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Siena, Italy

What a great luxury to spend eight days in this little medieval town. Mostly walking, drawing and sampling lemon gelato. Did a wine tasting tour into the Chianti Hills yesterday, with an hour to roam San Gimignano. I am working on making a book of walks for Siena. It really deserves one, guiding people off the touristy streets and into the fascinating neighborhoods. Ciao.
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Italy

While on a late afternoon saunter around the tiny, well-preserved village of Spadola, in the mountains of Calabria, I experienced one of those strange moments where I knew what I was seeing, have seen it before, but just could not believe my eyes. There was a giraffe. It was standing in an open field along the creek all by itself. I stared. Was I really seeing a giraffe. My reason for being here is my friend on my next tour, whom I will meet at the Naples airport on Sunday, asked to come here. Her father, Dominico Tucci, immigrated from this village that time forgot, in 1913. The village has not ever been painted or gussied up for tourists. It is spotless. I saw a very old women dressed in traditional black, as opposed to chic black, picking up bits of trash as she crept along the street.
As I stared, assuring myself it was truly a giraffe, I noticed a few small trucks and some people surrounding the area. Then I recalled posters advertising a traveling circus. Here they were, camped out for the afternoon. The giraffe looked quite content, staring across the creek at me. Who knows what it was thinking!

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Italy Tour 2010




In Florence, Italy, October 3, 2010, I met three couples from Eugene, Oregon and gave them a 10 day tour. My favorite walk in Florence is from the Arno River up to Piazza Michaelangelo and through the old Roman gate on the return to the Ponte Vecchio bridge. Then we took the train to Lucca, stopping in Pisa to climb the leaning tower. In the walled, medieval town of Lucca we had a guide one morning, then were free to walk the wall around the town and explore. On our way to Assisi the next day, we stopped in Lari, where the Martelli family makes the pasta I buy in Eugene at Olive Grand or Newman’s.

Spending four nights in Villa Raffaello in Santa Maria degli, we walked three miles to Assisi, and by train to Orvieto and Perugia.

On our way to Venice, we stopped for a few hours to walk around Bologna.

The island of Murano is about 45 minutes by water taxi from Venice. The glass blowers make the famous glass here. At one time, a glass maker left the island with a death sentence hanging over him. No one wanted their glass making secrets to leave the island.
The Italy trip concluded in Venice. We took the water taxi to Murano island to see the glass blowers one morning, then spent the afternoon roaming around Venice. It was a really fun trip with good companions, fair weather and beautiful sights.