Berlin has lots of positives and lots of negatives, but it’s a place I think takes a little time to work out. We’ve only been here 2 days  but my observations for that short time are;

• The Berliners are fun people, particularly the young ones, they are polite and smile a lot, the ones over say 50, are mostly ok but some of them have a sour disposition and look at you like you’re something to stepped on, and accordingly will do every thing to avoid eye contact and serving you, particularly of you’re a tourist.
• Berlin is a series of communities, it takes a bit of getting used to, it’s not like Rome or Paris or Venice where it’s all obvious and close in the centre. At first it can look just like a large building site, which a lot of it is, but there are lots of havens and fun spots mixed into the other spots.
• There isn’t a lot of traffic, it’s away less busy than Sydney and way better organised.
• Public transport is terrific, the U Bahn system is great and I think the S Bahn ( trams)  are as well, but we have really got them sorted 100% yet.
• The shopping centres are big and fantastic but at first hard to find.
• It’s all super modern, even in the old East Berlin, and there is still a massive amount of development going on.
• The Wall which divided West Berlin from East Berlin and the West was an island in the middle of the Soviet dominated East. The Wall still pervades life in Berlin and there are still lots of it still standing but now protected from souvenir hunters. The areas where it isn’t standing is a line of 2 pavers running right around the city.

I think I’d like to come back and spend a bit more time here, there are masses of museums that I won’t get to see, there are masses of shops Genelle won’t have had a chance to hit.

Today we gave the knees and feet a rest, and did the Ho On Hop Off Bus and really got the feel of the city. The Wall murals, in the Eastside Gallery on the old Wall are spectacular. We went shopping at KaDeWa, and had coffee and quiche on the 6th floor where there is the most fantastic food hall. 

A walk down the hill from our hotel to check the area out and then a pizza nad beer at the hotel.

Tomorrow we’re heading out of the city to Sacchenhausen, the first and closest concentration camp to Berlin.

Ciao from Berlin

Paul




Berlin. Organised, space, clean, spread out. Not steep hills, lots of lifts, but lots of walking is needed. 

Breakfast in the hotel is pretty good, we top up for the day, tomorrow we’ve opted for the light breakfast. We get away a bit late and the plan is to walk 15 minutes to Tortenstrasse where there is a German Concept shop called “Fundamental” that Genelle has researched, with really different stuff. They also sell a variety of coffee, I try a Galao – a Portuguese brew they call a reverse cappuccino, it’s strong and packed with flavour, and good value for 2.50 Euro. Genelle buys a bit of stuff that nearly gets left in a souvenir place near Checkpoint Charlie later in the day. 

We continue walking down the hill, past the Jewish area and the synagogue in the area where Kristal Nicht (sic) occurred in a period in 30’s when the Nazi’s where starting to get traction. Then further down the hill to the river Spree to the Pergamon Museum.

Gather around readers, news flash, Genelle went to a museum today. Only one, not 2 like I did, but a significant sacrifice I think. The main item is the Ishtar Gates which were the entry to ancient Babylon as well as lots of Islamic art and relics. A great Museum and rated Berlins best, probably.

A quick drink and a muffin in the park near the museums and then I go into the Nues Museum where there are lots of ancient Egyptian and Chinese relics, the main item is the bust of Nefertiti from Egypt.

I think the Chermans knocked off a lot of stuff from the ancient world, maybe not as much as the British but still it’s a lot of stuff that probably belongs elsewhere. 

My feet and knees are struggling, the drugs don’t seem to be working very well and my feet feel like they are on fire. I have 2 enormous blisters under my right big toe and the next one on, I think a sock scrunched up under the a few days ago and rubbed a bit. 

We continue walking and get to Checkpont Charlie where West German Berlin ( England USA and France) met East German Berlin ( Soviet Union) and the only official entry point was through Checkpoint Charlie. It’s now a tourist Mecca, there is hardly any sign of the Berlin Wall left except for postcards with chips ( allegedly) from the Berlin Wall.

We decide to try the U Bahn, the Berlin Underground railway, and we leave Stademitte and head to Potsdamer Plaz, a major shopping centre, the train is packed but we walk up from underground to see a modern glass, still and concrete maze of buildings. We find the Mall of Berlin ( a great play on words)  and C&A for what might be my major purchase, I like their jeans. After a pizza and a caprese salad  I come away with 4 pairs of jeans for just over 100 Euros.

