A Bohemian Collective at San Rocco in Benabbio, Bagni di Lucca

This area is really interesting culturally.  There are people starting to gather here with their marvellous gifts, proffering events that are supporting contemporary musicians and singers and acrobatic performances and visual artists and writers who are all possibly great.  Bagni di Lucca is attracting not just artists but also sponsors and patrons and lovers of

Michael and Shona in a hidden Tuscan valley

We have an amazing life.   Here we are now, living in a little town in the mountains of Tuscany, a town that people for centuries have been coming to, to bathe in the thermal waters and enjoy a summer that is cooler than down on the plains.  All around us, gracious old villas with

Italy, beautiful for its own sake.

It’s summer.  It’s hot, hot, hot.  And every day we are reminded of why we love to be here, of what we miss when we go away.  Its riding on the vespa down tiny country roads, through the vineyards and olive groves and avenues of Linden trees and into the mountains through golden green glades

Back in the mountains of Bagni di Lucca

We are back in Italy.  We have been back three weeks and have hit the deck running. Everywhere so green.  Heavy.  When we first got back, the mountains felt heavy with green, you could hardly see the villages, the roadsides overgrown, great fronds of grass obscuring the road, everything abundantly, quickly growing in the damp

Goodbye 2010

The house is full.  It has been New Year and Christmas and all the days before and in between.  Eating and eating and drinking.  Young people and friends everywhere, lounging on couches, watching movies, barbequeing, dancing and partying, everyone looking after each other, and a constant sense of a crowd…. It was wonderful to go

Snow In Bagni di Lucca

  Today it is snowing and snowing and snowing.  We drove off for Lucca this morning to do some Christmas food shopping, but had to return home half way there, the road was so quickly built up with snow.   We were drifting all over the place till we got stuck behind two trucks who couldn’t

Lucca Under Snow

Mike and Shona The Lion Under Snow On top, looking out from Lucca Trees on the walls of Lucca

Lunch in Montefegatesi, a Tuscan village in the mountains

The other Sunday, we left our friend’s house with such a happiness and delight, we felt we had fully experienced Tuscany. The day had dawned cold and wet and bleak and our coffee and brioche for breakfast down at the bar, had been a brisk affair, with the rain slanting in on the verandah where

Finally the wedding

The weather was warm and delicious when we awoke on Saturday morning, 11th September, 2010. Our beautiful boy, ousted from his regular nest, was with us in our apartment, the four of us crammed and disorganized, everyone trying to shower, to talk, to press the final shirts, work out cuff links, Jake feeling sick as

Just three days from the Wedding Day

Just three days from the day of the wedding we did not have a wedding to celebrate. On this day our caterers told us we no longer had a venue. Our venue was the beautiful Villa Webb and the gardens of Villa Ada, belonging to the commune di Bagni di Lucca. It must be peculiar