Week One Italy

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We arrived in Italy on Sat 6th May. We’ve had a great week…getting into another culture, new easier language and great food and driving on the wrong side of the road! The girls are loving the familiar tastes.
We are at a wonderful farm just outside of Castellina in Chianti. We are about 30 min south to Siena, 1hr north to Florence. We are in the centre of the Chianti Classico wine area, hence we have an enormous choice of fantastico vino!
We went to Siena last Monday. It was very busy and very interesting. Visited the Duomo which is magnificent and showed the girls the Piazza del Campo which has a horse race in it every year.
Driving anywhere here has amazing WOW factors. The pictures and movies really don’t do it justice. There are wineries everywhere and beautiful walled villages. Our local village..Castellina, has wonderful delis, fruitshops etc. Not too many supermarkets here!
We found the designer outlets on Wed. All were located in a beautiful mall in the hills of Tuscany. All the brands were there..Gucci,Tods, Valentino, Armani etc. Did a bit of damage on the credit card..the odd pair of shoes and bag.
We had grand plans to go to Florence on Friday but had a flat tyre on the way. Amazingly the car actually told us we had a flat…modern technology. We ended up having a quiet day and going to a lovely little restaurant for dinner. The food is very simple and very reasonably priced.
Saturday is Market day so after Helen walked into town via thorny bushes and barking dogs, we met up and bought our supplies for the week…not without our regular coffee.
We had a great Mothers Day. We took Helen to lunch at a rustic little winery. Once again the food and wine were spectacular.
We have a busy week planned. Pisa Monday, we’ll give Florence another go on Wed and we are off to beautiful Como for the weekend to catch up with a business associate friend of Marks. Stay Tuned!
Ciao Helen

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