We braves the U Bahn back to Stademitte, change to Friedrichstrase, then to Naturkund station just around the corner from our hotel.

A shower and rest the feet are the only priorities.

Hooroo from Berlin.




Genelle has spent most of the night battling a migraine headache, not a good start to the day. 

5.30am rise, a quick shower, downstairs for a coffee and croissants, Dave and Ali scramble in and we load the taxi up dodging a dead rat near the back of the black taxi, and head down the hill, its dark but not that cold. The train is on time, and in no time we’re off heading towards Florence on the Regionale train with a couple who own an apartment in Cortona, he’s a Romanian ( now long time Aussie) biomedical engineer who studied in Milan, she’s a doctor, both semi retired. They spend a month in Cortona every year. Today they are travelling to Luca to have a look. Thankfully they both speak Italian well, as it’s needed pretty soon after leaving Camucia. Our train stops in the middle of nowhere, nothing said, a few urgent phone calls by passengers obviously heading somewhere between Camucia and Florence.

After a reasonable wait the news comes via other passengers and the train pa ( which we don’t understand) that there is a delay due to the train hitting somebody on the tracks. Not sure if it’s true or rumours, so we wait, and wait, wondering what we do about our connection to Florence. It’s then confirmed something bad has happened and another train pulls up beside us, they put a little platform between the 2 trains and we change over to the alternative train before another long wait before we start off. They have to wait for the “magistrate ” to arrive to check the scene, there are rescue people outside the train, police walking through the train, lots of tension and drama. The train we take is probably the one that was heading to Rome, if it is Dave and Alison will be pissed because it’s most likely their train.

We’ve now definitely missed the connection to Florence so I’ll have to talk to a conductor if I can to check out what we need to do. The new train is packed with people, sleeping, reading, calling people on their mobiles, mobile calls coming in and lots of “pronto” is head where we are sitting. At 8.05 am our new train starts to move slowly in the direction we want it to, as we pass the train there is no evidence of what has happened there than rescue people and a few police standing around beside the tracks outside.

When we get going tue train gets up to 160km per hour, not bad for a Regionale. We’re into Florence about an hour or so later than planned, Santa Maria Novella Station is humming, chock a block, and military everywhere, then we try to find somewhere where we can get our tickets changed to a later train, a helpful Tenitalia assistant gets us sorted, and we’re on a 10.15 to Venice but have to take our chances with 1st class seats. The train conductor advises us to take what we can and he’ll get us sorted on the way, at Bologna we have to move, the 1st class carriage is booked out, so they get us 2 really good disabled seats in 2nd class, appropriate I suppose if you saw me hobbling along carting my bag up and down trains and stepping into the crowds. 

The Frecciaragenta train hums along at up to 300 km / hour and we’re into Venice train station, out to the ferry ticket office, 2 tickets to Rialto, onto a packed ferry, we’re both hot and sweating and the crumbling knees are battling as I’ve stayed away from pain killers so far today – Venice and the hotel means I’ll dive deep into pain relief. We’re off the boat at Rialto B ferry terminal, dive into the crowds, wind our way through the Venetian alleys straight to the Hotel Da Bruno where we’ve stayed before. This is truly a beautiful city, but absolutely full of tourists, glass shops, bag and leather shops, gondoliers, and gelato shops. The old Venetians were mercenary’s, bankers, a navy for hire, money men in the extreme, it appears nothing has changed, they just kill less people in the alley ways these days.

We rest in the room, cool down and do a few odd jobs. Then it’s off to skirt San Marco to a glass place a Genelle wants to check out, my feet are killing me, I feel a blister coming on, but we find the shop and  after a 30 second look she decides it’s crap and leaves. My feet say ” kill her now” but my head says “nah”, she’ll still cost you money.

We meet our Cortona compatriots at a cafe near St Marks Basilica for a late lunch pizza for nutrition and beer to rehydrate. A quick wander to the water via the front of St Marks, a beautiful Byzantine Italian archtictural wonder that started out as the Doges (Ruler of Venice) chapel. The Doges Palace next door is a square dour building on the outside but inside its fantastic. We stop at the canal where you can see the Bridge of Sighs, when the prisoners of the Doge were taken to the gaol next door.


A quick wander through the alley ways over canals to their hotel, it’s lovely, bigger rooms and a bit more plusher than our place.

Dinner is on the water beside Rialto, a qick dinner but way dearer than Cortona but everything in Venice is dearer, especially on San Marco and Rialto on the water. Everyone is weary so a slow walk to the hotel and its nighty night for everyone.

