Under the Tuscan moon..

..dateline Tuscany 18:15...NZ 07:15...

Well I've just spent a lazy 2 hours in a beautiful pool with the sun gleaming down on me...I could really get used to this lifestyle. What have you down with your Monday afternoon?
Tuscany is considered the birthplace of the of the Renaissance movement - The amount of artists around here...layabouts....trying to sell you cheap watercolours, actually on the whole they're not bad. I've even bought a piece of art - although how I'm going to get the thing home is another story.
We've done what everyone else does here...toured art galleries, small historic towns, eaten a ton of cheese and olives (although I dreamed I was an onion on Saturn last night - so I might cut down before bed).
Last night we attended a chocolate festival in a place called Montecarlo...where we could observe the italians at enjoying their favorite pastimes...food and family.
If you can imagine a narrow medieval street on a hill top (they're all on hills here..easy to defend)..lined with stalls selling the most exotic chocolates...with hordes of locals (yipee... no tourists!) strolling in the gathering dusk with their extended families..eating chocolate..now and then greeting friends in a hearty manner. Kids running around and a constant babble of Italian filling the warm autum air, nearer the square the church bell would crisply toll the passage of the evening. It was very pleasant and we wrapped it up with a 9:00 dinner at the local resturant. Grilled florantine steak with a mixed salade for me. The chef sent out his specials to the foreigners...very nice - and it was pea soup! High praise from me...I detest peas ordinarly with the cold hatred reserved for snakes or people who drive slowly in the fast lane.
As much as I enjoy the scenery which is great...the locals provide more entertainment, they obviously love life and they're dressed well! Even the nutters, mutterers and auditors...I saw an oldish chap, unshaven...muttering to some invisble friend make his way down the street and he could have fitted into a Hugo Boss glossy (maybe there is a niche market there...dressers to the insane). I mean the crazy people in Newtown, NZ make do with cardboard and carpet. So for the Italians...their national carrier might be falling out of the sky (if we don't make it off Malta you know they've closed down) but their people will be very chic.

Boring fact: Tuscany is the birthplace of Dante Alighieri, the father of modern Ialian and of course the writer of the The Divine Comedy.

Bottom line: Dress to impress..even invisble friends have standards.