Saturdays have become days of change for us and this Saturday was no exception as we packed the car once again (certainly my least favourite thing) and headed north for Lucca near Pisa.
Our week in Chiusi was great. The weather was the best we have had on our trip so far, our villa was more than comfortable and provided us all with some much needed space and tranquility after the previous hectic week in Venice. If the place hadn't already been rented out for the week following our stay (to some South Africans nogal!) we would have been very tempted to stay put.
We managed to drag ourselves away from the pool and visit Montepulcino on Thursday and were treated to a lovely Tuscan hilltown. We had initially planned to visit on the Thursday as we had read that this was when the market took place but only discovered after having walked up to the top of the hill that the market was now held down by the bus station at the bottom of the hill. Needless to say, we decided to give the market a miss. The piazza at the top of the hill, with a height of 650 m, was however well worth the trek. The little shops along the tiny streets were a bit touristy but the shops themselves were very quaint. The big festival of the year in Montepulciano revolves around a barrel race where wine barrels are rolled up the hill to the piazza! I can think of better things to do - it was enough of a challenge just trying to get Kyle to the top!
After having not had any exposure to international news for a while, we enjoyed having access to CNN et al on the satellite TV at the house. The only problem we encountered was trying to find the appropriate channels amongst nearly 2000 choices including a number of raunchy sex channels. Whilst searching for CNN at the beginning of the week, Sean walked in to see a naked women doing what naked women do on sex channels....followed by the following observation....."that seems like a strange programme to watch - a lady lying on the grass with no clothes on scratching her willy....I don't get it!".
Our penchant for buying art whilst on the road caught us again and we are now the proud owners of two new pieces of Tuscan art - and both of them involving poppies! We saw the first piece earlier in the week at a little gallery in Chiusi to which we returned on Friday afternoon. After battling to communicate with the artist and her colleague for a while in English and Italian about how to get the rather large painting back to Brussels, we eventually found that both parties (well Marion on our side) spoke French and things then all fell into place. Kyle even managed to sell one of his pictures to the colleague for a princely sum of 10 cents.
The second piece has a bit more of a story to it which links back to our last visit to Tuscany three or four years ago when we found a wonderful little gallery in a place called San Gimignano - otherwiswe known as San Jimmy Pyjamas thanks to Kyle. At the time, we couldn't agree on which of the two "Olive Tree" pieces we'd spotted we liked best so we ended up buying neither, a decision we've regretted ever since. So, when the opportunity presented itself to visit San Gimignano again, as it did en route to Lucca yesterday, we grabbed it with both hands. Marion and I had were convinced that we knew where the gallery was located so we headed off in search of the olive tree artist.
After having walked the length and breadth of San Gimignano we had come up with nothing so resorted to asking people if they knew where we could find the gallery of the olive tree artist. The response from the Tourism Office probably summed best up the responses we received to this enquiry........"that's a little bit difficult sir, all paintings from around here have olive trees in them....you dumb "$%*". We eventually however came up trumps and found our man, Fabrizio Ferrari, but not our olive trees. We did however buy another painting, a lovely poppy flower piece in quite a different context with incredible detail and use of colour. Fabrizio speaks good enough english so we were able to avoid the cantations of the previous art buying experience which was a relief.
So, we now have two rather large oils of poppy flowers heading for Brussels. Lets hope they make it!
San Gimignano is a very picturesque town and amazingly well preserved. The place was decked out in its full regalia with a weekend fair about to get into full swing later in the day. Although the place was a real feast for the eyes I'm afraid the same can't be said for the ears - if we hadn't known better we would have been excused for thinking we were visiting a medieval themed shopping mall somewhere in the US - just too many tourists for us. The boys thought it was great thanks to the largest ice cream of the trip so far and the purchase of two.....more......wooden swords to add to the already burgeoning collection at home.
You may recall that in our last story we told you how good Bert had been on this trip. Well .........
One of the challenges on this trip has been to find accomodation that allows animals and in some cases we've had to convince owners that our 15 year old dog is very well behaved and clean. The owners of the house in Chiusi don't normally allow dogs but made an exception in our case but only after having increased the caution deposit from E500 to E1000. When we arrived at the house the owner Carlo made a special request that we keep Bert off the couch in the lounge as it, and the cushions on it, are covered in silk fabric that the dog might damage. I mean who puts silk couches and cushions in a rental home for goodness sake??
Well, being the respectful tennants that we are, we made an extra special effort to keep Bert out of the lounge all together.......unfortunately not extra enough it turned out as the little devil decided that not only did he need to sit on the couch but that he also needed to relieve himself on top of one of the silk cushions. Can you believe it! Luckily we discovered the dirty deed, no pun intended, just after it happened. A quick search on Google to find out how to clean silk ensued, followed by a decision, against our better judgement, to wash it in tepid water (where after all would we find a dry cleaner in Chiusi?) with some Woolite which after a few tense minutes turned out to be the right decision, thank heavens. A quick spray of deodorant and hey presto, a good as new silk covered cushion. Phew!
The place that we've found to stay at in Lucca is interesting! The setting is absolutely amazing with a view across the entire Lucca valley towards the Apuan mountains. The car however is not all that impressed as the drive up here on a gravel road is challenging. The house is set in a garden full of olive and other wonderful trees, flowers and shrubs galore, a well manicured lawn and a pool. There is a dog, four cats and two horses on the property all who have thankfully accepted Bert into the family.....and then there is Bruno, the antique dealer, who owns the place, and lives on the property in an adjacent dwelling and is charmingly eccentric and very gay.
The house itself is over 300 years old and crammed full of character, as are its contents. Bruno lived in the house before separating from his wife and has left the things he had in the house when he lived there "for the enjoyment of the people"....if you know what that means! It has an art deco feel to it although in some cases it looks like he has just put whatever whereever. Each room is painted a different colour - all bright - from pink to purple to orange to green. There are tons of mirrors all over the walls especially in the bedroom - can't imagine what they are for!! It's not what I would choose but its clean and comfortable....and it's always interesting to see how other people do things so its fun to be here. The kids, I have to say, absolutely love it and have been running around searching for the cats for hours. Kyle is especially keen on animals and has elicited a promise from us that we will get a dog sometime soon; and Neill has made friends with the horses.
We plan on being here for a week in which time we hope to visit the old town of Lucca (there's an antique market which we are going to visit today), the leaning tower of Pisa, the Tuscan coast....and maybe the Cinque Terra. This will be our last week in Italy as we head back into France next Saturday where we'll be spending 4 nights in a place called Vence in the hills above Nice and then 5 days in Bonnieux in Provence with Craig and Lisa Thompson.
That's all our news for now - please keep sending emails to let us know whats happening in your lives and keep reading the blog! Its been great to hear from so may of you that you find the blog interesting and a worthwhile read.
Love from us all.....Ciao
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