Thursday 14 May

Quote of the day from Annelies, “Have you seen enough churches? We can say a b c” (another bloody church!).

High humidity – some mozzies in the night with a few bites.

Chaos at breakfast when hotel dining room did not follow instructions. We were supposed to go in at 6.50am and another tour group (“barbarians”) at 7.10am. We stood around until dining room was opened at 7.10 and two groups crushed into a very small serving space. Annelies did not leave the tip.

Brief tramp (with carry ons) to once again meet up with bus – over a new bridge the Venetians don’t like as it was designed by an outsider. We momentarily lose two mums and then their daughters who went to look for them.

We leave Venice island and travel along the Brenta Canal – grand old villas and a sign saying “Campo rugby”.

We drive through the Apennines again; a different route and once again a wonderful road. Very cool to drive fast through a 1.2km tunnel passing big trucks. LOTS of trucks on the road.

The countryside is wonderful. We enter Tuscany and it is very pretty.

We stop for lunch at Fattoria Il Poggio in Lucca where we meet the amazing Elena. She wouldn’t be 5 feet tall but has a 9 feet tall personality. She would make an amazing teacher! She is a born actress and brilliant in her job as the public relations face of the winery/olive oil/restaurant/function centre. One example. In this area every part dislikes every other part over something that happened several hundred years ago. Things are never forgotten or forgiven. This is how Elena describes her neighbours, “Dirty, rotten Pisa!”. Words cannot convey her delivery of this phrase. We have a brief tour and hen a huge lunch:
- 6 wines, extra virgin, cold pressed olive oil, balsamic vinegar – all their own
- a beautiful bean, barley (spelt) soup – Tina has the recipe (I wonder if it will go with the porno pasta?)
- the best fresh pasta I have ever had
- sun dried tomatoes – again, the best I have ever had
- salami, olives, prosciutto ham
- biscotti dipped into sweet dessert wine (Holy Wine)
- grappa (jet engine fuel! Very high alcohol content)

The bus is very jovial on the drive to Pisa. Annelies puts on Dean Martin and we are all singing “That’s Amore”.

As we approach Pisa we have an elderly fluffy bunny gem: “The Leaning Tower’s gotta be here somewhere”. Oh, really?

Bus parks and Annelies has used the money not paid thos morning as a tip to hire a little “train” (it has carriages and runs on the road) which saves us a 20 minute walk.

The Leaning Tower is still leaning.

We stay the first of two nights at Montecatini Terme (spa), Grand Hotel Francia and Quirinale (room 205). Good meal in hotel with a very talented male singer.