Life as Usual in Italy

I have to admit that after all these years writing blog posts has become somewhat boring to me. Many of you out there have expressed continued enjoyment of them so here is a quick one to bring you up to speed on what is happening.

Originally, Dom and I planned to be in Italy in April and May. However, life interfered. For the second summer in a row our house is on the market in our effort to move from Whidbey Island back to somewhere on the other side of the ferry. People keep asking us where we plan to find another house but that remains to be seen; somewhere north or south of Seattle is all we are certain of. I also had a lot of work crop up so it seemed prudent to defer our trip.

We ended up leaving on May 26. We spent three nights in London before flying on to Pisa last Saturday. We plan to be here until July 6.

Here are a few pictures to give you a taste of what we have been doing.

Friends who were recently in London told us about a fabulous exhibit on the Magna Carta at the British Library.

Here is the courtyard of the British Library. The exhibit on the Magna Carta celebrates the 800th anniversary of the document and details how it came to be a touchstone for democracies around the world. Interestingly, almost nothing of the Magna Carta continues to be a part of English Law.

One of the most fascinating things was not actually a part of the official exhibit. This is a picture of an embroidered copy of the Wikipedia article on the Magna Carta. It is about 20x5 feet and is an interesting juxtaposition of an ancient document, modern technology, and a timeless handicraft.

On our second full day in London we visited the Tate Modern located in the old Bankside Power Station building. This ginormous hall used to hold the power producing turbines.

Our first day in London was quite nice but the second was a classic drippy weather. I like this picture of St. Paul's beyond the Millenium Bridge. We also visited the museum at the rebuilt Globe Theatre. Unfortunately, we were unable to get tickets to a play. 

Once we arrived in Italy one of our first concerns, as always, was our internet connection. We went to the TIM store on Saturday afternoon but discovered all the store terminals in Italy were down. So, it was Monday before we were connected. What horror in this modern hyperconnected world!

Tuesday, June 2 was a national holiday--Festa della Repubblica. There was a large, amateur bike race that began and ended in the piazza in front of our apartment. They were setting up on Monday afternoon. The race honors Mario Cipollini, a sprinter who raced from 1989 to 2005. He was born in Capannori, one of the reasons the race is based here.

I got up just in time to watch the start of the race at 8:30 am. (It was a holiday!)

Several hours later here are the first riders finishing. It was easy to follow the race from our apartment because of the loudspeakers.

Life in Italy involves home maintenance just as it does any place else. Here is Dom taking a break from repairing one of our toilets. He was watching the racers finish.

Our friends Mary and Orlando moved into their new house last fall. It is a classic rustico and I found this quite charming. On the left is the access to the old bread over (now gone), a niche where Mary hangs her herbs to dry and a variety of other items. The lovely picture on the right had just been finished by Orlando's cousin when we arrived. The paint was still wet!

We are trying to walk every morning when it is still cool (and it is getting HOT!). Day before yesterday we passed this lovely house with a typical Italian garden.

Yesterday we went for a long drive up into the mountains and down towards Montecateni. We stopped for a delicious lunch in a tiny town called Prunetta. We ate outside and had a wonderful view of the green hills.

This picture does not do a good job of showing how lovely the view was down across the plain to the Pisan Hills. We were of the autostrada after stopping at Leroy Merlin, the Home Depot of Europe.

On this morning's walk we passed this fruit tree. That's one way of keeping the birds from the fruit.

This is the wedding store next to the bar where we stopped for coffee and pastry. I love seeing the designs but another not very good photo. It looks like black accents are in this season.

That's it for now! I promise another post next week.