Simone, me and Sergio
My cousin Sergio, Marino, me, Elena the woman who takes care of my cousin Grazella and Simone
My cousin Simone on his Harley Davidson 883 Sportster
Street in Montecatini
Me and some great Gelato
Our car in Montecatini
Monteriggioni Square
Church in Monteriggioni
Day 16 Leaving Assisi word of the day…..ghiaccio…gee ach O ….ice….always looking for in Italy!
We got up about 8:15 this morning. It was a very nice evening of sleeping because the rain had cooled down the temperature about 15 degrees at night. Dan fired up the computer and I just laid in bed relaxing. I got up and showered and got ready to leave about 9 am. We headed for some breakfast after Dan showered. They had breakfast cereal, sweets, yogurt, fruit, bread, cheese and meats. It was nice. We met some people from NYC at breakfast. They were in Italy for a wedding of a friends son in Rome. We had a nice conversation with them and then wished them a buon viaggio and said goodbye. Check out time was 10 am and it was time to check out but we wanted to do a little shopping before we left so we asked if we could leave our bags in the office. They said no problem and gave us a key to get back into the hotel to get our bags. We moved all our stuff into the office and headed out for some shopping. We were gone about 1 hour or so and had a very successful shopping trip. We picked up our packs and headed UP(emphasis on UP) to the car. It was about a 10 minute walk uphill. We also got some of our parking validated so it only cost us 10 Euros for 20 hours of parking. Dan says it was better than PDX! We headed down the hill and out of Assisi bound for Marcos. Dan estimated it would take about 2 hours. The driving was easier today as we stayed off the main freeway and used an auxiliary freeway instead. It was very nice and it was 4 lanes. The lanes just were not as wide as the main freeway but it was free, no tolls to pay on this road. Dan asked me if I wanted to stop in Monteriggioni for some lunch. He had been talking to my cousin Paulo and Paulo said it was a nice little town and we should go there if only for some lunch, so we did. The town is located on this little hill and inside the walls of an old fortress. It was not very big as we walked around. We made the whole town loop in less than 15-20 minutes. We found a nice restaurant and had some lunch before we headed back to Marcos. From Monteriggioni it was only a 45 minute drive to Marcos. When we arrived everyone was at work. I packed all my things up to the third floor where our room is and took a nice shower and laid down for a rest. I think I slept about 30 minutes, mostly just relaxed. I called my Mom and talked to her for about 10 minutes. She really misses me. I miss her too. I email her daily and send copies of my blog when we have an internet connection. It was great to talk to her and I told her I would call her on Sunday from NYC on the way home. I will keep her updated with emails. I have an iphone and it is so nice getting my email directly on my phone regardless of the internet and computer. I love technology! I came down stairs about 5:45 and Dan had been busy organizing our photos in Adobe Photo Album so we can show my cousins the pictures of our trip. We are just hanging out with the dogs, Molly and Job on the patio waiting for everyone to come home from work. We had a nice dinner and visit with Marco, Michela and Martina. They wanted to hear all about our trip. We showed them some of the things that we had bought and shared stories from our adventure. They really enjoyed looking at some of the 800 plus pictures that we have taken. I headed up to bed about 10:30 PM as I was tired…stanka in Italian. Ciao
Day 17 word of the day…pomeriggio…pom er riggio ….afternoon
Woke up fairly early today but just relaxed and checked my iphone email. I have enjoyed having my iphone in Italy. It has let me keep in touch with family and friends through texting and email almost daily. I know that my Mom has really enjoyed my daily email updates as well as receiving my updated blog entries through email. Today we are going to head to the Bank to exchange some money and touch bases with Simone, my cousin to see what time he wants us to come to dinner tonight. We needed to go back to Ponte Buggianese to see my cousin Augusto. He wanted us to come to dinner when we got back from our trip. I also want to head over to my cousin Christiano’s house to spend the afternoon in the pool. We headed out to Montecatini to the bank and to see Simone, his hair salon is across the street from the bank we go to, about 11:00 am. We took the wrong turn and ended up trying to get on the right street. It seemed like all the streets were one way the wrong way. We finally figured it out. We have been there many times but it is still easy to take the wrong street and then you end up driving around trying to get on the right street to get back to where you want to go. I found a place to park just around the corner from the bank. There were many shops along the way to window shop in. I could not believe the prices for clothes that they wanted. They need a Kohls in Italy, it would go over big! When you enter a bank in Italy you have to go through this little tube that opens on both sides. It is their security system. When I tried to go in, it would not open on the other side. I couldn’t figure out why so I stepped back out. This Italian lady tried to explain to me that I have to lock my purse up in the little