Day 42, Saturday June 9, 2012

Up early and took a bus to the airport. Got checked in and went to the first class lunge, but the flight turned out to be an hour late. This impacted our connection in Toronto, but Air Canada went ahead and rebooked us and had boarding passes ready for the next flight when we landed.

We got back to Edmonton a few hours later than anticipated, but all was well. Catherine, our house sitter, picked us up and finally we were back in the house with Jupiter, Orion and Mini.

Great trip.

Day 41, Friday June 8, 2012

Meh breakfast at the hotel, then we were off to look for an extra luggage bag downtown. Again, driving was nutty. Kimberley got a new bag.

We drove to the airport, returned the car, and then had a few hours to kill. Yea...airports.

The flight to Paris was fine...but it was a wasted day of travel. Took a shuttle to the hotel (very nice hotel) had dinner and hit the sack.

Day 40, Thursday June 7, 2012

Goodbye Il Paluffo. We started by driving up past Firenze and hitting an outlet mall. It seemed a little to exclusive, so we moved on.

Drove to Rome and clawed our way to the hotel. Roman driving is challenging. We picked up a bottle of wine for my cousin Madeline, who was hosting us for dinner. My cousin Lucia picked us up at 7:45 and we took the short drive over to Madeline's. It was great to see everyone.

We got all sorts of sordid family details. Eventually all the daughters were there. Natalia, Lucy's oldest, had it together. Unfortunately, Madeline's husband was away supervising some house renovations in Tuscany. We had a really nice dinner with cheese risotto and a vegetable flan. The strawberries and ice cream dessert was great.

Lots of talk about the family and so on. Kimberley got on great with the younger kids.

We left around 11:15, though we could have talked a few more hours. We then had a so-so sleep back at the Tiberio hotel.

Day 39, Wed June 6, 2012

Another great day. Spent most of it by the pool. The weather was fantastic, and for some reason, no one was around.

Felt like the place was empty. The excitement for the day was being chased by a dragonfly larva in the pool.

Around 4:30, we left for Siena and hooked up with Bruce and Kaia at the NH Excelsior hotel.

Walked around and hit the main square (which was a sloped horse racing oval) and then got to our restaurant.

Food and wine was fine, but just spending time with our friends was fantastic.

Drove back to Il Paluffo and got to bed around midnight.

Day 38, Tuesday June 5, 2012

As usual, the day started with Fatima's breakfast.

Then, a perfect day of relaxation. Our vacation was drawing to a close, and it was time to wind down...big time.

Although laundry wasn't liberated from the broken washing machine until the afternoon, I was able to book the Thursday Rome hotel today and also cut our stay here at Il Paluffo by a day. We confirmed with Bruce and Kaia tomorrow in Siena as well. The end of the trip seems to all be falling into place.

Dinner of tomato and garlic pasta, and then we finished watching Out of Sight.

Day 37, Monday June 4, 2012

Great sleep. Surprisingly, Fatima put together breakfast in our kitchen this morning.

A short time later, we went on The Walk.

Holy shit, that was 3 hours and not through easy terrain. But it was beautiful and we took plenty of pictures.

Then we had the best lunch salad ever. It rained cats and dogs. We had a relaxing afternoon, and made Gnodi for dinner. We went to the pool and saw a very strange insect that acted like a hummingbird.

I texted Lucia down in Rome about a visit on Thursday night. Looks like this will happen. We watched the first half of Out Of Sight...great movie.

Day 36, Sunday June 3, 2012

Woke up and pretty much decided we were not going to stay at Barbican House. We left. Drove to Speleto to get some wi-fi and call around to find a new place to stay.

Got hold of Federica back at Il Paluffo. She had a room for us. Yea!

3 hours later we had a super self-catering room and all was well. Back to the pool. In the eveningwe made a veggie cream pasta with the groceries we picked up back in Spoleto.

Day 35, Saturday June 2, 2012

As we were leaving Villa Poggiano this morning, Kimberley saw an iron dragon hanging off the side of the main building. We discovered that this was the work of a local blacksmith.

To track him down, we set off for Pienza and the Biagiotti blacksmith shop. It was closed, but Kimberley asked a neighbour and we discovered that there was a retail shop for their work in the Pienza square.

We parked and set off to find the shop. We found it along with one of the Biagiotti brothers. We got a door knocker and the cockatrice candle holder. We had them shipped to Canada.

Next we went to the cathedral, which at least didn't have an entrance fee.
Then we grabbed lunch at a local restaurant. I had a veggie spaghetti, which was really good and I wound up replicating it a few nights later when we were cooking dinner.
We then found Barbican House, where we were supposed to spend the rest of our vacation.

Unfortunately, it was a dud. We shopped for groceries at the great Conad store, but really, we weren't going to spend any more time at this place. Nice grey and white cat, though.

Day 34, Friday June 1, 2012

Our last morning at Il Paluffo (or so we thought). Another nice breakfast and a swim before we packed up to head out to our next cooking class. See you later, Shadow!

Back to Organic Tuscany for a lunch class, this time with two other couples. There were a pair of doctors from Seattle, and a Toronto couple who now work in Salt Lake City.

The cooking was fun, and the dishes were amazing. Gnodi was the most delicious dish: balls of spinach and cow/sheep ricotta with flour, boiled and served with a butter/sage/cream sauce. Yum!

Hand-made ravioli.

A great lunch.

In the afternoon we drove to Villa Poggiano, south of Siena in the Umbria region.

This was a really nice place, and we got upgraded to a deluxe suite. Too bad we weren't staying longer.

Another peaceful, empty place.

Day 33, Thursday May 31, 2012

Rinse and repeat. Again, we had a nice breakfast downstairs (Fatima works like a dog), and then a pleasant day by the pool. Late in the day, we had "Pasta with Wilma." This was an Il Paluffo cooking lesson.

The pasta was nice, but not as good as we made over at Manuela's. Here, I'm making spaghetti on a guitar.

We met a honeymooning couple. They were Canadians who had just finished medical school in Poland. It was nice to have some normal conversations in straight-up English.

We ate until about midnight.

Day 32, Wed May 30, 2012

Best...day...ever.

We spent the day relaxing by the abandoned pool and listening to the frogs. We read and soaked up the sun...the weather was perfect.

We had a swim, and the water was very refreshing.

No complaints.

Later in the afternoon, we went to see Manuela and Silvio for a Tuscan cooking lesson. They were good teachers, and we hit a lot of recipes.

There was marinated pepper crustini, salsa verde, red pepper and yogurt soup, home made pasta, tiramisu, and...

A fantastic veggie lasagna.

We had a great time in Silvio's home, and the dinner was superb.