So our days were slightly busy. We went touring - down to Florence for a day, the next day we visited Charles IV's castle in Montecarlo, and the day after that we went to Volterra. In the evenings we swam and ate dinner in a garden overlooking Florence, and at night we slept in the guest apartment of a guest house (former stables) of the Medici Villa in Fiesole.
The day in Florence was just about perfect. David and I re-confirmed that we like touring like kids - don't go into any of the museums, climb any tower or dome you can, eat gelato twice instead of having lunch, find a comfy pew in the churches to rest your tired feet, and walk and enjoy the city.
The trip to Montecarlo was fun, even though we couldn't talk our way into the castle (the owner wasn't home.) We got back in time to explore Fiesole and Eleanor fell in love with Roman ruins (specifically, running around Roman ruins and walking every row in the ampitheater.)
We learned a valuable lesson on the way to Volterra - NEVER TAKE A SCENIC ROUTE IN NORTHERN TUSCANY BECAUSE THERE ARE MOUNTAINS IN THE WAY! But no one vomited so it was OK. Volterra is high, dramatic, windswept, and full of Dutch tourists.
But the sweet life really began when we got 'home' each afternoon to the Medici Villa. We would drop off the backpacks and hike uphill to the Co-op to buy our fresh pasta, parmesan, and pesto. A quick stop at the wine shop for some Rossi di Montalcino and the green grocer for some perfect tomatoes and fruit and we were good to go. The girls and David would have a swim while I cooked dinner (not a big sacrifice on my part because the water was COLD!)
We ate dinner in the garden, the most glorious part of the villa.
The garden itself was lovely- lavender, sage, basil, wisteria, oleander, and a host of other flowers competing for attention. Lemon trees in huge terracotta pots. Magnolia trees trimmed into cones. Boxwood mazes. Swifts flying around by day, bats by night, and the buzz of fat bumblebees and hummingbird moths.
All this beauty overlooked THE view of Florence. The red roofs, the Duomo, the Palazio Vecchio, the Pitti Palace - we could see it all. And we did, for hours at a time. The girls would gorge on fat spaghetti and parmesan, then take out their drawing books and draw what they saw during the day, list their favorite gelato flavors, sketch the plants and the bats, while David and I ate the last of the olives and finished the wine. Or opened a second bottle....
Ask the girls what their favorite part of Italy was, and they will say "The Food!" Pasta, all the parmesan they could stuff down, gelato twice a day (raspberry, strawberry, lemon, chocolate chip, chocolate, mango, coconut, peach, grapefruit, cream with sour cherry, dark chocolate, coffee - there are some more flavors we had that I'm forgetting.) Each cup was better than the last.
And they will always remember Elisabeth's garden. We all will. It was an amazing, once in a lifetime chance (Thank you Elisabeth!!!)
One night after dinner Eleanor wrote this poem:
The garden is one peaceful place.
You can look at the veiw and stair into space.
You can swim in the pool and the water's allway's cool!
Thoue the view overlooking Florence is nice,
Thre are Birds, Bugs, Bats and maybe mice.