lockers they had outside the bank. I couldn’t figure out why as I had previously taken my purse in before. However I think the reason is that I had my metal point and shoot camera in my purse and it must have detected to much metal. I just told Dan I would wait outside while he exchanged the money. The line was pretty long and it took him about 15 minutes but I enjoyed watching the people go by. When he came out we walked across the street and up stairs to Simone’s Hair Salon. He was happy to see us and asked us how our vacation was. His English is not that good and he mostly spoke Italian but we could understand what he was saying. He told us that we would be eating at his Dad, Sergio’s house and to arrive at 8:00 PM. We said our goodbyes and told him we would see him later. We decided to grab a light lunch anticipating a big dinner with the family. We walked down the street and found a little bar with seating on the sidewalk and each had a panini for lunch with some water. It was just enough. However I wanted to stop and get some Gelato. We found a really great gelato place. They had many flavors to choose from and I had lemon, cream and a berry gelato. I shared with Dan as he does not want to get one of his own. We headed back to the car to go to my cousin Augusto’s Jewelry shop in Ponte Buggianese. When we got there he buzzed us in(another security measure) and greeted us. He told us that we just missed his wife Diana that she left tow minutes before we got there. Now remember that my cousin speaks NO English so our whole conversation is in Italian. We both have to really concentrate on what he is saying and look up any works we do not understand in the dictionary or my little language computer. We did very well. After about 10 minutes, Diana returned to the store. It was nice to see her, she is a very nice woman. They wanted to know when we were leaving and what would be the best day to come over to his house for dinner. We told him that Thursday would be the best day. We had some purchases to get from Augusto. He has some beautiful jewelry in his store. I bought a beautiful gold bracelet from him. The one I really wanted was about $1500. Yes I know I have great taste! We said our goodbyes and we headed back to Marcos to get our Italian cell phone that Marco let us use to call my cousin Omar to see if we could stop at his work and use his internet and to see if we could swim. I called a couple of times but there was no answer so we decided to just drive over to the house and see if Sylvia was there. She runs the bed and breakfast and is at the house most of the time. When we arrived I went and buzzed the house with the intercom and Sylvia answered and I told her it was Leta. She opened the gate and walked out to greet us. I asked her if we could swim and she said of course. We walked around the back of the house to the pool and there were several of her guest already at the pool getting some sun. We changed into our suits and I dove right in. The water was great. After about an hour Sylvia came over to visit with us. Her English is pretty good although she doesn’t think so. It’s like anything else, you have to use it to get better. It was a nice visit with her. We had to leave about 6:00 PM to head back to Marco’s to get ready for dinner with the Tognarelli’s. Before we left I asked Sylvia if we could come back tomorrow for more swimming. She asked what time we would be coming because she usually takes a nap. I told her 3 Pm and asked it that time was OK. She said yes that it would be fine. We grabbed our stuff and she walked us out to our car to open the gate for us. We said goodbye and headed back to Marcos. We both showered and got dressed to head over to Sergio’s in Ponte Buggianese. It takes about 20 minutes to get to his house from Marcos. We left Marco’s about 7:40 PM and arrived at Sergios at 8 PM on the nose. Sergio was there to greet us as we drove in his driveway. He has had some heart problems recently and has lost a lot of weight since I last saw him 12 year ago. He greet me with the traditional kiss on both cheeks. He was genuinely happy to see us. I could see it in is face and eyes. He told me right away about his heart problems and I could understand him. I asked him how he was doing now in Italian and he said good and started to jog…we all laughed. Next we were greeted by Sergio’s brother Marino. Marino is 86 and looks the same. He has really not aged much except he his hair is grayer. As we were walking to the house Sergio told me that his wife Grazella was very ill. She is in a coma and they have someone that lives with them and takes care of her. I imagine she take care of Sergio and Marino as well. Sergio is 76 but looks very good. Both he and Marino have a full head of hair. Sergio’s son Simone greeted us next. He was busy doing the cooking. We were introduce to Elena the woman who takes care of Grazella. I have many fond memories of Grazella. It is to bad that she is so ill as she is only 66 years old. I feel very bad for my family. Sergio took us in to see her and it is just all very sad. You can see the pain in their eyes and I hurt for them. We went outside on the porch where they had a table set. We sat down for dinner. We had a wonderful time with them. Simone’s English is very limited and no one else knows any English but we managed to talk all night long. The food was wonderful and Simone planned the whole meal. We were very appreciative to be invited to their how