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The adventure begins!! Libby and Katie finally meet in Hong Kong after planning for sooooo long!!
After another long haul flight to London and thinking we may die on Ryan Air flight (the attendants were so young we wondered how old the pilot was!), we finally made it to Italy.
Our last leg of the trip - the train (after our two hour bus ride), which was meant to be a two hour trip turned into three and a half hours. In true Italian style, the train broke down and no one knew what was going on. So out popped our Italian dictionary where we made friends with ‘easy Jon’ to find out “oh it has broken down....maybe we get there, maybe we don’t!” (Easy Jon got his name when he introduced himself - we said “oh Jon, thats an easy name”, then he replied grinning “yes, I’m easy Jon”!!!
We were met by our host where we were taken home and were ready to drop after nearly 48 hours of travelling! (We just wanted to be able to sleep in a horizontal position!)
So, we are staying in Cortona which is a beautiful small town in Tuscany. The village is just as you would imagine with cobbled streets and quaint little stone houses surrounding the square.
We are living up in the hills in a big gorgeous stone house, which is currently being converted into apartments for holiday rental. It’s set on rolling hills with a fabulous outlook across the Tuscan valley.
The family are great and have introduced us to the amazing Italian cuisine. We’re living on pasta, fresh salad and gelato at least once a day! (Of course every town we visit, we must try their gelato!!)
We’ve had hilarity driving on the right hand side of the road, changing gears with opposite hands. Driving is a bit like an obstacle course, always on the lookout to dodge oncoming cars that cross the line through the winding hills. (...and for dogs....people in middle of street - they just stop and chat in the middle of the road!!)
Our Italian has not much improved since we left home. Our host family speaks English and we only have to speak some Italian when trying to buy things (i.e. gelato, chocolate, pizza!), getting a bit frightened when we need to order without pointing at things e.g. in a bar (which is a cafe).
Our farm work has been good, helping with fences, vege garden, stone picking etc. It gets quite physical so we’re hoping to get fit soon!! We often go off walking too, it’s quite hilly and we end up walking like grannies with stiff legs the next day back around the hills.
We love it here and have done a lot of exploring in surrounding towns - Arezzo and Siena..everything is so beautiful.
...And yes we have spotted lots of hot Italians - many have dogs in tow (which are allowed everywhere!!)
So we’re off to visit our next farm stay in a couple of days so will be in touch with more news then.
Ciao!!
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