Greetings from the Other Tuscan Side

Ciao Everyone!

Well, first of all, we're here! Sorry it's taken so long for us to post. It's been an adventure so far. We've actually been working on more formal postings to include photos, etc. on the laptop. But getting on the internet has been a bigger challenge than expected... Italy has some interesting rules for internect access in public places. Passports copied, etc., and you can't connect your personal laptop to the internet from an internet cafe. So we're in the process of saving all the details to a floppy and the next time we're here in the internet cafe, we'll post all of the good stuff!!!

As for a brief summary to date, Maxjet across the Atlantic was wonderful to say the least. In short, RyanAir from London was a nightmare. More details later... We did have 6 hours in London, and took a taxi to a really cool country pub. Low ceillings (Veronica bumped her head!) with the wooden beams, fireplace, graivty-fed ales, great barkeep, and good food. But I can tell you now is not a good time to be in the U.K. due to the tumbling greenback... Our pub lunch with a few pints came to £41, about what I expected. Then when I did the math, at $2.20 to the pound we had just had a $100 lunch... We'll have to wait a bit before touring the U.K....

Got into Pisa at about 10:00pm Friday night, and the car, surprisingly to me, was actually what we reserved, at the same price as quoted. Still don't understand how, but I'm not complaining... Got to Camp Darby (U.S. Army base where we had reservtions for 3 nights) after a few wrong turns, and something was screwed up with the reservation. So.....we're driving around Tuscany at 1:00 am trying to find a place to sleep after 30 hours of travel... Finally, we see signs for a beach resort with hotels and head that way. After two "mi dispiage, no cammere" (I'm sorry, no rooms) we find an open hotel with rooms. Turns out to be a great deal as the high season just ended and they were almost empty. Price was almost the same as the army base, although paying in euros versus dollars made it a touch more. Great hotel, great location, and good food all around.

Anyway we did two nights there, then headed towards Siena, where we visitied last time in Tuscany. Hit another Tuscan hill town along the way - San Gimignano - and stayed at the Villa Veronica outside Siena. Stopped at Villa Veronica as we saw the signs and took pictures on the last trip... Turned out to be a beautiful place to stay - Veronica will post pictures later. Had lunch in Siena, then headed for our 3:00 arrival at the farm, about 50 miles south of Siena. Arrived 10 minutes late, with Ugo waiting for us at the end of his 800 meter (3/8 mile) gravel driveway. Arrived at the 14th century farm house a few minutes later after driving along a ridgeline and past olive groves and the occassional vineyard. Beautiful countryside to say the least. Again, Veronica will post photos on our next visit to civilization. The house is rustic but beautiful. As for the accomodations proper, we're staying somewhat "rustic" to say the least. we've got our bedroom and the adjoining room, but that's about it. Plumbing is mostly ourdoors, except for the kitchen, and there's no running hot water. So Veronica was a little uptight at first. Anyway, warm water is provided via black camping water bags, and via big pots on one of two stoves (one in our room). So it seemed odd at first, but I get up and heat a pot for washing our faces, and put on a pot of coffee. In the afternoon after work, we "shower" with the heated water in the black campng bags. They've built a waist high 3-sided wall with a perugula with grape vines over head. So yesterday Veronica had her first "shower." After some concerns, she made it through the process, and afterwards even commented that wasn't as bad as she expected. Something about being under the grapevines on a Tuscan hillside taking a shower is kind of cool... And when I happened to glance out the door at her pouring water over her head from a metal cup, she looked stunning.

Yesterday we harvested all the red grapes, and fed them into the crushing machine. 5,000 liters of next year's read wine...

Well, this is probably already to much. Wanted everyone to know we're alive and doing well. As I mentioned before, we'll post more details, pix, etc. on our next trip into town.

Ciao for now from Sinalunga, Tuscany!

Ray & V.