considering how ill Grazella is. I think it was a distraction for them to have us over. They are just very warm and wonderful people. As we were getting ready to leave Sergio wanted to know when we were coming back. We told him we would be back in 3-4 years. He told Dan that when we came back he was going to give him some good wine to bring back to the states. Sergio had given us a bottle of wine 12 years ago when we visited them and Dan told him that we still have it and that it is in his collection. Simone told us some information about the Tognarelli family that we did not know. He is very proud to be a Tognarelli and a Tuscano. We thoroughly enjoyed visiting with him and learning new things about our family. Simone is planning to come to the US in 09 or 10 for 15 days. I told him that I have a room at our house he can stay in when he comes. He is very excited to have family to come and stay with and I’m excited to have family from Italy come and stay with us and meet their American cousins. I told him when he came that we would have a big party with all his American cousins. He thought that sounded great. As we were heading to the car and saying our goodbyes, Simone wanted to show us his Harley Davidson 833 Sportster motorcycle. Since both Dan and I have bikes Simone knew that we would want to see his bike. It is a black beauty. I took a picture of Simone on his bike. I told Simone to make sure and let us know when he will be coming to the US. I gave him all our contact information before we left. As we were saying our last goodbyes, Simone wanted Dan to take a picture of me, him and his Dad. We gave our last goodbye hugs and I told Simone to keep me posted about his mother. He said that he would. As we drove home I told Dan just how much I enjoyed the evening. It was 10:30 Pm when we left. We both were tired and hit the hay as soon as we got back home. Good night…
Day 18 Relaxing…word of the day..asciugamano…a shoe ga mano……towel….
I slept really great last night. I don’t remember waking up at all which is good. I did however wake up with a slight headache. I woke up about 8:15 am, not my usual 6 am. Dan was getting up but I decided to stay in bed because of my headache. I finally got out of bed about 9:15 am and headed in to shower and get ready for the day. I came down and Dan was reading. I made a shake and Dan has some fruit for breakfast. We walked over to this little store that is 2 mintes from Marcos to look for a glass olive oil carraf like the one that Michela has. They didn’t have one darn it. We came back and have just been relaxing. Marco and Martina are now home and we are going to have some lunch with them. We are going over to Christiano’s to swim at 3 PM. I will not be able to post now until we are in NYC on Sunday.
My cousin Simone on his Harley Davidson 883 Sportster
Street in Montecatini
Me and some great Gelato
Our car in Montecatini
Monteriggioni Square
Church in MonteriggioniDay 16 Leaving Assisi word of the day…..ghiaccio…gee ach O ….ice….always looking for in Italy!
We got up about 8:15 this morning. It was a very nice evening of sleeping because the rain had cooled down the temperature about 15 degrees at night. Dan fired up the computer and I just laid in bed relaxing. I got up and showered and got ready to leave about 9 am. We headed for some breakfast after Dan showered. They had breakfast cereal, sweets, yogurt, fruit, bread, cheese and meats. It was nice. We met some people from NYC at breakfast. They were in Italy for a wedding of a friends son in Rome. We had a nice conversation with them and then wished them a buon viaggio and said goodbye. Check out time was 10 am and it was time to check out but we wanted to do a little shopping before we left so we asked if we could leave our bags in the office. They said no problem and gave us a key to get back into the hotel to get our bags. We moved all our stuff into the office and headed out for some shopping. We were gone about 1 hour or so and had a very successful shopping trip. We picked up our packs and headed UP(emphasis on UP) to the car. It was about a 10 minute walk uphill. We also got some of our parking validated so it only cost us 10 Euros for 20 hours of parking. Dan says it was better than PDX! We headed down the hill and out of Assisi bound for Marcos. Dan estimated it would take about 2 hours. The driving was easier today as we stayed off the main freeway and used an auxiliary freeway instead. It was very nice and it was 4 lanes. The lanes just were not as wide as the main freeway but it was free, no tolls to pay on this road. Dan asked me if I wanted to stop in Monteriggioni for some lunch. He had been talking to my cousin Paulo and Paulo said it was a nice little town and we should go there if only for some lunch, so we did. The town is located on this little hill and inside the walls of an old fortress. It was not very big as we walked around. We made the whole town loop in less than 15-20 minutes. We found a nice restaurant and had some lunch before we headed back to Marcos. From Monteriggioni it was only a 45 minute drive to Marcos. When we arrived everyone was at work. I packed all my things up to the third floor where our room is and took a nice shower and laid down for a rest. I think I slept about 30 minutes, mostly just relaxed. I called my Mom and talked to her for about 10 minutes. She really misses me. I miss her too. I email her daily and send copies of my blog when we have an internet connection. It