We’ve booked a private water taxi to the airport tomorrow, expensive but takes some of the stress out of it and cuts a lot of time for travel.

Ciao from Venezia tonight. Tomorrow noght Genelle and I will be in Berlin. It’s tough this old age back packing

Pauolo

It’s now Monday morning in Cortona, once again I petered out before I could write yesterday’s blog, the walking, the food a few drinks all take their toll. So I’m sitting at Maladetti Toscana Cafe on Piazza Della Repubblica writing this with an espresso, watching the locals with their secret handshakes, walking sticks and newspapers sitting on the seats that only they sit at in front of Molesini delicatessen, and a few tourists on the steps in front of the Commune de Cortona. A man in camouflage gear walks into the piazza with a gun bag over his shoulder, he’s obviously been out hunting but nobody bats an eye, including the female copper with a bum large enough to match the Glock 9mm pistol on her hip. She’s drafting the traffic in and out of the piazza, officious looking but with a smile on her face, it looks like she enjoys her job and underneath the pursed lips she’s possibly quite a pleasant person.

It’s a beautiful day, a slight chill in the air, a hum from the suppliers dropping stores off to shops, a mini garbage truck sitting in the middle of the piazza, the driver having a heated discussion with somebody, it could only be a scene in Italy. Genelle, Jane, Sonya, John and Andrew have left on a walk to church outside the walls that is supposed to be quite beautiful. The group gets separated, 3 end up hitching a ride with a couple from San Diego in a car, and Genelle and Jane walk to a cafe near Bremasole and have a lovely walk back into town. 

Dave and Alison have just walked up the hill from Camucia after dropping their hire car from yesterday off and sorting out train tickets. They’ve discovered a minor faux pas in their travel plans, they booked their flight to Croatia for the 11th not the 10th and so need to get different train tickets and chill in Rome for a day before they leave – what a horrible place to have to spend a day!

Oh, nearly forgot, I got a bit distracted on the moment, unlike me,  I’d better give you an update on yesterday’s activities. 

Dave and Alison are driving locally and doing a walk today around Panicale where they stayed for 3-4 weeks 7 years ago. A chill day for them.

Back to Sunday now, we lean forward and walk slowly up the hill with our hands behind our backs, there is a reason they call it a hill town, bad knees and Cortona are an interesting mix, Daniel is waiting and we off down the hill, past the house they used to film Under Tuscan Sun ( not the real Bremasole), we hook left around Lago Trassimeno and head towards Perugia. I small chat with Daniel on Italian politics, sport and other boring stuff. I’ll give you a quick debrief;

Sport – thee is only one sport and that is football. There is only one football, all the others he thinks are handball. Soccer rules Italy’s thinking, its heart and other things undefinable and is good and bad. The bad involves gambling and crime and a lack of focus on important things like the wellbeing of the Italian people. Heavy shit me thinks. He said when he first started doing tourist work he had some Americans talking about soccer, and he actually didn’t know what they were talking about and eventually he said to them “What the f…. is soccer???” Rugby rates about as high as marbles against AFL in Melbourne nas Adelaide.

Politics – Daniel is thinking Italy needs a revolution to get things in balance again, I’m not sure what sort of revolution he’s talking about, but it’s sounding like the guns and overthrow the government type. I decide not to press this any further, he’s a passionate Italian with an 8 month old baby and wondering about the future for his child in a struggling economy in a place we don’t see the problems as much as we see the beauty.

We pass through Perugia, according to Daniel it’s a university city, full of drugs and crime. So, we keep driving another 15 km then up the bloody big hill past monks walking in their cassocks, middle aged men running in Lycra with nothing left to the imagination about their anatomy, what a contrast!

The St Frances of Assisi Basilica is about to start a mass, so we have a quick look and exit, because you can’t quietly exit while the service is on. It would have been good to hear the choir singing but there is a Franciscan monk directing regular parishioners to the front and tourists out the door – a Monk security guard sort of. We wander down stairs to the tomb of St Francis, who is patron saint of many things and was renowned for his kindness and compassion, pity he didn’t pass some of that compassion on to his staff in the 21 st century. Genelle and Jane buy a candle for St Francis thinking they might bring it home but the instructions are to leave it in a basket on the other side of the tomb, economic recycling, because I reckon they then put it in the for sale basket beside it and resell it again and again.

