and Charlotte harping in the back as to when she would start to see snow! Finally after a long scary two hour drive snow started to appear out of the mist. We drove until it became quite thick, then got out of the car for a quick play, as it was freezing!(we didn’t even have the right gear, likes gloves and such)and to add to the general ambiance it had started to rain. We drove on hoping there would be a village at the top and promised Charlotte we would come back another day when we were properly prepared.

At the top of the mountain there was a village called Monte Claudia, so we parked the car(which can be quite stressful here, most car parks are for locals of the town only and the public ones are a well kept secret and have restricted daytime access and baffling one-way systems) and realized yet again we had arrived at siesta time. At least one things Italians do at siesta is eat, so we found a restaurant opened and enjoyed pizza and a calming alcoholic drink before returning down the perilous mountain. The weather got worse with thunder and lightning, but we safely made it back home.

Friday 9th April

2008-05-23T13:04:00.000-07:00

This morning the sun was out and the church bells were chiming in the distance again, this is a pleasant daily custom the bells ring about every hour through the day. We haven’t worked out the exact schedule as they seem to change, so unfortunately we can’t say things like “Darling please be home by the 6 0’clock bells” because sometimes they seem to chime off the exact hour and on the half hour.

Today the Lucca markets are on, they occur every Wednesday and Saturday morning just within the Lucca walls. They are quite large with everything you can imagine to buy. We purchased some linen for the beds and had a pleasant lunch at a small sidewalk café. Charlotte then used her leftover bread to feed the pigeons in the piazza. We thought we had better walk off the pasta and bread from lunch so we hired a bike for Charlotte and walked on the Lucca walls. The Lucca walls are 17^th century ramparts that encircle the central part of Lucca. They are very impressive with tree-lined promenades offering entrancing views of the city. It took us about 45 minute’s power walking to complete the full circle of the walls (4 K’s). After our walk we rewarded ourselves with a gelato!

Later, back at home we meet our English neighbour, Gary Upton who lives up the hill a bit. Gary came to make sure we had found everything ok at the villa and answered some of our many questions. One of which was what are the road rules of driving up the hill? Gary informed us that you had to beep the horn on blind corners to alert other drivers, and never, back down the hill on a blind corner; the other vehicle has to back up in this situation. But as our car unfortunately, has French number plates, that stick out like beacons to the Italians (they are red and the Italians are white).Gary thought we may have a bit of trouble with Italian drivers giving away to us as they apparently don’t like the French! (Leon says “I am an Irish Italian Jew driving a French car in Italy and I ownsa the rroada”) Oh Mamma Mia time to find some valium!

We also didn’t know what to do with our rubbish as there seemed to be nothing like our wheelie bins anywhere to be found. So Gary explained the rubbish system here in Italy to us. First of all, rubbish has to be separated into different categories, such as recyclable, cartons & paper, organic and whatever else. Then you take it down into Ponte where there are large bins in the car park behind the Piazza and pop everything into the correct bins, and you must be careful as there are a force of police, who actually make sure you do this correctly or you end up with a hefty fine, yikes!

We realized this was the only way as we hadn’t figured how a garbage truck could ever fit on most of the roads, let alone drive up the driveways, these ones make Kuranda’s look positively flat! So after talking with Gary we drove down to Ponte and correctly dumped the rubbish and met up with some local ambos, who spoke very little English but very kindly showed Leon through their vehicle. Back home for dinner and watched some entertaining Italian TV.

Tuesday 8th April

2008-05-23T12:09:00.000-07:00

We all woke fairly early today to the sounds of church bells tolling from down in the valley, different bird songs coming from the trees and the odd fox howling in the distance. Our first mission for the day was to exchange some money. We discovered the local markets were on in Ponte so we explored them and bought an umbrella as it had started raining. The local bank was opposite the little piazza, where the local markets are held every Tuesday morning.

Exchanging money turned out to be quite an ordeal…. Firstly just getting into the bank was problematic in that, firstly you step into a capsule that examines you for any metallic objects you might have on you, even too many clips on a handbag sets the alarm off!! While this is a normal everyday thing for a local….being a foreigner you have no idea and get locked in the capsule with what seems no way out. Lucky for Leon, I decided to stay in the street and watch the goings on in the Market. A lovely old dear who was standing next to me noticed what was happening to Leon….to our relief she could speak some English so she explained how to exit the capsule, stow his belongings into a locker, lock them in and take the key, and then try to re enter the bank. Leon was finally allowed into the bank, it took a lot of gesturing trying to make them understand about exchanging money…. they had no idea how to do it!!

