Settling in for a Summer Stay

We really love the deck. We convene there each morning for coffee and bread. Then again for happy hour. And then for dinners, dinners each night that go on for hours.

We're loving every thing about the house. All of it's unique features and all of the little conveniences.

We're also appreciating that for all of the great meals we are having, still none of us are gaining any weight. Rather, we're developing admirable quads and glutes from all of the stair climbing!

The bathroom situation has worked itself out nicely. Two of us claimed the lower bathroom, leaving the other three women in our group to negotiate use of the the one upstairs. We've found a nice routine for scheduling our showers so there's plenty of hot water to go around!

I'm loving my little loft! I love the tiny window overlooking the valley at night and the warm, soft glow that comes in from the street lamp. Hearing the town characters drift away from the bar is just the right amount of "night life" to make you fell as if you're in a real town. And the morning sunlight, the way it shoots through the room from the east and the orange color bouncing off of the terra cotta rooftops from across the way and beaming in from the west. What a place to fall asleep at night and to wake up in the morning. Actually, we're all enjoying our accommodations. As one of my housemates said, "I've never slept so well and I'm more relaxed than I can ever recall."

Of course, we're always chuckling at the roosters, the young one and the older one that sounds very tired. And then, there are the church bells and the occasional car honking as the driver rounds a turn coming up the mountain. Oh yeah, and we are doing our duty welcoming and feeding "Blue Eyes," the name we've given to the village cat whose made La Casa Maria his home base.

After settling in on our first day, we had to venture back down the hill to Lucca to pick up one of our housemates who was arriving by train. We discovered Bar Cupido down the block from the Lucca train station an d were really taken in by the pizza and capuccinos they served up. We wandered about Lucca for awhile and formed our plans for coming back for a few more visits and some opera.

We've also visited some of the vineyards on the hillside and lapped up some great red wine and brought home some lush olive oil soap. The tours of the local villas were amazing, too. You're right about the Villa Reale. The gardens were stunning. We also liked our tour of Villa Torrigiani and it's English gardens.

The duomo in Barga was amazing. Of course, the highlight of Barga was to witness our request for directions escalate into an "animated" debate between three men who were twisting and turning our map trying to agree on where we were, let alone actually give us directions to where we wanted to go. Finally, a little old woman came up shouting "Io capito, io capito!" and promptly showed located us on the map and delivered the directions we needed to get to where we were going. It's these memories that really make a trip.

In short, we had a great time. Thanks so much for making it possible for us to enjoy your casa and for all the work you done to making it so homey and full of special "touches" that made us feel so welcome.

[Thanks to Leslie Koepke for sharing her story. Edited by Bob]