Assisi is full of Sunday tourists, church goers, locals and tour groups. We wander up the hill towards where we are doing a wine thing and lunch , the women shopping shopping shopping and the men observing with pursed lips and tense looks. Us blokes leave them in their natural environment and look at churches, plenty of those suckers in this Vatican town that are covered on beautiful frescoes and gold and all seem to have services going, maybe it’s my cynical attitude but it all seems at odds with the few beggars we see outside places including a church. Who has the money here and who should be caring for these poor bastards, if in fact they are really poor and destitute and need a feed? John sees a woman that is in the entry to the Church which is the Minerva, originally a Tuscan pagan temple, a buildinging build over 2500 years ago, and now a Catholic Church, he thinks she has no legs but when he exits with out dropping any Euros into her outstretched desperate pleading hands she stands up and walks outside. 

We have a coffee at a cafe on the piazza in front of Minerva, with the Corinthian columns in front, weathered and impressive. Lunch is really wine tasting and cheese and meats in a Trattoria. Our host is Mila, a blonde Ukrainian woman who is interesting, knows her stuff and challenges your understanding of wines. We share the event with some US navy personnel who are on a 4 day leave, it sort of ends up about square when the points in the wine identification are allocated, USA 3 Australia 3. It’s then a dance off and it’s still all square. We leave there a little worse for the wear.

A return to shopping and we nearly have to call for the ambulance, Sonya has a victory and John agrees to buy her a beautiful salad dish for Christmas, it’s red with a unique design, the shop owners mother does the pottery and Jane then gets an agreement out of Andrew for a similar purchase, to be delivered to Dubbo. We made a purchase from the same place earlier, a wallet and an oil dish but not a big spend. I think they’ve done well but John I think is feeling the stress a little.

Back to the van and Cortona by 5pm. It’s been a pretty good day.

Diner tonight is with Paola at Dolce Maria, our B&B host, she’s a pretty renowned chef and her specialty is Tagliatelle. It’s a beautiful meal, we don’t have to walk home, and we all fade pretty quickly.

Ciao ciao  for today. Tomorrow is our last day in Cortona.

Pauolo



It’s Saturday evening, I’m stuffed, partly my own fault and partly just what we’ve done today. We’ve been bloody busy! This may not get posted today as I’m not sure I’ll finish it tonight.

Today we’re on the road again after a little retail therapy at the regular Cortona Saturday markets. Breakfast is the usual downstairs at Dolce Maria, and today she had a beautiful damper with ricotta and honey, as well as the standard fair of scrambled eggs, cappuccino and other delights.

John and Andrew leave at 9 am sharp, they’ve decided to walk up the hill to Fort Girafalco and back again before we leave on the day trip at 11am. They are welcome to it, obviously fitter and more motivated than me. 

The regular Saturday Cortona markets are on in Piazza Signorelli and there are a mix of clothes vendors with mainly Chinese stuff and the food and vegy stalls. The clothes are reasonably priced, and reasonable quality mostly but PRC labels is a give away as to their origin. Some purchases are made and the fruit and vegy stall is looking like it could sell us something but the bastards won’t serve Alison or Genelle, they only eyeball and serve the locals so we walk away and they’ve miss 5 Euros worth of sales. 


Daniel picks us up at the bottom of Via Guelfa, after straggling down the cobblestone hill like browns cows. The day has warmed up, it’s very pleasant. The first stop is a small farm that is called Trattoria Bistecca, a funny name for a farm, more a restaurant name I reckon. We are met by Ilaria, a 30ish young woman, who can talk better and quicker than Genelle, we also meet her father Lapo ( pronounced Larrpo), and we are advised that he was the sheep man in Under Tuscan Sun the movie, his photo with the movie crew and the main actor Diane Lane, is spread around liberally, in the shed with the sheep, along with 50,000 f…g flies and I later see it again inside their “office”. Lapo’s face is familiar, I think he was only in the movie for 20 seconds close to the start of the movie. Ilaria not only can talk, she knows her stuff, they own a small farm ( where are), which is also a restaurant, one with olives near the top of Cortona hill, a guesthouse, and I guess a few other things, they make pecorino cheese from their sheeps milk, grow all the vegetables they use in their restaurant, they kill one pig a year for all their ham, salami etc, they make their own wine from their own grapes, I think they work very hard. “The Office” or Trattoria Bisteca, which looks across the fertile flats to the hills where Cortona is perched, has a table set for us, Ilaria runs us through the cheeses, how they are made, the different meats, the wine which is a Sangiovese, we have zucchini flowers with ricotta and anchovy, it’s actually a mini feast and it’s delicious and fantastic. A great way to start the day. We leave the place full of food, a smile on our faces, (Genelle included), and head through the rolling hills and back roads to Montepulciano, little hill towns and castles or forts sprinkled everywhere, ploughed fields, green fields, pencil pine driveways, umbrella pines, olive trees and a mix of colours even a colour blind heathen like me can recognise as extraordinarily pretty scenery typical of Tuscany. 

