Blogs from Lastra a Signa, Tuscany, Italy, Europe

After a four hour delay at midnight in Hong Kong, the Griswalds managed to arrive safely in Rome. An interesting train ride up to Florence (an incredible amount of graffiti along the train lines, many mid rise apartment buildings with washing hanging out the windows), with Tuscany absolutely picture perfect - rolling hills, gorgeous farm houses and orchards and vineyards. Picked up at Florence by our driver and delivered to the door of our Villa in Lastra a Signa. Dean has starred by picking such an amazing, incredibly authentic property for us to spend our week in Italy. The town has little tourists, with many residents and shop keepers speaking little or no English. What an experience! Our Villa has 10 metre high ceilings with beautiful painted frescoes, there's loads of antique furniture, 5 metre high ... read more

Ciao, It is an early Wednesday morning, when I started this blog. I’m the early riser in the house, and the routine is for me to put on the coffee, set the table for breakfast, and wake up the house. I then head out to the pool with coffee and notebook computer in hand. It’s just me and the birds…oh and that one rooster off in the distance. It is tranquility at its best. I check email and respond, then sit back and enjoy my coffee and listen to the birds sing to each other. I spend about 45 minutes each morning here, alone—a great way to start the day, don’t you think. Annie would like to blog about our adventure in Florence this afternoon. Take it away, Annie! Hello!! This is Annie. Today we went ... read more

We left Sienna after 2 weeks of language school. We learned but are by no means fluent or conversational! From Siena we went to Lastra a Signa, a small town 15 minutes outside of Florence. we rented an apartment for the next 5 weeks. The family renting this apartment to us, well, we and were theie first renters so they went overboard in helping us. They took us on a day trip with them to their beach house in a small town about 1-1/2 hour by car. There were no tourist here, just the Italians. We took lots of day trips on our own to Lucca, Pisa and of course Firenze which was only a 15 min train ride from Lastra Signa. The real highlight of our time here was having Aaron joine us for 2 ... read more