Ancient history, modern politics and sport

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Geo: 43.1418, 11.6596

So we start the day at the hotel, where the very nice lady has come to make our coffee (the rest of breakfast was put out for us the night before, including the yoghurts!) But we are in Tuscany, and the sun is shining….so we've got our happy faces on, and it's not too hard.

We head out, after breakfast towards Montalcino, about 30 mins from here. But the absolute highlight was, as we drove along the road, we went past an ongoing excavation of an archaeological site. We turned the card around, and went back – they were excavating a 4th century church and had just discovered a human skeleton in a shallow grave just outside the church walls, and were struggling to preserve it as they unearthed it. Steven is determined to come back some time and join the dig. It was certainly amazing to watch – the kids love watching Time Travel, an archaeological show on the ABC at home, and were thrilled to watch a dig in real life – though it is certainly slower than television portrays it!

Montalcino is a beautiful hilltop town, famous for its production of Brunello wine. The drive up to the town itself was picturesque, through fields of vines and hay ready for cutting. When we arrived in the town, we wandered happily through the picturesque streets, with lots of shops selling the local wine – whilst there is clearly a tourist industry, it was very much a real live town. And when Steven asked at the tourist information office which sites we should see, the helpful lady showed us various other surrounding towns more famous! We walked up to the Fortezza, a simple 14th century fortress, where at one stage, the whole of the republic of Siena retreated against the armies of Florence, and went to the Palazzo communale, built in the 13th century. We had an icecream (from an Italian guy who was at Uluru in January and thought it was marvelous), looked at the church then stopped at the local shop to buy the supplies for lunch – these little stores have a very limited range of foods, and we were unimpressed when the shopkeeper "accidently" got Steven's change wrong, twice!

Back to our waterless apartment for a sleep. Steven says he feels very “in touch” with his grandmothers' name Pozza (which may or may not have anything to do with pozzo, which means well) as he has to go to the well in the playground (OK, it's just a tap, but you know what I mean) to fill some bottles for our drinking water. And thank goodness I hadn't drained the boys' bathwater, which is flushing the toilet!

I think what finally killed my “Tuscan dream” today was our attempt at taking the kids for a swim. As part of the rental agreement on our (waterless) apartment, the internet, and the manual in our room, says that we are just to go to the neighbouring hotel and tell them where we are staying, and that we can swim for free. Certainly, says the lady at the hotel, but it is compulsory that you use our towels, at a cost of E7 per person! This was not the deal, and even when she backed down and let us use the pool for free this afternoon, we were left feeling unsettled, and a little sour at the whole thing. But, the kids are the main thing, and they had a fabulous time at the pool!

After our swim, we went for a drive to Montrisi, the neighbouring village, for dinner, and stumbled upon Da Roberto's - traditional, “slow food” in a garden setting, with two other tables of British and Canadian families, all with kids aged between 10 and 2. Heaven! Our kids “joined the Commonwealth” after a plate of pasta, and Steven and I enjoyed a lovely dinner – I had pot roast of Chiannina beef (the traditional Italian cow that Elio bred with the Brahmins in Gympie) and Steven had roast guinea fowl. The host, Roberto, considered himself something of a wit, and was very disappointed that we didn't eat three courses, but the meal and the atmosphere were lovely.

Then….the all important moment of the day….Italy's debut in the World Cup in South Africa! We returned to our village, and to our hotel, halfway through the first half, when Italy was down 0-1 against Paraguay. The bar had opened especially on a Monday for the occasion, and were broadcasting the game onto the wall of the church opposite (no sacrilege here, as they are merely combining two religions!) The kids were keen to watch the game (as was I), and there was no chance that we'd sleep anyway with the noise, so we sat on the ground, eating gelati to watch the game. Thank God, Italy scored in the second half, but the crowd was still very quiet – they really need to learn from the crowds watching a State of Origin game! When the game ended as a draw at 11pm, we took our very tired kids upstairs to bed! I can't believe they stayed up so late – they are never allowed to watch the whole State of Origin game, but there were dozens of little kids up, and as far as we can work out, Italian kids don't have a bedtime! Guess our kids need those Italian passports after all!

PS. The kids obviously feel that they are learning lots on this trip. When, today, Tom's Switzerland baseball cap didn't fit, he said “maybe my hat doesn't fit because my head has grown with all the learning I've been doing here in Europe”. Or maybe the Velcro got tightened! But he might well be right!

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