On Tuesday evening we had our first wine tasting ever and right after the kids were able to make their and our own pizza. They had so much fun and at the end were covered in flour.
Thursday evening, before the Pasta party, we learnt how to make Cantuccini, the famous Italian cookies and that you have to dip it into Vin Santo and nothing else, not in coffee or milk (what we like to do as Germans)…
We had really nice weather on Wednesday and Thursday. Which is why we didn’t do anything else except go swimming. On Wednesday we went to the beach.
On the way there we drove by an olive farm to get a huge load of olive oil. On Thursday we spent the whole day at the pool. Thank God the kids love their audio books. That’s our only chance to read a book, take a nap in the sun or just spend some peaceful time by the water.
Thursday morning, Nate and Noam were able to go on a short pony trail ride, which they loved. And in the evening I was finally able to get a riding lesson on my own. Which was amazing, getting back on a horse after so many years.
Unfortunately the weather on Friday wasn’t so good, so we decided to drive to Certaldo. There’s a funicular that goes from the new part of the town to the old one up on the hill. Up there it was lunch time, so we had to go somewhere to get some really good Pasta.
After that we went to San Gimignano or, as some call it, the Manhattan of Tuscany. (You’ll know by looking at the pictures why it is called like that.) The old town is (except for the thousands of tourists) a pretty nice town and if you go there don’t miss the world’s best ice cream from the Gelateria Dondoli. You could tell by looking at how many people where lining up how good the ice cream was. But it was totally worth it and they deserved the certificate. We never had such good ice cream before.
Ah, I almost missed to talk about one other thing: This morning on our way to Certaldo we almost hit a deer with the car. In broad daylight all of a sudden a deer came out of the bush and crossed the street right in front of us. Fortunately I was able to hit the breaks in time. You’re able to see so many animals wandering around that you would never see in Germany – a couple of nights ago on our way back to the apartment a big porcupine decided to cross the road in front of our car. Unfortunately there are also animals that we’re not so happy to have. This year they have a sandfly invasion and those flies are even worse than mosquitos. They are tiny and bite and fly around all the day and night. All of us are covered in sandflies bites. They swells up and itch for weeks. We don’t know what we would do without our electric fly swatter and the only thing that helps against mosquito and fly bites: A pen that heats up and kills the stuff that they inject in the skin. (It’s called bite away for those of you who haven’t heard of it.)