We climb around the hill into Montepulciano, a bigger hill town than Cortona, quite pretty looking, to the Nobile winery for tasting and lunch. It’s really where they make the wine, there are no grapes here, just cobblestone streets. We descend into a cave via steep step through a tunnel and into the area they hold the huge wine casks. The cave has a history that goes back to Tuscan times ( over 2500 years ago) and it was also a shelter in the world wars, its dark and cool na danother table is set up. Our host is a serious looking young fella, in a Ralph Lauren jacket which we find out later covers a serious tattoo on his left arm, jeans and carrying strong political views on government intervention and many other things. He knows his wines and the technical stuff but not once do I see him smile. The “lunch” is really only a selection on meats, cheeses and some bread, I think we sometimes forget we are in Europe and not home in Australia and there are different interpretations of what “lunch” means.

We leave the cave via a not so secret door onto a street with instructions to head straight ahead, turn right then left down the hill, towards the gates to the town. Once again we drift like a herd of lost sheep, dropping into shops, looking over the wall at the countryside, and end up spread out. I find John and Sonya, and we walk together, it’s my idea I think to follow the sign to the Leonardo horses to get the the gate, but something feels wrong, my in built gps is not working, my knees are burning from going up hill and down cobblestones, and then John says, “Oh f….k we’re back where we started!” , I feel broken and wondering how am I going to waddle sideways like a duck down this mongrel hill again. I buy a 50c map in shop, a nice man looks at me with pity and shows the way back on the map. We zagged when we should have zigged when coming down the hill  and ended up doing a circle rather than a dog leg. It’s embarrassing for me because it’s fair to say I have thrown a fair bit of  sarcasm Genelle’s way for her lack of direction on lots of our travels. When we get to the gate she doesn’t have to say anything, the look in her eyes says it all ” don’t try and give me an excuse you clown – this means I have more $ for procurement purposes”

We get back to Cortona at dusk, there is a wedding on and a Ferrari with ribbons on it in Piazza Signorelli looks like the wedding car. A few beers at La Poste Bar and we retire early tonight. A discovery is made of a secret stairway to a rooftop terrace with spectacular views, not sure my crumbling knees will allow me to experience this.

Ciao ciao from Cortona

Pauolo




Apologies, I missed posting the blog last night, lots of food, a lot of walking, a lot of pain in the knees, a lot of pain killers and a little bit of alcohol, which sounds like but an artists stimulant for creativity but I just wanted to go to sleep. Poor form but old age and experience means I decide that sleep takes priority.

Its an early breakfast, 8am for a 9am start on the road. Francesco is taking us on a tour of San Gimignano and Siena, I think it was going to include a lunch on a farm at a villa but somebody else preferred a bit extra time in Siena so that’s what we’re doing. 

The bus is on time, we’re off and racing down the hill, via the skinny road, hoping it’s a one way Street and that no other vehicle is going to come the opposite way around a corner, I can see a few felllow travellers holding on to the grab handles tightly. A quick fuel up in Camucia at 1.36 Euro per litre, a bit more reasonable than I thought but still more expensive than Australia. The drive north to San Gimignano is typical Tuscany, rolling hills, a lot of it ploughed up ready for sowing crops, drainage channels, green forests, hill top forts and towns, some of them just normal commercial towns with unspectacular buildings, but clearly there is a commercial imperative. One area we drive through appears to be a motor home manufacturing area, and there is one area which looks like the aitalian version of a caravan park with motor homes lined up side by side in long rows, not something that looks very appealing to me. The banter in the bus is challenging for John and Sonya with comments from everyone about Johns Tuscan garden he plans in Dubbo which involves pencil pines. There appears to have been a breakthrough in the peace negotiations and a detente has been reached whereby Sonya has agreed to the pencil pines, reluctantly it looks but none the less and agreement. Each one of us offers an opinion, met with rolling eyesfrom either John or Sonya. The atmosphere is tense, it’s taken the pressure off some other issues that have been bubbling away such as the plans for the rest of the week, the location of Frances Mayes “Under Tuscan Sun” house, the best time to get another one of the foot and leg massages,all issues of significance. Francesco is a little disappointed that we have opted for extra time in Siena and not having lunch at a farm so it seems.

