Tuscany in July

Directly after the IOW I went off to see Anne and Robin for a night before meeting Stuart at Luton airport the day before we flew to Tuscany. I was very excited about Tuscany - a weeks holiday on an olive grove with all my family. I knew it was going to be madness, but fun!

Stuart and I arrived in Pisa on the Saturday morning and our plan was to pick up the hire car and then go and do some sightseeing before we picked up mum and dad who were coming later in the day. Well all good plans get hiccups and we were told our hire car was not available until the afternoon because the one we had requested was at the car doctors and the only other automatic was not due in until later. We sat around for a while in a rubbish car rental shed, mind you at least it had air con, until eventually they said we could leave our luggage and go into Pisa to do some sightseeing. Well guess where we went? Yes, the leaning tower of Pisa, but before then we needed some lunch and had a magnificent Italian pizza with about 4 liter bottles of fizzy water (we were hot and dehydrated!).

Finally when we got back to rental shop they had our car - well actually they had a smaller version of our car! So it was going to be interesting getting four peoples luggage in a BMW 1 series! We may have looked cool but not too practical! Anyway we headed off to the beach and the supermarket - Mum and Dad had requested a bottle of whisky :) It was fab being in a foreign supermarket with all sorts of different foods :)

The drive to the villas took about an hour from Pisa towards Pistoia. We were just on the fringes of a small town called Cantagrillo on the Montalbiano estate. It was just in the hills and very beautiful and green and obviously plenty of olive groves!



There were two villas that we spread out in - kids and respective adults in one and then Mum, Dad and us in the other for the peace! We had lunches and dinners on the terrace and then soaked in the pool during the day. It was actually exceptionally hot, well in the thirties, and so it meant you could do much during the main heat of the day except seek shade, as Stuart did by the pool, or jump in the pool. The pool offered endless entertainment for the children and the adults, plenty of blow up toys and a diving board.

We did a morning trip to Leonardo di Vinci's museum in Vinci and saw some of his great inventions and some stunning scenery. The great thing about being with lots of kids you get treats like ice cream when you have been good :)










Angus, Dad and I played golf at a fancy course called Montecantini golf course. We all hired golf clubs and the first laugh was that Angus was given a set of left handed clubs - hmm they weren't going to work. Then we all took off - three of us - on the golf buggie. Since it was quite a squeeze one person steered while another one operated the accelerator! Dad feel in love with his borrowed wood unlike me it took me 7 holes to get accustomed to my clubs, but just in time to beat the boys!

We also did an outing to Montecatini the village on top of a hill. We took the funicular up and then walk around, having another ice cream! It looked like a really nice place to come for a lunch or dinner as there were table and umbrellas laid out in the square - lovely.











Sam, the kids and Stu and I went off for a day trip to a water park in Cecina some 2 hour drive on the coast. The water park was probably not worth the drive. It was full of Italian kids with very few slides, and it typically Italian style they were very poor at queuing. We managed to have a number of injuries there including Stuart breaking ribs, Thomas nearly getting concussed and coming away with an awful bruise under his chin and then I walloped my head off a slide! We went to a cafe on the beach for lunch and Mariska went for a dip in the sea that looked pretty cold but she insisted it wasn't too bad!






Our final sightseeing was going to Lucca, a walled city back towards Pisa. Again another pretty place with old buildings, squares and cobbled streets. I resisted the ice cream this time!!












One of our final meals we went to a traditional Tuscan dinner of pork - and I mean every bit of pig! It was interesting but I cant say I like all of it and I wasn't too sure about the pink pork loin we were served - so British I like it to be cooked!!

It was a wonderful week and went too quickly before we found ourselves back at Heathrow and flying back out to Houston.