Old cars and even older traditions.

After breakfast on Friday, the four of us (i.e. everyone excluding my wife who was busy working in the office) headed towards town with Reggie.

Mom, auntie Helen and Reggie got out at the San Lorenzo hotel just the other side of Pietrabuona and headed off to walk the track into Pescia while uncle John and I went to the classic car event at the flower market in Pescia for an hour. I was keen to see inside the market as much as John was to nose around old motors, spares and tools.

Thanks to the eight enormous steel legs on the exterior that support the roof, the market itself is a vacuous uninterrupted square space, and while it's normally full of flowers and plants, today it gave way to old cars and the selling of car spares, tools and vaguely related paraphernalia as well some some unrelated paraphernalia such as fishing rods!

John and I enjoyed a good hour in a largely male environment rummaging around the piles of tools and looking open mouthed at the prices displayed on some of the cars as well as chatting briefly with Mimmo, who had his truck at the entrance; Michelle, who was walking her fox terrier Piff inside; and Paulo, from Frateschi, who was there with his son.

After an enjoyable lap of the market we left and walked out into a warmer morning. We called the women to arrange to meet up, which we did on the stone bridge across the river Pescia which joins the Santa Maria quarter to the piazza. We all piled into the car and parked up at Bar Fortuna for a beer and a snack before heading home for lunch.

For lunch, we finished off the last of Helen's rice salad along with some bean dip and aged pecorino cheese, after which the holiday makers headed off to relax for a couple of hours while Helen finished working her hours for the week and I did a little more dry stone walling in the parking area. It was frustratingly slow going today as I'm quickly running out of large, easy-to-stack stones, but after a couple of hours some visual progress had been made and when John appeared after a nap I called it a day to change so that we could all head into town once Helen had finished work for the Mediaeval festival.

Leaving Reggie at home, we drove into Pesicia where we parked in the San Francesco quarter of town and walked towards the sound of drums. Just as we arrived at the San Francesco church, the San Francesco drummers were getting into full swing and a flag thrower was doing his thing in front of them. It didn't take us long to spot Henry and Erik in the troop drumming along with the rest of them, although there was no sign of Chris and Sue.

After the drumming finished we browsed around the various mediaeval-style stalls before walking down to the Santa Maria quarter - just in time for their drumming and flag throwing to start. We all watched in awe as a young lad - who couldn't have been much older than 10 or 11 - threw his flags and did a very impressive display before the teenage group of flag throwers took over from him.

Once the Santa Maria flag throwers had ended their display, we headed across the river and up to the Ferraia district. Here, there was excellent display, including a range of birds of prey and a chap making a bow with an axe all accompanied with the smell of fires burning in readiness for cooking meals later in the evening in their pop-up trattoria.

Next it was down to the San Michele quarter, their stalls being set up in the park near to the San Michele church. It wasn't as good as the Ferraia set up, but they were offering the opportunity to try your hand at archery, and I couldn't resist giving it a whirl. After patiently waiting my turn, I finally got my hands on the bow and arrows, and even if I do say so myself, I did quite well - scoring 20 points with five frecce (arrows). I think I could quite easily get into that pastime (who knows, maybe with a bit of practice I could be head hunted by one of the quarters and given my own pair of mediaeval tights to wear!)

While all the others were waiting for me to try out my bow and arrow skills, they had bumped into Alex, Donatella, David and Sarah, so once I'd finished we all stood chatting for a good while as the drummers drummed their way past us to start their display and then drummed their way back in again once they'd finished.

We finally left our friends so that they could get on and see the rest of the festa while we headed in the direction of the piazza to search out a bar. We didn't make it very far before we heard a shout from behind us - Chris and Sue had spotted us walking past and Sue was shouting to us so we did an about turn and joined them for a very enjoyable hour or two with a couple of drinks. Come 7pm though, it was time for us to head home to rescue Reggie and for John to treat us to a fillet steak with lots of garlic, onions, mushrooms and French beans, all washed down with plenty of wine - what a TREAT!

It wasn't long before we all retired to bed, having had a busy day and planning an 8:30am departure in the morning to allow enough time to see the leaning tower of Pisa on the way back to the airport.