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Week 2.5
15th May
A new week and more discovering! After our hiccup on Friday we hit the road to Lucca and Pisa. These places are about an hour and a half away.
Lucca was an amazing walled town with many laneways and beautiful shops. There were very few cars inside the walls which we were thrilled about. We have had a few close shaves as pedestrians. Another magnificent church and picturesque squares scattered with restaurants and cafes. Puccini, the composer was born here so music is very much a part of this town. We were fortunate to find a Leonardo da Vinci exhibition there showing some of the amazing machines he invented. The girls had a great time playing with them.
After a beautiful lunch we headed back to the car for our short drive to Pisa. Our navigational skills were once again put to the test and we kept the tower in our sights and drove! This has become a tourist mecca!!! The girls were impressed with the number of ‘knock off’ merchants there, with their Louis Vuitons, sunglasses etc!
We were able to climb to the top of the tower…285 steps. It is very impressive. We also ventured
to the cemetery which has some amazing frescoes depicting heaven and hell. Quite revealing and holding nothing to the imagination! Things nightmares are made of. We visited the Duomo - ABC (another beautiful church).
Harriet was able to do a little retail therapy and bought some great knock off sunnies for 5 Euro…Mark the great barterer!
We had a day off on Tuesday and headed to Florence on Wednesday.
We are less than an hour to Florence which is great. We drove straight into town, with a minor hiccup and found a great park.
We found ourselves near the Palazzo Pitti and the Boboli Gardens. This is to be a separate trip as we could not do these justice on this day. We walked over the Ponte Vecchio which is lined with magnificent jewellery shops. It had a wonderful atmosphere!
We then ventured to the Piazza del Duomo…another amazing structure. Mark and Harriet climbed to the top of the dome. We have been able to see some amazing panoramas of the cities we have visited.
Florence is filled with magnificent shops and markets. We wandered through many streets and shops. We were surprised how many tourists there were. Unfortunately we
too are part of these people. Mark and I had been here 20 years ago and couldn’t recall it being so busy! It does take away the atmosphere.
We are heading back here next week for part 2 of this adventure!
Friday 19th May
We left for a 5 day escape to Como, Verona and Venice.
Mark has a good friend from 20 years ago living in Como so it was our chance to meet him. Como is at the base of some magnificent mountains and has an enormous lake surrounding it. Words cannot describe the beauty of this place. We rode the cable car to the top of a mtn that overlooked the lake. Our Hotel was ideally located in a beautiful piazza in the heart of the town. Como has superb shops, cafes etc. It is very close to the Swiss border. The women here were magnificently dressed and oozed so much style! (Eye candy quality-Mark)
We had dinner with Mario and Grigliola on our first night. Being a locals they took us to an amazing restaurant overlooking the lake. Mario fell in love with Lucy and visa versa. Mario’s daughter is the fabric buyer for Dolce Gabbana
and Lucy mentioned how she loves fashion. She is now lined up to come over when she is ready and do some work experience!!! A girls dream!
Saturday was spent wandering through the beautiful town, a lovely lunch and soaking up the atmosphere. It was truly a magical place!
We left for Verona Sunday morning deciding to drive around the lake. It was over 100km with some very hairy roads and many tunnels. We stopped at the Villa Carlotta which is a villa where a very wealthy woman spent her summers. The gardens were exceptional. ( I am running out of adjectives!)
We had grand plans to go to Bellagio for lunch and got there…only just…to find parking was impossible so we turned back and braved the thinnest road in Italy to get back on the road to Verona
Verona is a city with a great deal of history. It has an amazing arena dating back thousands of years. It still holds concerts there.Another claim to fame here is Juliet’s house and balcony. We enjoyed our short time here and would recommend it as a place to visit.
Monday morning we drove to Venice. We parked our car on the
outskirts and got the ferry in. Venice is a place that is so unique in every way. No cars, water everywhere, palaces, bridges, alleys and so much history.
Twenty years ago 200,000 people lived in Venice, now there are only 60,000. The cost of maintaining homes, tourism and the high cost of owning a home is now beyond many Venetians means. It still has a wonderful atmosphere.
We stayed in a great apartment in Academia, very close to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. We visited this wonderful gallery of contemporary art. It was once her home which has an amazing outlook onto the Grand Canal. We found the Piazza San Marco with its million pigeons and the kids had their daily gelati that eased the pain of walking.
We must have walked a million km in Venice. Thousands of alleys, piazzas,bridges, shops! The girls never complained! We had a great day on Tuesday visiting the fruit/veg, fish markets at Rialto. We have not taken on these ideas of the fantastic markets at home. Our closest thing to these are the Farmer’s markets every second weekend. These are every day! A little retail therapy on our way home made the day!
After
lunch we had our Gondola trip. It was very memorable. Our “driver” gave us a guided tour of Venice telling us about all the buildings etc we were passing. The canals get very, very busy and how they maneuver those long boat is amazing.
When we arrived back at our apartment we were shown the renovation of the upstairs unit. It had to be seen to be believed. A fresco of a Venetian Opera on the main wall. The walls were wallpapered in an amazing fabric…terribly ornate and so different to what we would do! The apartment was owned by a couple from Bologna who had a huge amount of money and this was to be there weekender!
Unfortunately our dream ended on Wed morning and we headed back to the car in the rain. Mark had a bit of a ‘senior’ moment as the rain fell and he spent 10 minutes trying to open the car 2 up from ours…it had a similar number plate and was the same colour. We were 2 minutes off calling Renault and telling them we had a HUGE problem!
We set off then back to the farm and arrived a few hours later
safe and sound..
Today we have had a veg day. The girls have done their diaries and some school work and I have done 4 loads of washing. We drove to Greve in Chianti this arvo. This is another town in the hills that has a wonderful square and fantastic wine shops. They also have a meat shop there that has thousands of different salamis. Another ‘has to be seen to be believed” shop! That now gets us up to date!! (Mathew you will be pleased)
Tomorrow we are doing a course here at the farm on olive oil. Our host Franco runs these courses regularly so it is our turn.
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JET
julia thorpe
love all the pics
hey stars on tour! left a comment the other night but it hasn't appeared so just making sure you hear that the all the pics are really appreciated...less writing...more pics please, "Hamming" it up , strange Lighting Shop that one, they all look like salamis! Wait for yr next entrepid entry, love from the T's.