Monday Aug 1, 2011
We arrived Saturday in Tuscany with the Thomas Family. It was a long travel day. We woke up at 3:30am to catch a 4am taxi to Gatwick to fly on EasyJet to the airport in Pisa. We all sat together and the kids did terrific. The car rental in Pisa was tedious and our villa, Il Granaio, was not easy to find. The region is sparsely populated and full of small hilltop villages that have been around since the middle ages. San Gmigianano and Volterra are two of the more well known of these. Saturday we had lunch in the small village of Peccolio in a restaurant that was kept open just for us. Apparently most establishments are closed from 12-4 during the day, especially in summer. Nobody spoke any english in the place and we were not really sure what we were ordering. After going to the store to load up on groceries for the week we headed out for our very remote villa and Paolo and Sylvia, who manage the property, stayed on to make us a very authentic four course Tuscany dinner which was terrific. The property is huge, and great. The pool is nice as is the extra rooms with a pool table and lots of games. A local winery keeps a lot of red and white wines here which you can help yourself to if you wish.
Sunday we slept in and stayed by the pool the entire day before grilling dinner. Monday Carson and I explored an abandoned house on a local hilltop (the place is dotted with abandoned farmhouses that look like they are 100 years old) and drove to Castlefalfi, an old hilltop town, on a dirt road. Today we are off to Volterra and probably Florence tomorrow. A lot of the fun is the local food and traditions.
We arrived Saturday in Tuscany with the Thomas Family. It was a long travel day. We woke up at 3:30am to catch a 4am taxi to Gatwick to fly on EasyJet to the airport in Pisa. We all sat together and the kids did terrific. The car rental in Pisa was tedious and our villa, Il Granaio, was not easy to find. The region is sparsely populated and full of small hilltop villages that have been around since the middle ages. San Gmigianano and Volterra are two of the more well known of these. Saturday we had lunch in the small village of Peccolio in a restaurant that was kept open just for us. Apparently most establishments are closed from 12-4 during the day, especially in summer. Nobody spoke any english in the place and we were not really sure what we were ordering. After going to the store to load up on groceries for the week we headed out for our very remote villa and Paolo and Sylvia, who manage the property, stayed on to make us a very authentic four course Tuscany dinner which was terrific. The property is huge, and great. The pool is nice as is the extra rooms with a pool table and lots of games. A local winery keeps a lot of red and white wines here which you can help yourself to if you wish.
Sunday we slept in and stayed by the pool the entire day before grilling dinner. Monday Carson and I explored an abandoned house on a local hilltop (the place is dotted with abandoned farmhouses that look like they are 100 years old) and drove to Castlefalfi, an old hilltop town, on a dirt road. Today we are off to Volterra and probably Florence tomorrow. A lot of the fun is the local food and traditions.
