James & Vilija

Two weekends ago now, James and I went to Florence, the second time for me, but first for him. We again stayed at Hotel Cestelli and had a great time there (Say hi to Asumi and Alessio for us!). By the end of the wedding I think they’ll have met most of our family and friends!!!

We came to Florence for a few reasons, the main being that James hadn’t been, the other… to continue the never-ending hunt for wedding shoes. To cut a long story short I found the shoes That left us with plenty of time to visit a number of museums, and to take some nice long walks. (more…)

Over a month ago, Chiara started wording me up on the upcoming Chestnut (Castagne) season. Every year when Castagna season (said like Elmer Fudd) arrives Chiara, Ottavio and other volunteers (cheap labour, read: friends and family) pack up for a weekend at Chiara’s family’s house in Toscana.

Last Friday night after work we went over to Chiara and Ottavio’s place on the trendy east side of Genova from where we set off. Chiara’s family’s house is located in a tiny village (if you can call it that) called Veggio, in Tuscany. It is about 40km south of Bologna or 60kn north of Firenze. It’s really more of a group of houses (called a Borgo in Italian) where apparently the population peaks at 20 in the summer and dips to 7 in the winter. Her family have owned it forever (well not exactly but at a minimum, longer than the age of Australia European settlement). (more…)

Well, now for part two… After an INTERESTING evening on sat night, after consultation with the local tourist information office we planned a giro through the Apuane Alps. These are an impressive mountain range that run through Toscana. When approaching them your immediate impression is that the have snow capped peaks throughout the year. What you are seeing is in fact the world famous Italian marble quarries that produced the marble used to create THE David.

Just outside Lucca we were caught up in a small traffic jam, thinking to ourselves that it was an odd place for a traffic jam we quickly found out that the hold up was due to a bicycle race that was winding its way through Toscana!! Giro D’Italia, not quite, but fun to see none the less. (more…)

Firstly a small apology for being a little tardy with this update!
Last weekend James had a long weekend at work, it was the celebration of San Giovanni di Baptisti (John the Baptist) who is the patron saint of Genova, so it was a great opportunity for us to have a trip away. After much contemplation we decided to go to Toscana (Tuscany). We read the guidebooks and decided that a small town named Lucca sounded great. First founded by the Etruscans, later a Roman colony (circa 180 BC), under the rule of Pisa, later ruled by Napoleon, then given to his sister as a gift, sounded great! We hired a car and drove down. Lucca is slightly northeast of Pisa, so how could we pass up the opportunity to see the leaning tower so we drove to Lucca via Pisa.

As we drove out of Genova we saw what looked like large Roman viaducts on the outskirts of the city, very cool!! The Ligurian landscape slowly gave way to the flatter landscape of Toscana, and forests gave way to fields as we passed through a series of tunnels and bridges on our way along the autostrade. The autostrade in Italia is no different to that in any other European country I’ve been to, with cars ignoring speed limits and flying past at about 160 kph. Use of indicators is also solely reserved for tourists! (more…)