was great to talk to her and I told her I would call her on Sunday from NYC on the way home. I will keep her updated with emails. I have an iphone and it is so nice getting my email directly on my phone regardless of the internet and computer. I love technology! I came down stairs about 5:45 and Dan had been busy organizing our photos in Adobe Photo Album so we can show my cousins the pictures of our trip. We are just hanging out with the dogs, Molly and Job on the patio waiting for everyone to come home from work. We had a nice dinner and visit with Marco, Michela and Martina. They wanted to hear all about our trip. We showed them some of the things that we had bought and shared stories from our adventure. They really enjoyed looking at some of the 800 plus pictures that we have taken. I headed up to bed about 10:30 PM as I was tired…stanka in Italian. Ciao
Day 17 word of the day…pomeriggio…pom er riggio ….afternoon
Woke up fairly early today but just relaxed and checked my iphone email. I have enjoyed having my iphone in Italy. It has let me keep in touch with family and friends through texting and email almost daily. I know that my Mom has really enjoyed my daily email updates as well as receiving my updated blog entries through email. Today we are going to head to the Bank to exchange some money and touch bases with Simone, my cousin to see what time he wants us to come to dinner tonight. We needed to go back to Ponte Buggianese to see my cousin Augusto. He wanted us to come to dinner when we got back from our trip. I also want to head over to my cousin Christiano’s house to spend the afternoon in the pool. We headed out to Montecatini to the bank and to see Simone, his hair salon is across the street from the bank we go to, about 11:00 am. We took the wrong turn and ended up trying to get on the right street. It seemed like all the streets were one way the wrong way. We finally figured it out. We have been there many times but it is still easy to take the wrong street and then you end up driving around trying to get on the right street to get back to where you want to go. I found a place to park just around the corner from the bank. There were many shops along the way to window shop in. I could not believe the prices for clothes that they wanted. They need a Kohls in Italy, it would go over big! When you enter a bank in Italy you have to go through this little tube that opens on both sides. It is their security system. When I tried to go in, it would not open on the other side. I couldn’t figure out why so I stepped back out. This Italian lady tried to explain to me that I have to lock my purse up in the little lockers they had outside the bank. I couldn’t figure out why as I had previously taken my purse in before. However I think the reason is that I had my metal point and shoot camera in my purse and it must have detected to much metal. I just told Dan I would wait outside while he exchanged the money. The line was pretty long and it took him about 15 minutes but I enjoyed watching the people go by. When he came out we walked across the street and up stairs to Simone’s Hair Salon. He was happy to see us and asked us how our vacation was. His English is not that good and he mostly spoke Italian but we could understand what he was saying. He told us that we would be eating at his Dad, Sergio’s house and to arrive at 8:00 PM. We said our goodbyes and told him we would see him later. We decided to grab a light lunch anticipating a big dinner with the family. We walked down the street and found a little bar with seating on the sidewalk and each had a panini for lunch with some water. It was just enough. However I wanted to stop and get some Gelato. We found a really great gelato place. They had many flavors to choose from and I had lemon, cream and a berry gelato. I shared with Dan as he does not want to get one of his own. We headed back to the car to go to my cousin Augusto’s Jewelry shop in Ponte Buggianese. When we got there he buzzed us in(another security measure) and greeted us. He told us that we just missed his wife Diana that she left tow minutes before we got there. Now remember that my cousin speaks NO English so our whole conversation is in Italian. We both have to really concentrate on what he is saying and look up any works we do not understand in the dictionary or my little language computer. We did very well. After about 10 minutes, Diana returned to the store. It was nice to see her, she is a very nice woman. They wanted to know when we were leaving and what would be the best day to come over to his house for dinner. We told him that Thursday would be the best day. We had some purchases to get from Augusto. He has some beautiful jewelry in his store. I bought a beautiful gold bracelet from him. The one I really wanted was about $1500. Yes I know I have great taste! We said our goodbyes and we headed back to Marcos to get our Italian cell phone that Marco let us use to call my cousin Omar to see if we could stop at his work and use his internet and to see if we could swim. I called a couple of times but there was no answer so we decided to just drive over to the house and see if Sylvia was there. She runs the bed and breakfast and is at the house most of the time. When we arrived I went and buzzed the house with the intercom and Sylvia answered and I told her it was Leta. She opened the gate and walked out to greet us. I asked her if we could swim and she said of course. We walked