None of us slept well last night - Mum and Dad didn't have an alarm clock (despite us offering to loan them one), so they were kept awake by the worry of whether they would wake up on time. Despite having an alarm clock, I suffered a similar restlessness, which was not helped by Florence deciding to curl up on my legs in the early hours of the morning. I eventually gave in and got up at about 6.30am, went downstairs to wash up, feed the cats and, once it was light, let the geese out of their house. Stuart joined me about 40 minutes later.
Come 7.40am, it was time to pick up Mum and Dad from the apartment and set off for the airport. Mum and Dad had left the apartment spotless, knowing that Allison and Q would be coming straight in after them. They'd even put new bin liners in the waste bin, stripped the beds and the linens and dusted and hoovered the place. What better guests could we possibly ask for?? It was with very heavy hearts that we collected Mum and Dad's suitcases and loaded them into the car, then we all piled in to set off on the journey to Pisa.
The weather when we set out was clear and bright - it looked like it was going to be a beautiful day. However, by the time we had descended into Pescia in the valley bottom, we were in thick cloud again. It seemed like a reversal of fortunes that the low-lying land was suffering from fogginess, while we had left clear weather behind up in the hills! As we drove towards the Autostrada at Chiesina, the fog only seemed to thicken.
We drove along in thick, pea-soup fog for quite a while until, all of a sudden, as if someone had simply flipped a switch, we exited the fog and all was completely clear! By the time we reached Pisa, we were under blue skies with the sun shining brightly. We parked up in the short stay car park and accompanied Mum and Dad to the airport terminal, then helped them find the bag drop queue for their flight. Then came the moment I had been dreading - it was time to say farewell and bon voyage. I would quite happily have had them move into the apartment and stay here with us permanently, and saying farewell was every bit as emotional and traumatic as I had been dreading. They were adamant that we should leave them to it though, so we left them in the queue and found our way back to the car - or rather, Stuart guided me back to the car while I carried on wiping away the tears.
I tried to concentrate my mind on the next thing on our agenda, which was going into Pisa to find Allison and Q at their overnight hotel. Unfortunately, a combination of the tears and a rubbish Google map meant that we started off heading in the wrong direction, which meant we didn't manage to get back onto the right track and, not for the first time, we ended up lost in central Pisa. With my eyes still welling up every couple of minutes, I managed to help Stuart navigate to close to the Piazza dei Miracoli, which I knew was just minutes away from Allison and Q's hotel. We eventually found a side street in which to park the car, and decided to do the rest on foot.
We certainly managed to get our Pisa fix in - having never made it to the centre of the city before, and never seen the famous sights, we can now tick the leaning tower off our sightseeing to-do list:
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| Leaning tower? Yep, been there, seen it. |
After going round in circles for a short while, we got ourselves back on track and eventually found the hotel with Allison and Q patiently waiting inside for us. It was lovely to see them, and while the bitterness of saying farewell to Mum and Dad had knocked me for six, seeing Allison and Q put some sweetness back into the day.
We decided to go out for a coffee and croissant for breakfast, so headed back to the action and sat at a café right underneath the tower. The sky was blue, the sun was shining, the coffee was good, the company was great. The city was just too busy and full of tourists for us though, so once we'd had two rounds of coffee each, Stuart and I suggested we make a move, and after going back to the hotel for Allison and Q to collect their bags, we wended our way through the back streets of Pisa back to the car, and headed in the direction of home.
Of course, having got lost coming into Pisa, we didn't really know the right way out of it, so we simply followed our instincts. We eventually found ourselves on the Pisa to Lucca road - not the fast route we would usually use for the journey home, but it would get us there, and it is a very beautiful, very scenic route.
Almost an hour later, we were on the outskirts of Pescia - which we were surprised to find was still trying hard to shift its mist (several hours after we had driven through in the thick fog). As we drove out the other side of the town and headed for Pietrabuona however, the mist cleared and the sky was cloudless, just as it had been this morning.
Once we got home, we gave Allison and Q a quick tour of the apartment, house and garden. Of course, they'd already seen all of it in pictures on the blog, but I don't think the pictures quite measure up to seeing it in real life.
After Allison and Q had had a chance to catch their breath, Stuart, Allison and I headed back into Pescia to catch the last hour of Esselunga's Sunday opening to do a spot of shopping for the week ahead. Two trolley-loads later, we packed the car up and drove back home to find Q happily installed on the guest patio reading the paper.
After unloading the shopping and changing from jeans into shorts, we gathered everyone together to head up to Vellano to the chestnut festival once again. It was gone 2pm by this time, and Stuart had his mind set on one of Mimmo's spicy Calabrian sausages for lunch!
Just like last week, we arrived in Vellano and were directed to a parking spot by a parking marshal, then made our way into the town on foot. Our first stop was Mimmo's van, where both Stuart and Q ordered a spicy Calabrian sausage sandwich while Allison and I both had pulled pork - all very delicious! While we were eating, Michelle and Pif arrived, so we had a quick chat with her as well as Mimmo before we set off to make our way further into town.
Just as we had done with Mum and Dad last week, we walked all the way up through the town to the square at the top of the village, where we stopped to admire the stunning views.
We then slowly made our way back down towards the church. Once again, we stopped outside the church to share some wine and a bowl of chestnuts.
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| Chestnuts and wine. |
After that, we decided to head for the circolo to try some of the other chestnut-based offerings. As it has been last week, the circolo was packed with people and noisy with live music, but this time we persevered, and Stuart and I shared chestnut flour crepes (necci) filled with Nutella and ricotta cheese (delicious!). While sitting eating our goodies, we spotted Alex and Donatella, who had arrived with some friends, so had a quick catch up with them, before deciding it was time to head on our way back home so that we could sit outside and enjoy the last hour or so of daylight with our guests.
Once we were home, I made a quick phone call to Bristol to check in with Mum and Dad (who I was pleased to hear had arrived home safely), then Allison and Q joined us on the patio for some Prosecco and nibbles.
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| Prosecco and nibbles for four. |
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| Such a change in the weather since yesterday! |
When the light started to fade, Stuart and I put the geese to bed (keenly watched by Allison), then we all retired to the relative warmth of indoors to open some more wine, chat some more, cook and eat dinner.
We had a lovely evening, but all retired to bed for a relatively early night after what seemed to have been quite a long day for everyone.
Tomorrow morning, Stuart and I face the trip to Montecatini Terme to return the hire car to Europcar- so let's hope the 182 bus really is fixed!
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