We then drove into Lucca which is our closest main town. Unfortunately our GPS got us driving right into the old walled centre of town going up the wrong way, of one way lanes and coming to dead ends. I just wanted Leon to get us out of there quick smart*#@! But, it was easily said than done. So while my heart raced towards having a stroke Leon did some very cheeky and amazing driving to ultimately release us from the maze we had found ourselves in. In the end we found a car park outside the walls and walked into the old centre, but alas….it was now siesta time and all the banks were closed and only reopen for one hour after siesta. Siesta lasts for an average of three hours but luckily the restaurants and some of the bigger supermarkets stay open, so we enjoyed some lunch in Lucca and then did our grocery shopping and headed back home. The villa was freezing inside so Leon quickly chopped some wood to get the fire started. We had decided not to use the gas heating as it costs $19.00 euro a day*#@! Due to the fact there is no natural gas in Italy. I don’t think the fireplace had been used much since the villa had been renovated as all the wood was either wet or rotten and caused the house to completely fill up with smoke, we felt like we were camping! Cooked up a pot of spaghetti and flopped into bed.

ITALIA Monday 7th April

2008-05-23T10:43:00.000-07:00

All of us got some sleep on the long flight from HK to Rome, I think from exhaustion! I was starting to feel quite nervous about getting off the plane and driving straight to our Villa in Ponte a Moriano. Our plane landed at 7:15am, we amazingly walked straight through customs, not even a bag check or glance in our direction from the officers. We then had a bit of difficultly trying to contact the company that we are leasing our car from. But, after a lot of experimenting with the phones and numbers we got through, an African/Italian came and picked us up and took us to the where our car was stored. Then without hardly any instructions from the Italians (as of course they could only speak a little English) we were given the keys and sent on our way. Leon plugged in our GPS and sorted out where everything was in our left hand drive car and promptly drove off into the Rome traffic…… Help!!!

The only bit of information the guy gave us, was to take the scenic route rather than the autostrada. But after some very nervous driving through tiny villages with cars coming at us in every direction and up extraordinarily narrow, one way streets…… you practically have to fold in the side mirrors to get through, we decided to change direction and head out onto the autostrada, which ended up only slightly less nerve wrecking travelling at 130kph and with no one using indicators. But Leon wasn’t going to let the bloody Italians in there flash cars get the better of him, so all of a sudden we were on a mission that no one was going to pass us*#@! Leon loved that his brand new little Peugeot could travel at 150kph with ease…… we were also shedding minutes of our arrival time on the GPS!

All of us were thrilled and somewhat relieved that the GPS got us straight to Ponte a Moriano with only a few recalculations, from not trusting some of the places that she (we selected a female voice on the GPS) wanted us to turn into. It was now 4:30pm and we just had to find our villa on the hill.

Now I was truly having a cow as the road was steep, very twisty and yet again seemed not big enough for one car. And of course other cars used this road too, so you have to back down this daunting road when another car approaches at a rapid speed (the Italians don’t slow down for anything)…. yikes!! And to make matters worse Nona’s are standing in the middle of the road chatting, people riding bikes that just won’t move over and vehicles double parked outside their villas. So you come around a blind mend and hey presto the road is blocked by someone…… Oh I forgot to mention, some of the villas, especially their menacing corner stone walls are also jutting out onto the road*#@!

Finally in the distance we spotted our villa thanks to our photos and previously looking on google earth to locate whereabouts on the hill it sat. No one was there to meet us, the key was just left under the doormat as the German lady that owned the villa was sick and couldn’t come over from Germany to meet us. Wow!!! It was everything we had imagined and more. An amazing view down into the valley where the village of Ponte a Moriano sits, views over to Lucca and over the hedge, to the Convent del Angelo.

