I want to get down what we actually did, before it all becomes a wonderful dream. I will put pictures up sometime this week. I didn’t actually take all that many. I’m just not that person, though I will confess to wishing I was sometimes.
Anyway, here we go…
Friday- Flew out at about 6:30 a.m. local time and arrived in Pisa…
Saturday- …at 10:30 a.m. The flight was pretty quiet. We had bad movies (17 Again and Race to Witch Mountain) and not-great food. We arrived and were picked up by the villa’s house manager, who is Scottish-Italian and was very nice. We drove through Lucca and then went on to the villa, which was about 30 minutes away….through winding roads where you had to honk when you went around the turns so other cars knew you were coming and could get out of the way…and up the driveway (more on that later).
My dad and his wife made us sandwiches and then we took a three hour nap. We woke up and went to a restaurant in the tiny village behind the villa. We ate some delicious pizza and went back to bed. (We might have swam in the pool at some point, but I’m not sure)
Sunday- The day’s activities alternated between swimming (okay, sitting in the hot tub), eating, and sleeping. Lovely.
Monday- We went into Lucca in the morning and rented a car for me to drive. Actually, I rented a car for my dad to drive and I drove the car he had rented since I don’t drive cars with manual transmissions. Then we stopped by the train station and picked up our friends Beth and Shawn. We took them back to the villa and again spent time sleeping, sitting in the hot tub, and eating.
We went out to eat at a really lovely restaurant that evening, doing it Italian style. Dinner was at eight and we weren’t done until 10. Delicious.
Tuesday- We were all going to go to Florence and have a guided tour of the city. My dad was having some vertigo issues (had a bad spell on Sunday), so he and his wife stayed home and the rest of us got on a train and ventured forth. Florence is an amazing city. It’s incredibly beautiful and there’s so much there to see. But, it’s not fun when it’s really, really hot. Unfortunately, the heat kept me from enjoying it as much as I would have liked. We cut the tour a little short and took the train back to the villa for more pool time and eating. When we arrived, there was a note saying that Dad had gone to the doctor’s office and they’d be back later. I was worried and hoped it was a case of things just not getting better, rather than a case of things having gotten much worse. The boys started up the brick oven for pizzas and we relaxed for the rest of the afternoon.
Dad called and said that the doctor felt that his problems were due to his blood pressure, which he takes medication for. He hadn’t been eating sensibly (lots of cheese and salt) and hadn’t been drinking as much water as he should have. Nothing was a huge concern, but rather a wakeup call.
We made pizzas for dinner and drank some wine. Again, lovely.
Wednesday- We were going to take a train to a small mountain town, but we wouldn’t have been able to catch the train until around noon. Because of the heat, we elected to visit Lucca in the morning and then spend the afternoon at the villa. We walked around inside the walls and spent a little money. We ended up picking up some things for LouLa, a small painting for us, and some postcards and bookmarks. On the way back to the villa, we stopped at a supermarket and picked up three bottles of olive oil to take back, as well as other necessities. It was a major grocery store and was superficially much like grocery stores in the U.S. I would love to have their cheese selection in my local grocery store.
That evening the house manager made us an amazing meal. Afterwards, we sat and talked and my brother brought out his guitar. It was an excellent last evening at the villa.
Thursday- Beth, Shawn, Josh, and I all took a train to Pisa. Josh and I dropped our luggage off at the hotel where we would be staying for the night and met up with Beth and Shawn at the Leaning Tower. Again, it was incredibly hot, but I was determined to see the sites, even though I wouldn’t have minded laying on the bed in the air-conditioned hotel. Beth and I went inside the Bapestry and we took several pictures of the buildings. Walking up the Tower wasn’t even an option, but the architecture was amazing. I ended up getting a very nice purse at one of the outdoor stalls. I also managed to trip on a small step, which caused swelling to the top of my right foot. I got a little scared because it happened very quickly. Josh tracked down a cold-ish water bottle (no ice to be had!), which helped quite a bit. The entire top of my foot is bruised and still slightly swollen, but isn’t painful.
After saying good-bye to Beth and Shawn (who caught a train back to England), Josh and I went back to the hotel to cool off and I was able to get some ice there for my foot. We had dinner that evening in the hotel and were able to watch some television (House!).
Friday- We got to the Pisa airport at about 6:00 for our 7:40 flight. We ended up back at our home airport at 4:00 that afternoon. We met LouLa and my mom and stepdad there and had dinner and did a little swimming in the hotel pool. LouLa had an amazing time (“I told Grandma you said she could spoil me!”) and I hope my parents weren’t too tired after their week.
Most of all, I enjoyed the freedom to relax and do nothing. There are always obligations at home (house needs to be cleaned, kid needs to be fed, etc.) and I didn’t really have those kinds of obligations. It was a true vacation.
Next post: The driveway to the villa and my brush with celebrities in the airport!
