For sale – requires some work, excellent DIY project

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Just up the road from us there is a villa (well what was once a villa) which commands a great view of the area and, in it’s day would have been a grand place to live.

It has an internal courtyard and part of a roof.  As with many old villas it has no real foundations so would require a rebuild from the ground up.  But, given the laws around older villas, you couldn’t change the design during the renovation – or even add in any doors or windows that aren’t already part of the structure.

This type of property, as is, on a couple of acres of land around here – about €500k.  Any takers?

I Mondiali di Rugby – going nero

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It’s the business end of the Rugby World Cup and, even in this distant corner of Tuscany, we are feeling the excitement. And we’ll be up early again this coming weekend and heading into Siena to watch the quarter finals and support the All Blacks.

To show our support for the All Blacks, for the next two weeks Toscanakiwi is going black. Well parts of it anyway.

Go the All Blacks.

Visitors from home

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Next week we have visitors. Friends from New Zealand are dropping by our place as part of a mixed holiday/business trip to Europe. Isabel and Charlie live in Melbourne but have spent the last couple of weeks travelling from Paris south and we are expecting them to arrive on the 8th. Isabel has a conference to attend in Parma (home of the famous ham) on October 12 so we will have a couple of days to show them the best of Tuscany.

Tuscany in three and a half days. Where do we start?

Steve Jobs – Visionary

Aside

Those of you who know me know that I am a huge Apple fan.  This blog is written on a MacBook Pro and often updated via iPad or iPod.  I am even a (very small) shareholder in the company.

Steve Jobs, 1955 - 2011

Steve Jobs, 1955 - 2011

I have watched Steve Jobs keynote addresses for years as he has introduced amazing products that have changed what we do and the way we do things.

Although his passing wasn’t a surprise as his health has been deteriorating over the last few years, it is still a shock.  And a huge loss.

Last of the summer wine

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As summer turns to autumn, every week there are less and less visitors staying at our place. The days are still fine, sunny and hot – unusual weather the locals say.

From the height of the season when there would be kids, adults and inflatable toys everywhere around the pool, today there was just us. Bliss.

Washday in Siena

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Despite all the advances in the modern home, some things are still best done in the old way.

Clearly very few apartments in Siena have dryers so Saturday mornings the streets are lined with laundry.

Given this washing is hanging over a major road out of Siena I guess nothing says clean and fresh like the lingering odour of “Eau de Two Stroke”.

The terror of a hairdresser who speaks no English

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It’s one of those things that needs to be done – haircuts in foreign languages. It’s simple for a guy – you nip into Siena, find someone who cuts hair, gesture for a bit off the sides and a bit less off the top, “grazie mille” and you’re gone.

For girls it’s a bit different. Particularly if colour is involved and the way you’re going to look for the next month or two is at stake.

Jean faced this situation recently and with some trepidation entered the small salon we pass on the way to language school to make an appointment. The hairdresser, a young Italian guy, spoke no real english but was helpful and seemed to know what needed to be done. All good so far.

New hair and new sandals as well

As the appointment was made to follow one of the All Black RWC games, Jean left me sitting having a quiet, post game drink (not to be confused with the pre game drinks or the inter game drinks) and estimated, based on past experience, that the whole operation would take about 90 minutes. She would text me when things were getting close.

No problems, I’d just sit and watch the world go by. Maybe do a little window shopping. Maybe not. “Anchi birra per favoure”.

Ninety minutes later – no text. Two hours – no text. Two hours and 20 mins – no text. To put it another way – that’s about 8 beers and, needless to say, by this stage I was feeling pretty good about life. My main concern, in fact my only concern, was whether or not I would be able to stand up.

To test this, a walk to the salon was in order to check Jean hasn’t been abducted, murdered, or worse, things have gone horribly wrong and she’s sitting there with red or green hair or even worse, no hair.

As I stagger through the door Jean seems calm and relaxed and, more importantly still has hair. The process is progressing but progressing very slowly. The hairdresser is a perfectionist – no an artist and it seems I have another 40 minutes to fill. I wonder how I”ll do that?

Fourty minutes later all is well, Jean looks great, every single hair is in place and perfectly cut, dried and styled. Just the look to be dragging a drunk through the streets of Siena on the way home.

A trip through the Chianti hills

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Yesterday we went for a drive to Castellina in Chianti.  We have been there a number of times, both with others and by ourselves over the last few months, but this time we abandoned the autostrade for the backroads.

The trip from Siena to Castellina is a winding road through the lower slopes of the Chianti hills which then climbs up towards Castellina.

Everywhere you look there are classic Italian scences – even when you take a break to let Daisy the dog have a comfort stop.  “Good girl Daisy” and you turn around and this is the view.

The book of the blog

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As a WordPress blogger I receive a stream of emails about changes and improvements to the way WordPress works. The vast majority receive a cursory glance and are consigned to the trash.

One that arrived recently caught my attention. A company based in Germany called Feedfabrik could take any WordPress blog and make it into a book – both as a hard copy printed book and a soft copy PDF.