We were all fighting to be the first to open the door and explore the house. Charlotte charged inside and straight up the stairs to choose her room, she was soon back down; it was too cold and creepy for her. There were too many scary Jesus pictures and little statues decorating the rooms not to mention the thick stone walls which make everything echo and the heating wasn’t on. But Leon and I delighted in the beautiful old terracotta tiled floors, thick walls, timber shutter windows, antique furniture……did I mention the old fireplace and that it was a lot bigger than we expected?

The villa has two double bedrooms, a children’s room with two single beds, a piano room with another single bed and old slow combustion stove in it. Also two bathrooms, one upstairs and one downstairs both with bidets…. (He He) how do you work them? The kitchen has everything we need, a nice stone feature wall and large timber table to sit eight people. The laundry is in a cute outhouse with another toilet and shower plus a pizza oven. Leon also discovered two barns with lots of interesting old junk in them.

The small vineyard slopes down in front of the yard and the olive grove is to the side and behind the villa. After quickly exploring all round we drove back down the daunting hill into Ponte a Moriano and bought some limited food supplies from a small nonna store. Home again, cooked dinner, made the beds with linen that was too small for all the beds, and then tried to get some sleep.

Sunday 6th April

2008-05-23T10:08:00.000-07:00

Our last day in HK was extremely hectic as we tried to jam some more sightseeing in before catching a plane to Rome. Our main mission was to see the Giant Buddha which has a cable car ride (Built by the same company that did Skyrail) up to a extremely high peak where sits this amazing, enormous, Buddha. The cable car ride to the peak was exceptionally high and very long, what astounded us most was watching the locals below actually walk this very long, steep and grueling trail. When we finally alighted from the cable car we had a 20 minute walk through a pretty village and then a climb up lots of steps to the Buddha.

We took the usual touristy photos and quickly hiked it back to the cable car. Time was starting to run away as we had to be back to the hotel by 2:00pm for checkout and it was now 1:00pm, and we still had to get down the mountain, back on several trains, pack and leave the hotel!

Now that Leon was feeling more confident as we were on our way back (Leon hates heights and was quite nervous on the way up in the cable car) he decided to tell us about the accident that had occurred on this cableway not that long ago. The HK Cableway had only just recently been reopened after being closed for several months as he thought a cable car had fallen off!! And as luck would have it….when we were coming into the last station, the cableway came to a stop ……then started going backwards back up the mountain. Charlotte and I were in hysterics as Leon was gesturing to all the other cable cars we were passing that we were going the wrong way and trying to change its direction by pretending that he could push it the other way and making everyone else do the same. It then started up again in the right direction but just as we were coming into a station it stopped yet again. By this time Leon was working out…. if we could get out of the cable car, we probably could jump and wouldn’t end up with too many injuries! My main concern was time was getting away and we would be very late for our checkout! Finally the cableway started up again and we made it safely back to solid ground (He He).So on with our running shoes, jumping from train to train we arrived back at the hotel quite late but no one seemed to mind.

Our flight to Rome didn’t leave till 12:05am so we had a lot of time to fill in dragging all our luggage around, but from all our train travel, we had noticed signs at the central station that seemed to suggest you could check in your luggage there. When we found the check-in it was just like we were at the airport, only it was all set up at the train station in the middle of town. So we checked the luggage in and only had to carry around our cabin bags. Again the Chinese have things very well organized.

While waiting for our departure to Rome we were relaxing in the Priority Pass Lounge and as we had a few hours to wait, Leon decided to have a shower. Soon after entering the shower room the entire lounge was serenaded with an Italian opera classic O’ Sole Mio, little did Leon know that his operatic whistling could be heard throughout the entire lounge…..*#@! Until Charlotte in desperation and complete embarrassment banged on the door to make him stop.

Saturday 5th April

2008-05-23T09:53:00.000-07:00

Up bright and early today …. Hooray! ….it’s time to visit Disneyland….. yippee!!! The weather was bright and sunny and I think all three of us were a little wound up. On a train again, but this one was a special Mickey Mouse themed one. The Chinese know how to do things fantastically well. The windows on the train were Mickey Mouse shaped, even the hand holds in the centre had MM ears. The station on arrival at Disneyland was stunning, spotlessly clean, gold rails shining in the sun and amazingly not crowded as we had expected. I won’t rave on much more about Disneyland but it was just as I had imagined…..we all had a splendid day! Main parade beautiful…no big waits on rides and the firework display over Fairyland was very impressive.

