Villa Cresta, Caprese Michelangelo, Tuscany - 11th July - 22nd July

Villa Cresta - Small yet perfectly formed

The day Frodo Baggins came to visit!

We headed for inland Tuscany with a half fixed car and hoped for the best.  The 'mini' villa was spot on and had everything we needed, not to mention a SAAB dealership in Arezzo. Arezzo turned out to be quite interesting in a typical Italian way, a big square surrounded by restaurants and genuine antique shops.

We had hired the mini villa before leaving home thinking that we'd need the space and comfort of a king size bed after six weeks in the Gin Palace, it was a treat not having to trek through a campsite in the middle of the night to use the loo.

This was also a good location to go exploring from. We went for a day to Florence via train on which the ticket inspector tried to get a back hander because we hadn't punched our tickets on the return journey, there was a lot of head shaking and pointing to £80 fine signs, but he'd let us off for just £40, and no we couldn't pay with a credit card, which was a shame as we had no cash, this went on backwards and forward for about an hour until the train arrived at our destination, where we just got off with a quick flick of the V's.

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Going to Florence was quickly followed by the most important day of the year being of course Boo's birthday.  We headed for Siena to a hotel (with AC). Yet again Siena did not disappoint, we managed to find our favorite restaurant, from a few years previous, the food was so good again we just know we'll be back to Siena which has to be la creme de la creme of Tuscany.

Fran finally drove Boo up the wall!

So she got him locked up!

Twelve lovely days of clean spacious comfort. Now back to reallity of life on two wheels.