Another update? Why, yes! Why so soon? Well, our daily routine of work, eat, sleep was shattered again by yet another parental visitation from lands far, far away. We'll have to break this up into parts, I think, so stay tuned...

My parents crossed the pond for a long overdue vacation, and were joined (in Italy) by my Aunt and Uncle, Ginny and Tony, who are becoming regulars to this part of the world. I managed to get almost a whole two weeks off from work and Myra escaped from school, and we were set to spend seven whole days in Italy. Myra instantly became our expert on Italy as she was the only one of us who had ever been there, but all of our questions were answered with something about letter-forms and how the Italians invented italics. She's so cute! I'm just kidding, she was a great source of information to us plebes, and led us around Florence like a trooper.

Backing up a little bit first, my parents came out a couple of days before we were to set off for Italy, so we started with a day touring around this part of England. After experiencing their first proper English breakfast here in town, we met up with a charming couple (of some notoriety, it might be added) that my parents know who live here, and had an afternoon walking around the gardens at Hampton Court Palace. Nice place. Capping off the evening was a fabulous dinner at one of our favorite pubs, The Bell, in a sleepy little village in the country not too far from Reading (the same pub we took Myra's parents to, and everyone else who might visit us...).

We flew out Saturday morning to Pisa, and were greeted by Pino (that's him in his tower), one of our hosts for the week, and a host par excellence. We were also greeted by the sun and balmy temperatures, which was a nice break with what we've been getting here in Reading. We clambered into our van and headed down one of Italy's main arteries on our way to our little piece of paradise for the next week.

It was great to see mountains again (the real mountains, the Alps, were just barely visible in the distance, but we did have a smaller range all around us), but the first thing I noticed was that their wasn't a square inch of the countryside that wasn't covered in... crap. I mean, there was stuff everywhere. Junk. What looked like refuse - discarded machinery, scrap metal, piles of stone, you name it. It was all very messy. But, that was only a first impression, and although this did stretch for miles and miles, it didn't take long to arrive in more picturesque surroundings.

(Looking out over Cortona, our place nestled between those hills in the distance)

Cortona is the town that our villa was on the edge of. It is one of the very oldest, and legend has it that One of Noah's sons, Crano, actually built Cortona in year 273 years after the Flood. The legend goes on to say, amongst other things, that out of Cortona rose both Troy and then Rome. It's kind of surreal to think that Noah may have looked out from that very place.

Anyway, Cortona is lovely, and our home for the week, Molino di Bordone, is an amazing farmhouse that was converted from a 17th-century mill.


We settled in and went into Cortona for the first of amazing culinary experiences. I've never really done the 5-course thing before, but I could get used to it. The pasta (primi) is like nothing I've had before, and the meat (secondi) was stunning, although some were of the mind that there really is nothing like Alberta beef. All in all, we were fed like kings all week.


Day two we slept in (ie, forgot to change our clocks forward) and then headed out into the terraced olive grove on the adjacent hill to earn our keep. It was quite relaxing and not a bad view of the valley we were in, and we would be consuming the oil from these olives later in the week, so there was something further in it for us. We picked until we could smell the duck cooking, and headed in for a late lunch.

Or guest chef, Luca, prepared for us a traditional Sunday lunch, which we all ate in Pino and Caroline's (our hosts) dining room. I'd have to say that this was easily our best meal of the entire week, and we had some seriously amazing meals that week. A stunning cheese and mushroom antipasto, hand rolled Pichi with a killer meat and vegetable sauce, and roast duck, potatoes and veggies were among the courses.
Mom got harranged into playing the piano after dinner as part of a little recital their kids put on for us. It was a nice tough. We were put to bed by an amazing sunset, and we slept soundly that night in darkness like you don't often get these days, and awoke to crisp, clean air, dogs barking, and a rooster the next property over, frantically alerting us all that we were burning daylight.