Category: Europe

We stayed at a unique airbnb halfway between Pistoia, Italy and Barcelona, Spain. Old, three or more story homes are on tiny streets. Parking is practically nonexistent so residents park in a free garage at the bottom of the hill, and climb stairs to their homes. Everyone is in very good physical shape!

• If you stay in a villa built in the 1700’s, you will experience low to non-existent water pressure, and slow to non-existent internet.
• If the owner of said villa encourages swallows to live in the barn below, swallows will occasionally fly in your living room window and out your kitchen window.
• Since swallows fly into the house, that means there are no screens on the windows, which means mosquitos…..
• And finally, as cliche as it sounds, one morning at the bakery, I had my ass grabbed by an Italian male*

*toddler running around

Last day at the villa. Went to the Pistoia Wednesday morning market – everything you can imagine was for sale in tents along pedestrian traffic only streets. Came back for a little swimming, before a pizza dinner and then back to Pistoia to try and crash a Mumford & Sons concert. Bought a 3 eruo bottle of beer and the proprietor of a cooking specialty shop let us sit out back where we could here the music echoing off the buildings in the plaza. She even provided cups and seat cushions. Quite the deal as the tickets were selling for 46 euro each!

Lucca is an interesting place as it retains the complete original wall around the central city. If my knees were better I would have rented a bike and been able to ride completely around the city on top of the walls. We had a nice lunch and tried gnudi, a pasta-free mozzarella cheese and spinach dumpling seasoned with sage. Only bad thing to note about today was the parking ticket (sigh).

On the way to Pisa we passed fields and fields of sunflowers. Pisa was touristic, with everyone having their picture taken “holding up” the tower. The city itself, and the crowds were so much smaller than Florence that it felt manageable. After the photo shoot we proceeded to Tierrenia to try and find a beach. The beaches there were comprised entirely of white rocks, many the size of river rocks back in AZ. Very difficult to walk on, but excellent for stacking.

Another lazy day at the Villa. More swimming, catching up on reading and just taking it easy. For dinner we decided to try our Host’s recommendation for a steak-house. Bisteccatoscana was located in downtown Pistoia but we found the place and parking with only one wrong turn – one would think we almost know our way around. There are no choices at the restaurant except for your beverage. They serve only steak, grilled outside. We could watch the grilling on a monitor above our table. Side dishes were boiled chick peas, potatoes and a fried/cheesey/baked eggplant. Dessert of coffee gelato, biscotti and dessert liquors finished the meal. Not a bad way to celebrate Bill’s birthday.

As if we didn’t have enough of the crazy drivers yesterday, we decided to cross the mountains to Vinci, birthplace of Leonardo, and home to a museum of his accomplishments. Next we traveled to Larciano Castle, built as fortification for the town, between the 11th and 13th century. More beautiful scenery but we had more close encounters and narrowly avoided being forced off the road into a ditch.