Villa Bellaria Tuscany

... tea, she had a tray of ceramic tea pots sitting out at her table with cream and honey and lumps of sugar. There was also some cookies and a plate of brownies she had baked. These she cooked with olive oil instead of vegetable oil because she ran out so we warned us that they might be slightly salty. But they were still very good.

She even lent us some books from her collection that ...

... one of Italy’s greatest Gothic churches, and we could see why. Like the famous Duomo in Florence, Siena’s Duomo – completed by 1215 – was quite beautiful from the outside, containing a gorgeous red, white, and green marble façade. Inside, however, the Duomo was even more spectacular; it has an exquisite patterned marble floor that contains 56 different panels depicting historical and Biblical subjects!

If the ...

un autre jour, une autre destination! Aujourd'hui, nous somme parties pour Siene. Arrive a siene, nous avons traverse la ville pour y trouver un bureau d'information touristique. une fois la carte de la vile en main, nous somme aller dinner dans un resto, un peu a l'ecart des sites touristiques. Comme dans tout les restorant italien, il y ...

Siena photos here:
http://www.facebook.com/album. php?aid=164853&id=613699523&l=d 7d2db6b42

Thursday caught a bus to Siena with Nonie and Kerrin.
The Duomo there is one of the best and most beautiful churches I've seen inside and out - and I've seen more than enough churches to last ...

From the Med we drove inland to the east and into Southern Tuscany. We drove through some plain countryside and were about 2 kms from our destination when we commented on where is the town as we could not see it. Around a hair pin bend and we went wow! There in front of us was the walled city of Pitigliano nested on the top of hill surrounded by deep gorges. We found the perfect park for the night which looked across at the old city, with the highlight being its 16th ...

Last night we had just made a new itinerary to include a visit to a National Park on the coast, but that was all thrown out the window as we received a text message from Kim's mum saying she wanted to come and join us. Kim was ecstatic!!! Another replan session as we did our much overdue laundry in Grosetto and our trip of Italy was to come to an end sooner that we thought as we had to get to Barcelona in 1 week. It worked out better this way as Kim's mum flies home on the 15th Dec ...

... I get along really well with all of the girls and my actual roommate coincidentally enough goes to Davis as well. So all in all I am very satisfied with my living situation.

A little bit about school, I have Italian language class Monday through Thursday from 9 am to 12:30 with like a 20 minute break (during which everyone usually goes to a bar to drink coffee and eat pastries). As a side note, I LOVE Italian bars. I think it's one of the things that I will miss the most ...

... change) and it reminded me of the Queensland tropical storms we used to have in Summer when I was a kid. It was really cool, except that it would always annoyingly rain just as we were about to walk to the nearby village for a drink and some provisions. Barbara had purchased us a lot of groceries to keep us fed until they return. She asked us what we wanted and Milli told her some fish fillets. I went to cook said fillets today and found it was AN ACTUAL FISH - head ...

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We were let go from the tour at the Duomo and look around on our own then left to souvenir shop. We ran into the Orrs and Jim wanted to stop at McDonalds for dinner so we stopped and watched him eat. The two couples then moved onto the Piazza Campos were we found a restaurant to have dinner at. Kathie had soup and I had pasta while we watched the tourist go by in the piazza. While our meal was being prepared she told me that she saw our neighbors from home go by. I ran out ...

... a new kind of tourism for Italy, agriturismo, which has spread pervasively throughout the region. Although the activities somewhat vary from location to location, the core idea is to lodge at a local farmhouse and choose from available activities - cooking classes, winetasting and tours, bicycle tours, hiking excursions, horseback riding, etc. Of course, all activities is some way or another come back to food where the idea is to dine at the property and likely partake in a ...