6 months later...

Re-reading our blog 6 months after we left Tuscany and I'm wondering how we can get back.

We are now in London, which is another adventure in itself, but we're back to work, separated by a job that requires commuting, kids are more indoors than out and truly....I would give anything to go back...

Watch this space

The last post from Italy

This will be my last post from Italy (this time around!).

As I have no adequate words (for once!) to describe the incredible 6 months we have had as a family, I hope the following list will be sufficient to summarise our adventure and give you a feeling of the amazing, wonderful, words-failing-me time we have had here in Scarperia, The Mugello Valley, Tuscany, Italy:

Days in Tuscany: 181
Sunny days: 162
Rainy days: 17
Snowy days: 2
Highest Temperature: 41
Lowest Temperature: 1
Visitors: 34
Ironed sheets: 84
Bottles of wine: 242
Pizzas: 98 (not all eaten by us!)
Ice-creams: stopped counting at 100
Espressos: 362
Caprese Salads: 50
Proscuitto: 12kg
Baking sessions: 13
Additional Kilos: 15 (all four of us together!!)
Home grown courgettes: 7
Home grown fennel: 11
Home grown lettuce: 36
Home grown radicchio: 12
Home grown chillis: 20
Pairs of new shoes: 28
Visits to Designer Outlet mall: 18
Market visits: innumerable
Meat Slicers: 1
Antiques: 0 (see http://tuscanydream.blogspot.com/2008/06/not-much-to-write-about-today.html)
Olives picked: 80,000
Dance Parties: 8
Birthday parties: 3
Birthday surprises: 3
Books read: 36
Ferrari crashes: 1
Car in the ditch: 1
Helpful Italian men: 4
Swims at the lake: 27
Visits to the beach: 1
Trips to the hospital: 2
Trips to Florence: 17
Trips to Venice: 1
Trips to Pisa airport: 5
Trips to London: 2
Trips to Belgium: 1
Trips to Austria: 1
Canal trips: 1
Villages visited: 26
Kilometres driven: 18,000
Crazy overtakers: stopped counting on day one
Mountain passes: 8
Motorway tolls: EUR300
Scorpions: 15
Scorpion bites: 0
Snakes: 3
Stray dogs: 1
Geckos: 2,000,000
Geckos caught: 5
Squirrel babies: 3
Sheep invasions: 6
Walks to the goats: 75
New friends: 8
Laughs: too many to count
Brilliant children: 2
Dreams come true: 2

Memories that will last us all forever? Priceless.

Ciao bella Italia. Ci mancherai!

Best of Italia

The best of Italia as voted by the Wettach family (there may be more than one winner per category):

Best Village
Scarperia, San Gimignano

Best Food
Pizza, Caprese Salad, Proscuitto

Best Day
Ralph's birthday

Best Activity
Climbing Ropes, Olive Picking

Best Ice-cream
White Chocolate in Scarperia
Apple Cake in Borgo San Lorenzo
Panna Cotta in Siena

Best Italian Expression
'Allora'

Best Neighbour
Truffle man

Best Meal
Teatro del Sale

Best Restaurant
Ristorante Montebuoni (http://www.ristorantemontebuoni.it/)

Best Lunch
Nuccitelli's - thank you Gilberta!

Best Pizza
La Tana Pizzeria, Galliano

Best Pasta
Osteria de' Benci

Best Steak
Francesco's

Best Dessert
Jennifer's Tiramisu

Best Drink
Prosecco
Aperol Spritz
San Pellegrino Arancione

Best Espresso
Cafe 'Giuliano' - Cafe con Grappa at the Olive Grove

Best food cooked by Daddy
Schnitzel
Bread

Best drive
Strada del Vino, Rufina
From Palazzuolo to Barberino
Via Fiorentina (drive into Florence

Best Place to Swim
Lago di Bilancino

Best Tourist Spot
Museo dell' Academia
Ponte Vecchio
Piazzale Michelangiolo

Best Market
Sant’Ambrogio

Best Purchase
Ferrari Cap
Meat Slicer
Sexy Dress

Worst Purchase
Bathroom Scales

Best Holiday
London

Best Song
Grease Megamix
Cover of the Rolling Stones by Dr Hook
Volare sung by Mario after lunch

Best festival
Truffle festival in Barberino
Festival of bread in Borgo San Lorenzo

Best Scorpion
The one that fell into the silver paint

Best outdoor eating
Volunteer Fire brigade festival in Eichgraben, Austria

Best Playground
Erzbischofgasse, Ober St.Veit, Vienna

Best Wine Bar
Osteria di S.Piero

Best Croissant
The one when we went to see The David

Best Natural Sight
The marble mountains in Carrara

Best Statue
The Appennine Colossus by Giambologna

Best Vegetable
Cavalo Nero
Melanzane
Zolfino Beans

Best Car
Ferrari 430 Scuderia
Ferrari FXX
Fiat Panda 4x4

Best Shop at the outlet
Lindt
Prada
The coat hanger yellow label shop

No miracle

Second to last post. Second to last evening here.
And that's all I have to say.

Snowing!!

It's been snowing!!! We woke up this morning to a white lawn and then it started snowing huge snowflakes. Now we really have had everything!!

Here are pictures from our place today:

And some pictures from the area around us:

Dinner and the weather!

