Villa La Chiusa Lucca

On our way north, from Rome, towards the Italian Riviera we made just a slight detour to Pisa to see the famous Torre Pendente (leaning tower). We're here to tell you, it is in fact leaning and we weren't interested in climbing to the top to see if we could get it to lean any more (and trust us, with the amount of pasta, vino, formaggio, etc. combined with the large amounts of tourists at the top of this structure... you never know). But ...

... cook our own Italian dinner....wasn't bad.

Florence was a joy. Kara had a fun time driving in the traffic with all the crazy Italians! Our friends couldn't believe the amount of motor bikes and how they would weave in and out of traffic. The Dome and all that goes with it were great ...

Pisa

woke up to pouring rain again so lucky we had a good look at the views the afternoon before… but made a tricky drive down in rain then onto Autostade.. Very fast but pouring rain to start with… finned up as we neared the coast… made it to Pisa… drove in traffic and down one way streets.. Mainly the right way we ...

... Anyway after much driving we met a local who understood English… unfortunately he seemed only able to say he understood English .. And with us asking for the sea and him agreeing with everything.. It was more sea..si sea.. Si….very confusing…anyway put feet in a creek which seemed to be heading for the sea… and called it quits…..

The rain picked up again and it was a bit of a difficult drive for Geoff to make it to a town ...

... I had been told that the end of the hike was the best part, finishing with a beach that is more than welcome after a tough hike in the sun. We didn’t finish the hike until almost 7 and it had rained a little… not exactly encouraging us to jump in the water. So instead we got a bottle of wine and watched the thunderstorm that was brewing offshore. I even got a couple lightning photos because I’m that ...

After travelling for the last 6 or more months without a real break we thought we might just settle down for the winter, instead of heading back to London and back to work. We are plonking ourselves with some of Dino's relatives in Tuscany.
Shona can't speak a word of Italian, but is planning to learn and not one of Dino's relatives speaks English. It should be an interesting few months.
We ...

... too loudly.

The next morning we headed out and, somewhere among the maze of tunnels that wind along the coast, we found our way into Italy.

This trip has been, in some ways, an adventure in new forms of communication for my parents. They have, for instance, learned to text message. Despite years of resistance to texts, Dad has gone in for it in a big way. I first discovered this upon landing in Heathrow, when I received one reading: "R U HERE ...

... for a six course meal. So much food!! Being in the heart of Toscana we've been able to do some day trips to other parts of the region - Pisa, Portofino, Florence and Volterra. Such beautiful countryside!! Kate i have taken soooo many photos and some footage just for you! Can see why you would love it here, went out to Volterra today, and despite being carsick, it was spectacular!!

... again. 5:30 p.m. Grignano, one person and two chicken town/farm. Dude says regardless of the guidebooks info, "it is impossible" for us to have a room. 6:00 p.m. A large sign directs us up the drive to a nice Agriturismo. We enter the yard to a barking dog and no one in sight. An elderly woman peeks from behind a curtain and we think waves us to the front door. As we walk to the front door, she burst out of the house and starts screaming and clapping ...

... getting the ticket sellers to understand that we really DID want to spend an extra $15.00 to reserve seats on the train the next day. After our "sardine-packed" experience on the train down to Florence, reserved seats are definitely worth the cost to us. We persevere, and finally get our reservations. We stroll through the setting sun towards our dinner destination. On the way, we pass the Palazzo Diamante, so called because of the hundreds of diamond-shaped stones on ...