
Can any view be more serene than that of the Tuscan hills and fields surrounding the Abbey of Sant’Antimo that we had the good fortune of visiting on Day Seven of our Italian holiday just over a month ago.


After a week exploring the beauty that is Tuscany day nine of our Italian holiday was a wonderful cooking class with Serena in her lovely home in Gambassi Terme. I had been looking forward to this all week, particularly as we were enjoying Tiramisu desserts everywhere we went. Now we were going to learn how to make it together with so many other delicious dishes. If anything justifies the term transformation it’s converting mascarpone cheese, eggs, biscotti, sugar and vinsanto wine into a dessert to die for.

The class was a great success as you can see and lunch with the products of our hard labour! was simply delicious. Grazie molto to Serena of Serena Tuscan Holidays who made it all possible, both for the cooking class and for arranging the lovely country home where we stayed with our dear friends who shared the adventure with us. A special thank you to them also for such happy memories.


The tower of the Duomo in Siena peeking through on Day Five of our Italian holiday. More of Siena and Day Five to come.
The curve of the Grand canal viewed from the roof deck of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi beside the Rialto Bridge.
A grand finale to our Italian holiday with the magic of Venice at every turn.
Beneath the glow of the sun bathed walls of Castillo Estense these young lovers embrace as this couple of old lovers drinks their health from our hotel window.
With the joy of the return of WiFi comes the joy of posting our ongoing Italian adventure and our visit to the spectacular Ferrari Museum in Modena today where the cars literally glow with style, beauty and drama.


Our memorable visits to Siena, Montalcino, Sant Antimo, San Gimignano, and Chianti country I’ll post about on returning home. One more day in Modena and then on to Ferrara and Venice before our last weekend in London. It’s then back to the studio and paint, paint, paint.
The view from the Pontevecchio this morning after we arrived from Rome was simply breathtaking.



More photos for this week’s photo challenge: scale. On to the Tuscan countryside in the morning.
A day to remember and a first for me blogging from my iPhone.
It began with a special and unexpected moment never to be forgotten.
The rest of the day fitted well with this week’s photo challenge: scale as Rome is all about scale at every turn.