2 degrees tonight!

We've just finished an awesome meal - kids in bed of course for this! Menu follows.

Starters: Antipasti - burrata (soft-centered mozzarella), tomato salad, grilled radicchio, grilled fennel, grilled eggplant, prosciutto and crostini all served with our own olive oil.

Main: filleto di Manzo in crosta (beef fillet wrapped in bacon and bread with rosemary and sage), roasted potatoes and stewed beans.

Dessert: wine!

Unbelievable!

No miracle yet

6 days to go, and no miracle as yet to enable us to stay in Italy.

One very nearly happened - we came oh-so-close to running an agriturismo (a kind of "farm stay" or B&B with olives and vines!) but we were pipped at the post by someone else at the last minute. We'd stay in a heartbeat if we could find work here but unfortunately nothing has turned up...or nothing that will allow us to eat!

I am, however, of the opinion that there are still 6 days...anything can happen!

Olives and our Italian friends

We have had a wonderful week.

Beginning on Sunday - lunch at our place with Gilberta and Mario (Francesco's Mum and Dad), Laura, Gabriele, Tomaso and Alessandro (sister, brother-in-law and two nephews) and of course Francesco and Jennifer. Ralph cooked up a ferocious Austrian feast, as we knew we could not begin to compete with Gilberta when it comes to Italian cooking. The weather was incredible - I was in a t-shirt until about 3 when the sun started dipping behind the hills. We ate lunch inside, but dessert, coffee and grappa outside, with games of soccer and hide 'n seek dominating the afternoon. A truly wonderful time and we have begun to think of Francesco's family as our own. They have been so welcoming and loving to us in such a short space of time.

So, to ensure Sunday wasn't our last goodbye, we decided to assist with the annual olive harvest and spent Monday and Tuesday at their family plot picking olives. Together with Mario, Francesco and a couple of Mario's good friends, we harvested over 400kg of olives (only about 1/5 of the total amount). The kids had a ball - as did we. Lunch on both days was a wonderful affair with red wine, Vin Santo (a type of dessert wine/brandy), grappa and espresso always on offer. The weather both days was wonderful (though cold - the grappa helped!) and the fact that we could peep out from the olive branches and look down on Florence kept our spirits very high. We had such fun and it will be something we'll never ever forget. Some pictures from our two days:

And then, to top it all off, we were invited today to watch the olives being pressed into olive oil...followed by lunch. I don't think I can adequately express what this meant to us, Ralph especially. We feel very privileged to have been included in this experience. And to thank us for our work we received 5 liters of the nuovo olio (new olive oil). Lunch was again wonderful and long - with us finally dragging ourselves away at 4.30...with more gifts and the promise to try and see each other one more time before we leave next Saturday. We'll miss them all very much.

Here are some pics from the olive pressing:

The olives:

Washing our germs away:

Down the shoot they go:

Being pressed:

Here it comes:

Liquid gold:

The left over mulsh (which is pressed again for more oil):

Photos of our holiday

As promised, though a few days late, here are some pictures of our brief trip up north last week:

Carrara and Colonnata

The Cinque Terre

The fourth stomach

We returned on Wednesday evening from two days in northern Tuscany and Liguria - firstly visting Castelnuovo in the Garfagnana, then Carrara (where the marble for The David was mined) and then Colonnata, where they make Lardo (or for the uninitiated, cured back fat from a pig)! We then drove onto La Spezia on the coast staying in the cheapest hotel in town before driving the following day through the Cinque Terre (check out Mathew's blog for photos).

To be honest, we were both not that impressed with the Cinque Terre - a bit too overly-tourified for us! Very similar to Venice in that respect. The coast is beautiful and the 5 villages are very impressive, but now that we are used to local food and local prices, we were very disappointed to see how un-Italian the villages have become. As an example...Mathew ordered an "Elvis" pizza at a pizzeria in Monterosso - which happened to be the only pizzeria open. And we weren't able to order our usual 1/2 litre of wine for EUR2...they could only offer a half bottle for EUR6. The other restaurants that were open had extremely expensive "tourist" menus on offer, even though I believe we were the only tourists in town. In a way, cutting off their noses.... I suspect the weather may have played a part in our opinion - it bucketed most of the time, although we could picture how crowded and therefore unbearable the place could be in the height of summer. We did wonder where all the locals were and decided that no Italians actually live in these villages - that they rent out their rooms to tourists and simply manage the properties or restaurants from afar. I know I must sound very ungrateful but I think it's just that we are now very spoiled due to the length of time we have stayed here.

We managed another trip to Florence today to shop at the market for Sunday lunch (visitors) and to lunch at what is now our second favourite place in Italy - Trattoria Da Rocco. And as a pre-lunch snack, Ralph ordered a "Panino con il Lampredotto"at Sergio Pollini's stand. I'm not sure you really want to know what this is, but basically it is the "fourth stomach" of a cow in a roll. Who knew that a cow has four stomachs but apparently it does, and today, we ate the fourth one! I guess it had to be tried once as this is typical Florentine street food and in fact we had to queue with hordes of lunchtime Florentine locals to get our roll. All members of the family (including Mathew!!) had a bite...in fact Ana had three! So another day with another very interesting experience!

I'll post pictures of our tour up north tomorrow.