Shmitally (Thurs&Fri)

Through the mystical power of blog scheduling, I have travelled into the future to tell you what we're up to in Shmitally this week.  These are our first two days.



Podere La Casellina



So, on Thursday we arrive in Florence, hopefully in one piece, with all of our luggage (seriously, I put a lot of effort into packing a million buddy fruits and babywipes in there, so please, international baggage guys, don't screw with me).  We are not staying in Florence, but this was the closest airport.  Where we're staying is a little agriturismo about 30 minutes outside of Florence called Podere La Casellina.  I thought at first that "agriturismo" basically just meant "bed and breakfast" in italian. Sort of. But:

Definition: Agriturismo - a combination of the words for "agriculture" and "tourism" in Italian - is a style of vacationing in farm house resorts codified into Italian law in 1985...An Italian agriturismo will usually serve foods to guests prepared from raw materials produced on the farm or at least locally. Some will allow the guest to actually participate in the activities surrounding the farm. ~ Source, Goitaly.about.com

In other words, yeah, it's kind of a b&b, but it's also a working organic olive farm. We're going to stay here the entire time we're here in Italy and just make day trips around Tuscany. The day trips we have planned all sound fun, but honestly, I think we'll have a blast just hanging around the farm. As it turns out, the farm owners have FOUR kids, ranging in age from 3 to 9: yessss! fist bump. This means that our little cherubs have a shot at not causing complete and total destruction on this 300 year old farmhouse. Also, we're hoping their lovely children will consent to playing with ours. We plan on bribing them with candy. Oh, and there's a donkey named Orlando.  Just down the road, also in Figline Valdarno is Sting's estate. Yes, of the "Rooohooxanne" Stings. Apparently, he makes organic olive oil and honey. We promise not to stalk him or Trudie.

San Gimignano

So, Thursday and Friday, we're planning on just hanging out at the farm and getting to know the village and getting acclimated. We have rented a van. I will not be driving the van because italian roads and drivers scare the crap out of me. But we will be using the van to toodle about these first two days. We plan on a short jaunt to San Gigmignano which is just the first in a long line of towns that I cannot pronounce without my TMJ flaring up.