around the back of the house to the pool and there were several of her guest already at the pool getting some sun. We changed into our suits and I dove right in. The water was great. After about an hour Sylvia came over to visit with us. Her English is pretty good although she doesn’t think so. It’s like anything else, you have to use it to get better. It was a nice visit with her. We had to leave about 6:00 PM to head back to Marco’s to get ready for dinner with the Tognarelli’s. Before we left I asked Sylvia if we could come back tomorrow for more swimming. She asked what time we would be coming because she usually takes a nap. I told her 3 Pm and asked it that time was OK. She said yes that it would be fine. We grabbed our stuff and she walked us out to our car to open the gate for us. We said goodbye and headed back to Marcos. We both showered and got dressed to head over to Sergio’s in Ponte Buggianese. It takes about 20 minutes to get to his house from Marcos. We left Marco’s about 7:40 PM and arrived at Sergios at 8 PM on the nose. Sergio was there to greet us as we drove in his driveway. He has had some heart problems recently and has lost a lot of weight since I last saw him 12 year ago. He greet me with the traditional kiss on both cheeks. He was genuinely happy to see us. I could see it in is face and eyes. He told me right away about his heart problems and I could understand him. I asked him how he was doing now in Italian and he said good and started to jog…we all laughed. Next we were greeted by Sergio’s brother Marino. Marino is 86 and looks the same. He has really not aged much except he his hair is grayer. As we were walking to the house Sergio told me that his wife Grazella was very ill. She is in a coma and they have someone that lives with them and takes care of her. I imagine she take care of Sergio and Marino as well. Sergio is 76 but looks very good. Both he and Marino have a full head of hair. Sergio’s son Simone greeted us next. He was busy doing the cooking. We were introduce to Elena the woman who takes care of Grazella. I have many fond memories of Grazella. It is to bad that she is so ill as she is only 66 years old. I feel very bad for my family. Sergio took us in to see her and it is just all very sad. You can see the pain in their eyes and I hurt for them. We went outside on the porch where they had a table set. We sat down for dinner. We had a wonderful time with them. Simone’s English is very limited and no one else knows any English but we managed to talk all night long. The food was wonderful and Simone planned the whole meal. We were very appreciative to be invited to their how considering how ill Grazella is. I think it was a distraction for them to have us over. They are just very warm and wonderful people. As we were getting ready to leave Sergio wanted to know when we were coming back. We told him we would be back in 3-4 years. He told Dan that when we came back he was going to give him some good wine to bring back to the states. Sergio had given us a bottle of wine 12 years ago when we visited them and Dan told him that we still have it and that it is in his collection. Simone told us some information about the Tognarelli family that we did not know. He is very proud to be a Tognarelli and a Tuscano. We thoroughly enjoyed visiting with him and learning new things about our family. Simone is planning to come to the US in 09 or 10 for 15 days. I told him that I have a room at our house he can stay in when he comes. He is very excited to have family to come and stay with and I’m excited to have family from Italy come and stay with us and meet their American cousins. I told him when he came that we would have a big party with all his American cousins. He thought that sounded great. As we were heading to the car and saying our goodbyes, Simone wanted to show us his Harley Davidson 833 Sportster motorcycle. Since both Dan and I have bikes Simone knew that we would want to see his bike. It is a black beauty. I took a picture of Simone on his bike. I told Simone to make sure and let us know when he will be coming to the US. I gave him all our contact information before we left. As we were saying our last goodbyes, Simone wanted Dan to take a picture of me, him and his Dad. We gave our last goodbye hugs and I told Simone to keep me posted about his mother. He said that he would. As we drove home I told Dan just how much I enjoyed the evening. It was 10:30 Pm when we left. We both were tired and hit the hay as soon as we got back home. Good night…
Day 18 Relaxing…word of the day..asciugamano…a shoe ga mano……towel….
I slept really great last night. I don’t remember waking up at all which is good. I did however wake up with a slight headache. I woke up about 8:15 am, not my usual 6 am. Dan was getting up but I decided to stay in bed because of my headache. I finally got out of bed about 9:15 am and headed in to shower and get ready for the day. I came down and Dan was reading. I made a shake and Dan has some fruit for breakfast. We walked over to this little store that is 2 mintes from Marcos to look for a glass olive oil carraf like the one that Michela has. They didn’t have one darn it. We came back and have just been relaxing. Marco and Martina are now home and we are going to have some lunch with them. We are going over to Christiano’s to swim at 3 PM. I will not be able to post now until we are in NYC on Sunday.
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