Montecarlo or Bust on Boxing day

Boxing day started at a leisurely pace here at numero 182. I was afforded the luxury of a lie-in after Stuart took it upon himself to get up for the cats, dog and geese, and we both had an extra snooze after that as Stuart left Reggie sitting quietly on the sofa by himself while he came back to bed for another hour's sleep. We were amazed by how quiet and well behaved the little pup was all on his own, and can only conclude that he too must have dozed off for another hour or so - still tired from all the excitement of Christmas day.

Once we were all up, I made a start on the piles and piles of washing up from the previous day's festivities then made a pan of porridge. It was the first porridge we'd had since being here and it tasted delicious.

Paul, Marie and Nero joined us a little after 11.30 and, after Stuart and Paul had finished the mountain of washing up (although I started it pre-porridge making, I had barely made a dent in it), we gathered dogs and coats and set off for an afternoon in Montecarlo.

The weather was beautiful - crystal clear, bright blue skies and warm sunshine - although decidedly chilly in the shade. This meant that the views today were simply stunning in all directions - a good day to visit Montecarlo, which sits atop a hill in the middle of the plains and offers views for miles around.

Bright and clear.

Boxing day view from numero 182.

By the time we arrived there it was getting on for 1.15pm. This being our first Christmas in Italy, we had no idea what the local folk get up to and whether Boxing Day would be busy or quiet, whether shops would be open or closed, and whether we would be likely to find anywhere to serve us a drink or some food.

By the looks of things, most shops and bars remain closed on Boxing day - which, of course is simply St Stephen's day (San Stefano) here. We saw many more people out and about today than we had done on Christmas day itself - families out walking and kids playing with new toys etc., which is just the way it should be (none of this rushing off to the shops for sales shopping). Anyway, although more than half of the shops and bars in Montecarlo were shut for the holidays, there were a couple of places open, including the pizzeria that Stuart had visited with Rob and Lee a couple of months ago. This place has a lovely sunny outdoor terrace that we thought would be just warm enough for us to sit at with the dogs, so Stuart went in just to make sure they really were open. He was told that we were welcome to go in and sit inside for lunch and so were the dogs!

This sounded even better - we weren't sure how Reggie would behave on his first trip to a restaurant, but it wasn't busy and we were willing to give it a whirl. We therefore all traipsed into the lovely sunny room which has windows all across the front wall to make the most of the panoramic views. Dogs settled under the table, we got on with the business of ordering some carafes of wine, plates of antipasti and pizzas and enjoyed the most delicious boxing day lunch.

The sunshine was so bright streaming in through the windows that we had to ask for the blinds to be lowered a little as we were all overheating - who would have thought we would be complaining about it being too hot and sunny on December 26th?!

After we'd filled ourselves to stuffing point once again, we headed out into the cool fresh air to walk a circuit of the town, admire the views and stretch the dogs' legs before driving back to our own little hill.

The rest of the afternoon was spent chatting, packing (for Paul and Marie) and relaxing, and before we knew it, it was getting on for dinner time. Not wanting to face cooking again (or, more to the point, not wanting to create more piles of washing up), we settled on a dinner of nuts, cheese, cured meat and pickles followed by more panetone and panforte. It was another lovely evening - and indeed the whole day was lovely - with great company. None of us can quite believe that Paul, Marie and Nero have come to the end of their stay here and will be heading homewards tomorrow. They've been such great company and the perfect Christmas guests, we'll all miss them!