Quiet change in scene

Today, we decided that a quiet change in scene was due, so after being allowed a lie-in until 8am by our furry friends, and having a leisurely breakfast, we headed into Pescia to give Reggie a walk. We parked up at Chris and Sue's and walked with Reggie along the path to San Lorenzo and back. For some reason, the San Lorenzo path always proves tricky for Reggie when it comes to cars, but today he was a superstar and didn't lunge at any of those that passed us, even those that sped past at a speed that seemed a little unsuitable for a quiet narrow lane with a couple of pedestrians and a dog pinned up against the wall. He still has some way to go to get over his issues with cyclists though - it seems that, in his mind, 4 wheels are fine, but 2 wheels are definitely not.

After returning from San Lorenzo we went up to Chris and Sue's house - I went to check on the house while Stuart went to check on the chickens, refill their water and food containers and collect today's round of eggs. With the chickens laying around 6-7 eggs each day, we have more eggs than we know what to do with at the moment, and we're only a third of the way through our chicken-caring duties!

We then came back home for an early lunch - more of yesterday's potato, bean and courgette salad with mozarella, olives and pesto, made with both potatoes and courgettes fresh from the vegetable plot. Oh and a couple of hard boiled eggs to accompany it.

After lunch, we finally decided that, for our change of scene, we would pay a visit to Montecatini Alto and try to find the photographic exhibition that our guests Diane and Ernest had told us about. We gave Reggie a bone to keep him occupied, then set off for Montecatini Alto.

We climbed through the steep streets to find the old church housing the exhibition and spent an interesting hour looking at all the photographs. The exhibition is a comparative of 'then and now' photographs of the little hilltop village. Each old photograph is displayed next to 1-2 more modern equivalents, with the old photographs ranging from the late 1800s to around 1914, and the more modern ones anything from 1940s through to 1980s and 2010s. We were immediately struck by just how little anything had changed. In many cases they might as well be the same photograph, with just one version in black and white and one in colour. There were exceptions of course, such as the beautiful grand old hotel that was demolished to make way for a hideous monstrosity in the late 90s - which stands out like a sore thumb on the skyline of the little village and which itself is now empty, abandoned and decaying, after apparently having been seized from the Mafia (yes, really) a few years ago.

After the exhibition, we wandered back down through the streets of the village, trying to avoid the main square which was now bustling with tourists, then made our way back to the car.

Montecatini Alto's quieter streets.

Since we were close to Montecatini Terme, we decided to take the opportunity to pay a visit to Obi to look for some bits and pieces that we needed for the apartment. Each time we have guests in the apartment we ask whether there is anything missing - anything they wished they'd had available but that wasn't there - and we now have a short list of items that we need to add. Top of the list was a garden umbrella. While the fir trees provide a lovely shady spot on the guest patio, the shade doesn't actually last very long, and we have often seen guests with their chairs pinned right up against the screen on the patio, desperately trying to seek the shade. We therefore made a garden umbrella our priority for today, and left Obi with one umbrella and stand. We didn't do so well on the other bits and pieces, but were happy to settle for the most important one today.

We then wended our way home, spent a couple of hours on the patio in the evening sun, before coming indoors for dinner and a quiet night.