Azienda Agriturismo Fraschiera Massa Marittima

... 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 ...

... gave me a tour of the process. First the olives are all de-stemmed and the leaves and dirt are cleaned off. Since Vilmo's olives are organic his aren't cleaned as much with the chemicals. Then they squash the seeds out of the olives and then stirred thoroughly until they are almost liquid and then all the oil is drained out through a pipe. I watched as the thick green oil oozed out of the pipes like Ninja Turtle blood into the vat. I've never seen oil so ...

... gorgeous fettuccine with black truffles that I have ever tasted. (The truffles were so delicate, and nutty, and melt-in-your-mouth…) For our mains (“secondi piatti”), I had a mixed salad (I know, boring, but it’s hard to eat so much food in the middle of the day!) and Murray had sausage with cannelloni beans in a wonderful sauce. (Yes, he enjoyed some beer, too!) For a small dessert, we ordered a biscuit version of Siena ...

... un prix pour s'assoir a une table! ici c'etait 2 euro par personne! mais sa en valais la peine, les bruchettas., les gnocchis et l'osso buco etaient tous delicieux.

ensuite, la piazza del campo ou il y a un gros chateau avec une tour tres haute, pui une visite a la piazza du duomo pour y voir la seul eglise completement baroque ...

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 ...

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 ...

All vitamin D'ed up we arrived at our destination for the evening - Bagni di Petriolo - hot springs. Soon we were lounging in the hot sulphur pools watching the sun set. A fresh water stream ran alongside the springs and a dip in the water was very refreshing, although a little breathtaking at the same time! The pools were popular with the locals young and old as well as travellers as there were about a dozen campers parked nearby. As lovely as ...

... of exploration we went back to check in and get our housing assignments. I had originally requested to live in the Mini-Residences which are basically dorms. But what I ended up with is slightly different. I'm living in an apartment on the same street as one of the two mini-residences, but it's still technically considered a mini-res because it is owned by the same people and I get all of the same perks (such as a washing machine, cable tv, wi-fi and a weekly cleaning service). I ...

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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 ...

... but not as dirty and filled with graffiti as was Athens. The Italian/ Roman people were overall beautiful people. The older people had character and the younger people were just plain good looking. It was neat to see businessmen ride up in nice business suits on their mopeds in the morning right next to our building. The mornings are slower in Roman and things don't get going until 9:00 or so. Then the tourists start doing their thing. It is the late evening however that Roma ...