Friday 4th April ( Tristan turns 21 today J)

2008-05-23T09:30:00.000-07:00

Had a bit of a sleep in today, jet lag starting to hit and the weather didn’t look so great outside. Today was Leon’s shopping day…. so Computer central was our main destination. We took trains most of the day heading from one side of HK to the other in search of the latest technology in all the boy toys. The MTR system in HK is so efficient there is never any waiting for a train but heaps of walking in the underground subways. We experienced the longest escalator in the world (quite amazing) but of course Leon made us walk all the way down. We had to watch Charlotte closely as she was getting very confident with train travel and was jumping on trains when we were quite a way behind her.….we were imagining her on a train that closed its doors before we could catch up, as they are so fast and you have only a short time to get on before the doors shut….and then they are off at lightning speed!

In the early evening we took a cruise on an old Chinese junk to take in the symphony of lights on the harbour. Every evening in HK the main skyscrapers have their lights synchronized with music for about 40 minutes, just amazing. We had fun on the cruise, especially as free drinks were served throughout the cruise, although it did become a bit hazardous as we hadn’t eaten yet! So two very tipsy adults and one very responsible child alighted from the junk in search of dinner.

So in our happy state we decided that we should take the steepest tram in the world and experience the view from the very top of HK. Charlotte wasn’t as sure, didn’t think it would be safe and was only interested in eating something that wasn’t green or didn’t look like it had jumped straight out of the ocean onto her plate! The tram was quite busy even at 10:00pm, but the views were spectacular on the way up and we ended up eating at a Ship themed restaurant that served beige food for children in cute ship baskets and drinks in large led light flashing glasses that you could keep. We were all pleased, as the view from the restaurant was stunning and our huge beers were dazzling in their flashing glasses… vision splendid!

HONG KONG

2008-05-19T03:32:00.000-07:00

Thursday 3rd April

We were up quite early the following day, caught a taxi to the closet train station and headed on the MTR (Metro train rail) to Causeway Bay, which is known for its huge shopping malls. We had promised to let Charlotte shop until she dropped when we arrived in HK, so there was no other choice but to get the shopping over first up!! Unfortunately we were too early for the shopping malls, as nothing opened before about 10:30am. So we found a bus going to the Bay where the popular Stanley markets are held. The day was a bit cold and overcast so the bay didn’t look as pretty as it probably would in sunshine, but who cares… when you have a daughter who has one thing on her mind, SHOPPING. Once we bought Charlotte a pair of converse shoes we could relax a bit and explore the markets.
After delving into every corner of the market we chowed down at a very busy local restaurant, which our little one could not believe we were going to eat in. We were the only westerners in the place and sharing tables with the locals was a bit overwhelming for Charlotte, not to mention the menu and the aromas of the cuisine! (He He) Leon and I enjoyed our lunch and had a wonderful chat to a young Canadian who joined our table a little later. He was Tristan’s age and had been travelling Europe for 3 months and was on his way home to settle down and look for work in the field of his recently finished University degree. He was a very pleasant (not to mention cute) young man.
Back onto a bus after lunch and time to hit the big malls. Wow! The shopping malls had impressive designer shops…but a bit out of our budget, so we calmed the little dragon by letting her loose in an awesome candy shop. Trained it back to the hotel to drop off some shopping and then off again to the famous night markets (Surprise Surprise!) This was a bit more within the budget and full of cute Hello Kitty merchandise so the little dragon was nearly tamed. We ate our dinner with the locals again much to Charlotte’s displeasure. As soon as we sat down an old local plopped down next to Charlotte and just smiled while enjoying watching us eat. The dear old man didn’t eat himself… but did enjoy sharing our beers and watching Charlotte’s facial expressions as the food was brought to the table. Charlotte was forced to eat as we told her the old guy would be shocked if she didn’t even try the food that was placed in front of her.

Wednesday 2nd April

Good flight over with Cathay Pacific arrived at HK airport around 10.30pm, caught train to our Hotel (Hotel Jen on Queen’s Rd Western District) The Hotel has been recently renovated so it was very modern and clean.