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October 15, 2012

Cycling Mania In Tuscany

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The UCI World Cycling Championships 2013 in Tuscany!

These run from September 22nd to September 29th 2013, with race starts in Lucca and Montecatini Terme

Here is the happy Canadian Fred McGuire, who stayed at Casa Verde this summer.  (Fred is that a bottle of Chianti on the bike frame?) He is happy for us to report about his cycling adventures here in the hillside and mountains that are a training ground for the world’s best cyclists.  Mark Cavendish is a local resident in the Pistoia area!  Every weekend there are hundreds of aspiring Bradley Wiggins in their multi-coloured tight-fitting lycra ascending the steep hills and bends up and around the Valeriana.

Fred hired his bicycle from ChronoBikes (www.chronobikes.com…….an excellent web-site by the way) in Lucca at what he described as a very reasonable rate (25 Euros per day) in the peak of the summer weather….brave guy.  I would probably manage about 100 metres up these mountain roads but to healthy enthusiasts these hills are perfect for a Tuscany cycling holiday.

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July 23, 2012

Summer Feste

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , — Darren & Malcolm @ 10:17 am

In Tuscany, at this time of the year, there are plenty of superb summer festivals. In particular, many music and arts events to keep visitors entertained.  Particularly impressive are the many local festivals that nearly every small town has which draw the crowds from both from the local population and from the millions of visitors to the Tuscany region.  There are a number of all-night events in towns through the season where bric-a-brac and antique stalls, food vans and restaurants vie with music and art displays called La Nottambula ( I think it means something like, moving all night!). These begin at about 7 pm in the evening and go on until 5 am in the morning!  It is an Italian tradition that has been encouraged by local councils in these times of austerity to drum up more trade.  The one in Pescia attracted thousands of people, boy they do not do things by halves in Italy!

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April 23, 2011

Bagni di Lucca

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , — Darren & Malcolm @ 3:57 pm

On a very warm and exciting, brilliant spring day we went up the Garfagna with some friends and celebrated the arrival of the season with a wonderful picnic.  We sat on top of a grassy hillside overlooking the magnificent Massa Carrara mountains still displaying silver shreds of winter snow.

It is the season for planting, putting flowers into pots to cover the terracing, digging beds to receive new young plants such as tomotoes, and the fields and campi are all covered in buttercups.  All along the sides of the roads there are wild displays of yellow, blue and white.

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March 27, 2011

Clearing Trees

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , — Darren & Malcolm @ 9:52 am

Meet Eric a French itinerant tree climber and tree cutter.  In the mid 1960’s a Florentine family bought Casa Verde and replanted and restocked the terraced land.  The planting included four pine trees among other such trees that formed the amphitheatre at this end of Vellano.  Sadly, partly through neglect of the land, partly through drought and age these trees have died and have become unsafe so they needed to be felled.  The question was how to do it?

Eric, in the space of three hours cut down these four trees by climbing the trunks with a rope and crampons, cutting away the lower branches on his way up then cutting the large trunks from the top down.  This was achieved with an amazing degree of skill, speed and efficency.  Now our view from the house is even better! We plan in the next few years to plant more olive and fruit trees.  To restore the ‘campi’ to their original full and plentiful state.

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