Under the Tuscan Sun

You may have seen the movie, "Under the Tuscan Sun".  If so you can imagine what Cortona is like. My daughter and I spent two weeks there in 2011 and it hasn't changed much since then.  Because our family was in Italy together last September, we rented a beautiful apartment in Cortona with lots of space to relax in. We spent ten days exploring the fascinating sights there and in other small towns in Tuscany. No matter where we went we were climbing steep streets or descending with care. We have so many memories...here are just a few...

We heard church bells ring many times a day

-enjoying the magnificent view

 -tall buildings surround the main piazza

-the park is a lovely sanctuary on a hot day

-a quiet September walk

-a beautiful villa

-Trattoria Toscana

-the view from our dining room

-looking towards Bramasole, the home of Frances Mayes, author of "Under the Tuscan Sun"

Just a few photos shared ... more next time!  Have a wonderful week!

Our Trip to Italy

Hello again!  Although I have been "away" from blogging for a number of months, I often find myself wondering how the friends I have made through blogging are doing so I have decided to try again to participate.  I have been reluctant to face several computer issues.  One involves the way my pictures are stored on Picasa and the other involves a lack of storage on my laptop.  It's time to sort out these issues but in the meantime I will just look back to September when our family took a trip to Italy together.  I will use pictures to tell the story and there may be several posts showing the highlights of our trip.  KLM took us via Amsterdam to Rome.  Booking as soon as there was non stop service from northern Alberta resulted in amazing return fares!  It was almost two for one and since our son and daughter were both able to take holidays in September we decided to take a family vacation.  We had a great flight over, fabulous weather, great experiences and lots of fun.

After arriving in Rome at 5 pm we had a wonderful reunion with our Canadian friends at their lovely home and early the next morning we were touring the Colosseum.  We had no time for jet lag and all of us did really well. We had a guide who made history come alive in a 3 hour tour of the Colosseum and the areas nearby.  

 Our friend has a degree in Archeology and used to be a tour guide at Ostia Antica so on the second day she guided us through the ancient seaport of Rome which was where as many as 100,000 people once lived. The ruins are well preserved and date back to the 3rd century BC.

The site is massive and just about a third of the ruins have been dug up. The cost of maintaining the site as it is now is has limited the government from further excavations and they are being left for future generations to discover and maintain. Next stop... Tuscany. See you before too long.  

Sunshine Always, Sheila

I am linking to Judith's Mosaic Monday at http://www.lavendercottagegardening.com/

Italy in the Fall

A week from today our family will be landing in Rome! It will be a special trip because we will be staying with good friends in Rome when we arrive and before we travel home. We will be travelling to our favourite hill town in Tuscany and using that as a base to travel to other places.  Then we will be catching the train again to Cinque Terre.  The weather promises to be lovely and warm.  I will share some photos of our last trip to Italy tonight and promise to share some new photos next time.

I will joining Judith at

http://www.lavendercottagegardening.com/

Ciao Ciao!

Hope that your September is filled with all that makes Autumn such a lovely season !

A Reunion !

Hello to all my blogging friends!  I must apologize for not visiting your blogs this summer. How can the days be so long and yet they speed by so quickly. It's the time of the year when there seems to be so much happening and that seems strange when the rest of the year is often so quiet.
The farmer has retired and so the possibility of travel during the summer resulted in a road trip to my hometown.  It was wonderful to spend time with our friends and family and oh so nice to spend some time with my old school friends ...amazing to think that half a century ago the second chapter of our lives was just beginning.
You can just imagine the smiles, hugs, and stories that were exchanged that afternoon.  Seeing each other made me think that although some of us hadn't seen each other since the last day of high school or perhaps sometime in university, we all seemed to be the same as we were back then.  We chose different paths in life, experienced different things and now have families but everyone loved being together once again.   Our school is much different than when we walked through the hallways but the central section is almost as it was and it was wonderful to see once more.

This photo of St Ann's Academy was taken in winter.  I should have taken one at the reunion but there just wasn't time.  We had too much catching up to do! 

Hope you are having a wonderful summer.  

These days our family is getting ready for a trip to Italy.  We are going to Rome and Tuscany.  

I'll tell you more about it next time we meet at

http://www.lavendercottagegardening.com/

for Mosaic Monday.