Villa in Tuscany

We spend the morning enjoying the beautiful Villa Di Bossi. The house is filled with enormous rooms of elegant antique furniture and family portraits. One wall is painted with a family tree that goes back to the 1300’s.

The Villa di Bossi in Arezzo.

The main entrance hall.

The upstairs sitting room, outside our bedrooms.

Kobi makes friends with Cosmo, their 4-year old son, and they all play at the pool for a few hours. Kobi, of course, falls in love with all of their dogs. Meanwhile, Mark and Jen walk the gardens.


Tenzin and Cosmo duel at the pool

Karma gets a sunburn.

We caught Tenzin smiling!

Kobi called this dog "squishy-face" and they spent many happy hours together.

The gardens around the villa are classic. Formal boxwood-edged geometric beds near the house, centered around a fountain. A wall of bamboo seperates the next garden, which has open lawns surrounding an allee of trees, leading to a tangled mess of nature in the back, with a treehouse.

After noon, we again realize that we’ve mis-timed the Italian siesta and its affect on open hours – if you want anything to eat between about 1 and 7 pm, the only places that are open (including grocery stores) are the bar and snack shops that sell cold pizza and panini. So we drive off to the town of Siena, about an hour-and-a-half away, which the kids have read about in the Stravaganza series. The center square is a giant open shell-shaped plaza where the Palio is held twice each summer. It’s a horse race – the winner gets bragging rights for their neighborhood, and each area has its own mascot – such as the frog. Today it is blazingly hot and we head off for the tiny medieval side streets, where we find shade, a nice slice pizzeria and an internet café – increasingly a necessity for teenage Tenzin.



A church in the Centro Storico in sienna.

Just in case anyone is doing research, there is a museum of torture in Siena. We thought you should know.

It seems like every town in Tuscany has one of these ancient town centers, where the cars are not allowed to drive unless you live there – the streets are sometimes even too small for motorcycles. The wayfinding signs in each town point to the “Centro” with a bullseye graphic, self-explanatory. Although America never had such civic antiquity, it does make me wonder if it could have survived since we can’t even manage to protect the buildings and streetscapes – just a few hundred years old – that we have inherited in New England. Was it appreciation for the past or just lack of development that saved these old European town centers? Certainly, they are thriving now. We’ve seen some filled with tourists, but we’ve also seen them bustling with local industry – they aren’t just a photo op.

We also like to see how modern life has shaped itself, so we pull into the mega-supermarket in Arezzo. It’s sort of a cross between a whole-foods and a super stop & shop, with a few huge aisles of wine added in. We get a kick out of it.

The only brand of Peanut Butter in this supermarket. Ultimately, it is confiscated by airport security when we try to take it in our carry-on luggage. Do you think it was the name?

Here's where people drop their kids off while they shop.

Despite the fact that this is a relatively suburban-type neighborhood, the entire supermarket is built over a level of underground parking. The few spaces outside have the spaces marked out with paving stones.

For dinner we follow the recommendation of Francesca at Villa di Bossi and get a table at the restaurant at Piazza Grande, the main square in Arezzo.


Entering the Piazza Grande in Arezzo.


It is a magical meal. The waiters bring treat after treat for the kids, and we take a picture of Maggie’s dessert since it is so spectacular.


According to its name, this is lemon sorbet with fruit salad. Wow!