Given we had just reached 100 posts it seemed only sensible to make use of this offer. To that end, for those of you interested, below is a PDF booklet of the first 100 Toscanakiwi posts. The file size is 7.3Mb.

It is best viewed with the page setting “2 Up” in Acrobat.

Toscanakiwi – The First 100

House on a hill – Autumn

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As summer recedes and autumn takes hold, the landscape around us once again changes, revealing yet another Tuscany.

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Lunch at L’Osteria del Bigelli

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The lovely people who own the property we are staying at have gone out of their way to make us welcome, everything from dropping off fresh fruit collected from some of the fruit trees around the grounds to clearing trees to improve our view of Siena when we were away in Positano.

Last week they recommened a restaurant in Siena that they said served very good, very authentic Tuscan food. The restaurant is called L’Osteria del Bigelli and is siutated in the Campo in Siena.

We were a little sceptical as the standard of food in the Campo, with a limited number of exceptions, is quite poor and aimed more at speedy delivery to tourists so the restaurants can turn tables quickly rather than any real culinery excellence for more discerning customers – or even for us.

Following the rugby on Saturday morning we decided to try it out. The fact that is located next to La Birreria where we watch the Rugby World Cup matches made the decision even easier.

The restaurant consists of about 12 outside tables squeezed under large umbrellas to protect from the sun and 4 tables inside which, given the weather currently, remained empty while we were there.

We were very pleasantly surprised from the start. Jean had ravioli with cherry tomatoes and I had herb encrusted lamb with spinach. The food looked great, smelt great and tasted great. The lamb was so good I was concerned a South Island farmer wearing stubbies and a floppy hat was going to appear beside the table at any moment and say “I’ll take that mate” and walk off into the distance with it.

Washed down with a glass or two of vino the meal was superb. All up lunch cost just over €50 or about $NZ85 which is quite reasonable.

The verdict – a great recommendation, we will visit L’Osteria del Bigelli again soon.

September must be wedding season in Siena

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Supporting the All Blacks has meant we have spent quite some time in Siena over the last few weeks.  Fridays and Saturdays specifically, and every time there has been a steady stream of weddings being held at the Siena town hall in the Campo.  Clearly September is when couples both local and from all over Europe get married and Siena seems to be a popular choice.

In fact it is a bit of a production line with one group of wedding goers literally going into the Palazzo Pubblica as the preceding one comes out to be covered in confetti and rice.  On Saturday we took the time (along with a number of other casual observers) to watch this matrimonial ballet and to take a few photos along the way.

One large party – an Italian wedding – seemed to be taking an inordinate amount of time over the ceremony (italian’s taking their time, that’s unusual) and the following group who were from elsewhere in Europe – I say Germany, Jean says the UK – had to wait and wait and wait.

All ended up well though, they finally got their turn, I got some photos and to see some nice old cars, and Jean got to comment on all the frocks, shoes, hats, handbags, hair and makeup.

I Mondiali di Rugby – terza parte

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Saturday morning we made our regular pilgrimage to the Siena to watch the All Blacks play.  As we approached La Birreria, Jean commented “here we go again” referring to the ritual process of getting the television tuned to the right channel.

The perfect RWC breakfast - cappuccino, wine, beer and chips

But clearly we are having an influence on the bar.  When we arrived the TV was tuned in and already playing the warm up.  Chairs and tables had been arranged ready for us which meant we got to see the warmup, anthems and haka.  All things we wanted to see but usually missed.

We also had some fellow spectators join us.  A young couple from Hamilton who are in Europe for 5 weeks holiday walked in as we were getting settled.  They said they had driven an hour and 20 minutes from just south of Florence to find this particular bar in Siena. A blog they had read, written by Kiwis living in Tuscany, had mentioned it had live television coverage of the Rugby World Cup.  It took a moment for us to realise they were talking about Toscanakiwi.  Clearly our little blog has a wider readership than we thought – by at least 2 people.

So dear readers for the next big game  – the quarter final –  the drinks at La Birreria are on me.  See you all there.

Toscanakiwi hits 100

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Yesterday marked a milestone for Toscanakiwi with our 100th post. Given we’ve been away from New Zealand since the start of April which means something has been posted roughly (very roughly) every 1.6 days.

Part of the package from WordPress, the people who host the blog, are statistics about how many people read each post each day and total visits to the blog every day, week and month. Since starting the blog we have had over 4,800 visits or an average of 30 per day. Through August and September the average has risen to around 40 per day and over a week we regularly get anywhere from 200 to 500 visits.

So as we pass the 100th post, we want to thank everyone who has taken the time to read our ramblings and share in our Italian adventure. It means a lot to us to know that the folks at home – and all around the world based on the country visitor stats – are interested in the odd things we get up to and the fun and games that go with living in Italy.

Through watching the statistics one thing has become clear – the publishing mantra that “content is king”. Our content is based on what tends to happen around us on a daily basis, but if there is anything our lovely readers would specifically like us to do, talk about, talk about more or explore, please let us know. In fact, you can leave suggestions on this post if you wish.

Once again, thank you all for your support over the last few months and we hope you will continue to visit in the future as we continue our Italian adventure.

Ciao

Graeme and Jean