A tourist destination, but nonetheless very attractive and worth the day spent here. Dennis and I climbed up to the fortress for magnificent views over the valley and of portions of the town which once had more than 70 towers, but now has only 14 remaining.
A drive over to the coast via the small, attractive town of Massa Marittima.
A beautiful drive through the Tuscan countryside to Siena and then the entire day spent wandering the streets, admiring the lovely old buildings, and of course, lunch!
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We had an amazing dinner of grilled lamb, fresh canellini beans in our salad and pasta!
John hacking his way through the bones to make cutlets.
After exploring Villamagna, we drove over to hilltop Volterra – just 12 kms away.
A Bentley/Rolls Royce Royce rally is taking place and these specimens were parked in the main piazza
This one must be mine – my initials!!!
I don’t think this would get up heir hill in the winter!
Uneventful trip from Dorset to Pisa; supermarket stop on the way and we were set for an evening “in” after a delicious meal of bread, cheese, wine, fruit, olives, etc. on our terrace.
What a lovely villa … At the tail end of a very steep driveway overlooking a valley and hills. We have red roses and cypress!
One of my favourite places … Sherborne and Sherborne Abbey
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The Dorset countryside…
Then crazy good times with family ..
Having a great time catching up with family and seeing and eating as much as we can!
With Jack and Olllie in Taunton.
With Lucy, Chris, tom, and Doris at the Wise Man.
Having a deliciously good time with my family here…
And some sightseeing too …
The Smith Arms
(formerly smallest pub in England)
Corfe Castle
Salisbury Cathedral with its beautiful contemporary font.
Our last port of call was Cozumel, and I was as disenchanted with it this time (third time around) as before. Oh well!
A few pics of the gang before we all went our separate ways and who knows when we’ll all be together again. It was fun!
The gang congregated pre-cruise along with Wanda and Bob for dinner at Outback in Tampa.
June & Sid arrived from the UK on Thursday evening; Betty, Marilyn & Dave on Friday
; Moira & ray on Saturday ……..
I’ve been working on uploading our pictures from Viet Nam and my mind wandered to Rebecca and Dade, the couple we met a year ago in Puerto Montt, and who inspired me to start this blog. I have her blog bookmarked and thought I’d check in to see what trips they’ve been on, and was surprised to see none listed from Jan ’11 (when we met) until Dec ’11. I clicked on it and saw Katmandu and was thinking to myself – you lucky devils – when I found, reading it, that Dade was obviously alone and he was there on a mission – to spread Rebecca’s ashes! They mentioned that she’d had a bout with melanoma, and was carefully protecting herself from the sun, but ….
So I googled Rebecca Garrison-Sokoloff and found her obituary. She died November 13, 2011 – 34 years old! my God! I also found her facebook page and discovered this picture (which we’ve never seen before)
taken by either Dade or Rebecca from their balcony – coincidentally a deck or two above ours.
Here’s a picture of Rebecca, drinking a pisco sour (we both had one or two!) taken in the restaurant in Puerto Varas (lifted from her blog)
