Lucca

Our travels roll on.  We are now in the beautiful Tuscan town of Lucca and looking forward to exploring.

We spent the weekend with A & F in Florence at their fantastic new(ish) apartment near Piazza Santa Croce.  An amazing location.  It's great seeing A in her home environment - it's been more than 6 years now she's been in Florence.  M and I did much wandering around Florence's streets and taking in the atmosphere and had a great dinner at a local Osteria with A & F.

Dinner in Panzano on Thursday night was an experience - the local celebrity butcher (!) has opened a very trendy restaurant which has a set menu of 6 meat courses.  A & F drove down and we all had a fantastic meal in the little town. 

Also this week we visited so many places - Montepulciano, Montelcino, St Gimingano ... the list continues.  Tuscany has many, many beautiful towns.  And some great hiking quite near our base in Lucolena.

It was incredibly rejuvanating settling into a base for a week - the constant packing and unpacking is very draining.  Our little farmhouse was cute and a great base to see the Chianti region and Tuscany more generally.