Florence by accident

Yep, we've moved on a day early (thanks to having completed the olive harvest and a spare day in our Eurail pass) - and having shut our eyes and placed our fingers on the map, have ended up in Florence.....but Ian will regale you with more news on that front....

I just wanted to add a few words about our WWOOFing (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) experience in Umbria - if you ever have the opportunity to WWOOF, do it - it's a great way to experience local culture and get to know local folk. Our host family included Rob (English), Rita (Italian), their three boys Lenny, Freddy and Sonny, labrador Charlie, three cats (Cat, Cat and Cat), bunny, and TWO roosters (whom I could have both quite happily throttled).

We spent a good 12 days harvesting olives and towards the end olives were featuring regularly in our dreams (and nightmares!). It was fun work, mostly a quiet, zen-esque kind of affair (although at one point dear old Ian was a trooper and bore my rather lengthy Abba tribute to keep us entertained!) Visiting the olive press and seeing the fruit of our labour was another high point and here are a couple of pics from that day.

But we are glad to move on - we enjoyed our time in Orvieto (a beautiful part of Umbrian countryside) but are ready to do our own thing again.

As a wee side note, we're VERY excited about the outcome of the US election (I can't think how that relates to olive picking AT ALL but thought I'd mention it). We're not surprised about the outcome of the NZ election despite our best efforts to influence it from our side of the world.

The blog bits we skipped while were in a virtually computerless land (not a bad thing altogether) were tales of our ferry trip from Greece to Italy (Bari), which was relatively painless as there were only about 40 passengers on a ferry built for 600, and a mention of Lecce (where we spent our first two Italian days).

Lecce was lovely. Our hostel (actually quite a flash B&B) was great - a cute apartment all of our own, and came with juice, milk and mineral water in the fridge and a selection of pastries for breakfast. The good folk of Lecce were especially good at that Italian diversion of strolling up and down the avenues of an evening; eating gelatos, gossiping, sipping wine and flirting depending on their age and inclination. We did our utmost to emulate them (especially on the gelato front). Lecce town itself (also known as 'the Florence of the South' according to our guidebook) is a lovely old medieval number with fragments of old city walls and the gates that led through them (actually its a lot older than that come to think of it cos there were a couple of Roman theatres within two blocks of our apartment). There were also more churches than you could shake a holy grail at and the place is reknowned for papier maché apparently (they even do church ceilings in papier maché). Anyway, it was old and pretty, take it from us. The only blot on Lecce's copybook is that they seem to have completely cornered the market in scaffolding and have used it (and EU money) to cover up parts of all their major attractions presumably with an eye to a bit of restoration. Oh yes, and it was also hosting an Oxfam sponsored poster exhibition in its main piazza- a nice diversion for the pennywise tourist.

By the way, thought I'd add that Umbria really is a LOVELY part of the country, and you can see why all the expats flock to it. Interesting topography with thousand year old towns perched on most of the higher hills and lots of super-cute villages nestled in the valleys in between. During the fortnight we were there the leaves on the frequent patches of forest, and on the abundant grape vines, all turned significantly more autumnal (from a general pale yellow to a deep-jaundice with a touch of pink sort of colour if you must know). Need to also mention that our WWOOFING hosts Rob and Rita really made us feel at home, including letting me drive the classic 1964 Fiat tractor and inviting us to a Guy Fawkes bonfire party at a friends place. Fabulous!

Anyway, enough rabbiting on. A new part of Italy tomorrow and the adventure continues.

PS Unfortunately we are yet again having technical issues which are preventing me from selecting photos from the portable hard drive we brought with us. Instead Here are a few shots that happen to still be on the camera. Those of you that we see in person in the next 6 months will, in due course, be able to enjoy the full 8427 photo slide show of our holiday.

Above (hopefully) is the Duomo in Florence. We went to a Vespers service hoping to find a choir but instead found some very out of tune chanting.

Above (hopefully again). The view west from the Ponte Santa Trinita along the Fiume Arno in Florence