After about 1 1/2 hours we reach the outside wall of San Gimagnano, a hill town renowned for the number of towers which is a sign of wealth and the defensibility of a town in more violent and dangerous times . We walka up the hill and immediately I’m feeling disappointed, the crowds of tourists on day tours  from Florence and other close by towns is a put off, there is a beggar who asks for a Euro in a quiet alley way, the market stalls are a mix of rayon and polyester scarves and expensive woolen scarves, leather bits and pieces, gellato shops and expensive designer fashion. Cortona is a quiet haven of authenticity compared to this place and I am now much more appreciative of our decision to base ourselves in Cortona. The bonus of San Gimagnano is that the view from the walls is a really typical Tuscan scene, rows of vines, pencil pines, bales of hay in green and yellow fields with a backdrop of hazy rolling hills – relaxing and takes the breath away at the same time. We have all ended up doing our own thing but we all finish the walk with a gelato.

The next stop is Siena, a place we drove to in 2011, and in fact the day we arrived in Cortona is 6 years ago tomorrow. It seems like an eon ago because so much has happened for the Reid’s in the 6 years. Francesco drops us near the stadium that we parked at in 2011 and using the tower on the Campo we wander into the centre of Sienna through the laneways. There are tourists but not like San Gimagnano, and I think we’re all feeling a little better about this place. The first sight of the tower in the Campo where the famous Palio horse race is held sort of takes your breath away, this huge open space, with  what you can make out as the race track around the Piazza that gets covered in sand for race day, crowds of locals, the obvious tourists blending into the scenery that has been in hundreds of movies.

We sit down at a restaurant for a few beers, some bruschetta ( pronounced brewsketta not the way you hear it in Australia Brewshetta which I think means something else not that nice). Genelle and I drizzle olive oil over the beautiful tasty local tomatoes on the toasted bread, Andrew has another dish that looks tasty ( can’t recall what it was) and we wash it down with Peroni. We then walk around to the Duomo, a spectacular white and black marble building with golden pictures at the top of the building. This is supposed to be the resting place for the bones of John the Baptist, not sure of the details but we invest in the entry fee and take a tour. The marble floors in the church are exquisite, they are inlaid with different coloured marble for patters, sculpted for pictures and some areas a closed off as I think they are crypts. The decoration and the dome are magnificent. Outside there is a sculpture of Romulus and Remus, I’m unsure what this means as they are associated with the foundation of Rome, not sure how they fit in here. A 50c E toilet break in the Duomo shop is a welcome break, pressure off the bladder helps focus on what we see around us.

It’s a long walk for me oncreaking knees back to the bus, and we arrive just in time for the agreed rendezvous at 5 pm.

And hour and a half drive has us back in Cortona, a bit weary but wondering where John and Sonya have us organised for tonight’s dinner. A short break for a shower, then drinks at Maladetti’s where we meet most evenings for a drink and then we are ushered down Via Guelfa to Preludia Ristorante ( hope I got that right). 

The plates on the table immediately impress us, they are Versace ( we find out later are 350 Euros each), and then the food impresses us more. It is serious food, presented beautifully, the waiter really knows his stuff and we are left full, and thinking of the delicious flavours that have just been presented to us. Some new challenges have been met, Jane has venison, the first time she has eaten deer, and when being accused of eating “Bambi”, we are hit with the response of Sai la vie (sic) which our linguistic expert interprets as ” get stuffed you peasants”. We aren’t offended, as it’s time to focus on dessert and the dessert wine. Bellissimo, an absolute treat tonight and a great choice for dinner, it’s not a competition but as atop end meal it’s going to be hard to beat. 

Tomorrow it’s a late breakfast, a rest and recuperation day for some and walking for others. I reckon the trip to Florence is not happening. 

Not much in the way of sarcasm, innuendo or wit that wounds that I can offer today. Painful knees and painkillers cloud the mind and numb the gene that controls this part of my brain. The knee replacement planned for early next year is now something that I’m forced to now confront as a no option option. 

Ciao from Cortona

Pauolo