The first line of Rick Steve's travel book for Tuscany and Florence states, "Florence with kids: not ideal, but it's certainly good for them!" Thanks Steve's! On we forged and got the kids out walking the pavement once again. Oh great Yay, another building! as Emma and Hamish have started to joke. I love Florence and everything about it, the people (even the tourists), the culture, the history, the architecture is just so amazing. I love the fact that they never tear anything down in Europe, they just keep it restored or...not. We stayed in Florence for 4 nights and much to our dismay had to move on as our apartment was booked. We had 4 nights to fill in and again I scoured the airbnb site and hastily booked a villa in Sovicelle (12 km outside of Siena). We paid a fair bit for this place and I expected dishwashing liquid and a clean sponge, not one which was saturated with grease. Do I write a review with airbnb? Can I be bothered? No, I leave it with our gracious host, who lives in France, Agostino took on all I had to say and did his best to make it right. Will he be able to keep the demographics with these villas at the price point he is charging without the amenities? We were in a fabulous Agriturismo village, which bordered a National park. I enjoyed my daily walks with the abundance of nature around me. We spent our days out visiting nearby local towns and enjoying the Tuscan countryside from our green bus. It was time to move on and we were happy to do so. We moved to our fabulous villa in Sciano, the most gorgeous hillside Tuscan village, we seem to gravitate towards the country properties, is this a calling? We were met by the most wonderful host by far, Elizabeth, a Native American married to her Austrian/Italian love Adinoflo.
Here we immersed ourselves in the local town and surrounding nearby villages of Certaldo, San Gimgnano, Volterra, Colle del val Elsa, Poggibonsi with additional visits to Siena and Florence, we couldn't stay away from 2 of our favourites. In San Gimgnano we visited the Torture Museum, what a dark past, some really disgusting devices that were actually put to use. Interesting that is was religion that led to the use of a lot of these devices. I enjoyed telling the kids in those days you only had one chance to do as you were told, or else. I found a chastity belt I could use for Emma. Volterra for its Alabaster and well apart from leather handbags, shoes, gelato, panneforte, they are all great for their grapes.
We went bowling, played spotlight, went for walks and we even managed to put a play together, directed and produced by Emma with our neighbours. Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs...under the Tuscan Sun. Elizabeth and her son Henri graciously participated with playing the parts of Doc and Sneezy. I was given the part of the wicked Queen..hmmmm what is Emma telling me? Tony our film crew, inadverdantly stopped filming with his clumsy fingers, so we only managed to get bits of the rehearsal and a section of my wicked ways. Hee hee hee!
The kids did a great job in completing their studies with Hamish reading and spelling...it is all happening. Quite amazing to see it evolve from our point of view in the days we have been teaching. Is teaching a profession for us? Well perhaps not with our own children. Emma completed her workbooks imath, cars and stars and both year 5 & 6 core spelling lists. We had a cermononial burning of the books at the end...shhhh don't tell anyone!
On one of our return visits to Florence, I took Rick Steve's advice and attempted to book in for the children's tour of Museo di Veechio, but no luck for us, I left it too late. We went along anyhow and and rented the audio tour which both Emma and I enjoyed. The Museo is very forgiving with children and the grand room has plenty of space to sit and listen to your audio and take in the beauty of the sculptures and paintings sprawled across the ceiling and walls. i was quite interested in the history of Cosimo in particular the family crest. Between the children and Tony they began calling me the Turtle, I believe it started in Hawaii, amongst other names such as 'old duck'. Little did they know that naming me the turtle was one of 'wisdom' or was it just because I was lagging behind. Cosmio's family crest was one of the turtle, which of course is wisdom with a sail attached to its shell providing the speed. So there you have it my little family, you knew I had the wisdom of a turtle with the speed of the sail to get us through our adventure. I thank you for your confidence.
We covered just over 6,000 km (3,730 miles for my non metric friends) travelling in our bus through Spain, France and Italy. A certain look of calm now beams off Tony as he sits relaxed on the first leg of our train travel. No more crazy assed Italians driving like absolute lunatics with a death wish. Tony will not have to endure my every flinch or reaction with one of those formula 1 moves, thinking he is going to have a coronary. I did save us a few times.
Arrivederci Italy! Switzerland, it is time we made your acquaintance.
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