New Year 2010

The rain is falling and falling. The river is up, brown and frothing. It’s getting cold and we think it will turn to snow. It’s New Years day and we are recovering, cuddled up, watching movies and playing games.

In our wee valley along the Lima river there are three little towns, like pearls on a string, all called by their localities, but overall, called Bagni di Lucca. We are in the little locality in the middle called Ponte a Serraglio, home to thermal springs and baths and beautiful old villas and the original casino from the 1850’s. Last night, on the stroke of midnight our local bar opened its doors for the celebrations. Italians love to eat and it is way more important to eat than to drink so the previous few hours had been spent eating, in fact gorging, on huge feasts, and only after this is done can any party begin. So down to the bar we totter at 12.30, to find the bar is packed full and surging to wild 80’s and 90’s music with a bit of Copacabana chucked in. We squeeze in, kiss a lot of people, twice for the Italians, 3 times for the Dutch and Swiss and just once for us Aussies. Hosted and owned by tall lanky and very charismatic Paolo Citti, people are always attracted to his festivities, so tonight it is all we can do to move to the beat, it is shoulder to shoulder, and perilous to take a drink. At 5am it is still going and now at 5.30 in the afternoon the little town is still asleep.

Shona

This photo taken a few days before Christmas, in Ponte a Serraglio, when it was snowing.