10/15/10, Friday – 10/16/10 Saturday
“There is no moment of delight in any pilgrimage like the beginning of it.”—Charles Dudley Warner

Boungiorno from Italy!

A great day to leave for Italy! All flights on time, but gosh what a long day. Three flights –one 7 hours long --will wear you out. Knowing Tuscany & dear friends awaited us on the other end made it more bearable. Farley was snoozing before we even took off from Philly! He‘s been burning the candle at both ends (and in the middle) for the past couple of weeks. He deserves all the rest and the fun that he can cram in on this vacation!

As you can see from attached pics, our villa is wonderful. Old renovated stone house; our group has rented out both units so we have five bedrooms. An international group – US (Virginia & California), Canada (Vancouver) and Australia (Sydney). All connected via our hosts, Rob & Nancy (my college roommate). View from our room overlooks olive trees, sheep pasture and in ground pool. Apparently the weather has gone from warm end-of-summer temperatures last week to fall-is-here this week. That’s fine, we came prepared. The villa grounds are amazing – all the following trees are on property: peach, pear, pomegranate, fig, olive, crabapple…and also artichoke plants. The pics shows some villa interiors/exteriors & the view of the village of San Giovanni d’Asso from our living room.

Spent a quiet afternoon in town lunching at a lovely local restaurant, sampling our first Tuscany wines and then strolling around San Giovanni d’Asso. We are running on empty after the long travel day so planning to rest up tonight and begin serious adventures tomorrow.