Casa di Maio Asti

... point "toe of the mountain" seems a little more appropriate.

We pull into his house, and his parents wave to greet us from the top deck. A small orchard of peach trees, their summer fruits long finished, nestles up against Carlos house in progress. We walk into his house and are greeted by his parents, Luciano and Piera, and his aunt Thea. Both of his parents are around 80 years old, and Thea is 86, but they have the fitness and mental sharpness of someone twenty years their ...

Destination 404

km197'196

A wonderful winding route via a inland section have lead me from Pisa to the coastline around Genova. But since in that part of the environment it was very hard to find a spot for bushcamping I took the toll freeway to prevent to get stuck in the chaotic traffic of Genova and headed north into the highlands of the northern region of Genova. A beatiful spot at the top of a mountain has provided perfect views to sunset and sunrise, but a bloody cold night!

Saturday 20/6/09 Cocconato

Just outside Cocconato, next to our agriturismo, is a large factory outlet/ clothing store for "conbipel". I presume they must make clothing on the premises as it is very large. Alison went in to ...

... This included there household furniture such as beds, food such as bread and meat, tools of trade including measures. Makeup, clothing and the wig of Merit. There were two large rooms of statuary including Seti 1 carved at about 5metre high. Many many drawings on stone and papyris including the acrobat I managed to photograph.

A wonderful day and highlight of the trip.

... higher than usual trellising. There was a walking track we were very glad to find. It wound through a conservation area along a stream that passed around the base on the steep hill on which Barolo village is built . On the way home we stopped at a large supermarket and bought a bottle of Barolo. Even locally there are very few Barolo wines that lower themselves to the supermarket shelf and even so they start at E20 ...

... pretty much all the way from Florence to Turin. The country side changes enormously in this trip. From Tuscany with its relatively small scale orchards, vineyards and vegetable plots, up into the Po valley with larger scale agriculture. Rice and intensively managed trellised orchards. Then into the Piedmont hills around Asti with vineyards on southfacing hills and hazel nuts in the flat areas ...

Arrived in Alba. Extremely jetlagged. I tried diligently to sleep on the plane, but to no avail. Didn't know where to go when I got off the plane and the customs officer didn't speak English, but he understood Spanish. Hallelujah! Add the Torino airport to an ever-growing list of places in which Spanish came unexpectedly in handy. Take a peek at these pictures of my home for the next several months . . . .

... whereas when I pace along rows of shrunken grapevines and squint to distinguish church from home on the hazy distant hills I feel so very far away from what is familiar that I almost don't miss it. I'll try to rephrase later. For now, that makes the most sense. I've been jokingly invited to come work on their farm next summer, though as they have no animals I can't imagine what I'd do-- probably a lot of walking, drawing, awkward broken Italian conversation, and wine. Not bad ...

... castle. Ricca's ground mom was very nice to us. We had coffee and chocolate. We looked at pictures and had a small tour of the caste. It's quite impressive. The rooms are very well-decorated. About 6pm we went to San Secondo to shop. Ricca lost his cell phone and left us. Mom bought a bag in Benetton. They wanted to use the toilet ...

... and I'll just nod like I knew all along. We never learned this stuff..I'm sure of it. But then again I am notorious for having an awful memory. OK.. so the point of this entry. Today was a great day. Finally I went to class. I have 3 classes (english and french in one school and italian in a separate school). I went to Italian and it was me and two other 14 year old kids.lol... one from Argentina and one from ...