Day 3 - Cooking Lessons in Italy - Part 1

 

The trip to Italy was all about this day, so almost 1/3 of the album is devoted to it.  Here are the first 14 pages:

 



Day 2 - Sunday Drive

First up, eagle eyes Dale and Gayle spotted a mistake on Page 3, The Journey Begins so after some tweaking it is now fixed - can you find the correction?

 

Day Two - Sunday Drive

Text: On our first Sunday drive, we explored some of the backroads and came across our first "dome".  It is built on the hill of Semifonte, and is an exact replica of Brunelleschi's famous one in Florence, but 5 times smaller.  It was built in memory of a tragic event when the city of Semifonte tried to challenge the rising power of Florence. Burnt bricks and pieces of wall from the old city can still be found strewn on the hillside, but Florence would not allowed any rebuilding for centuries.Later, we discovered we could see the hill of Semifonte across the valley from our villa!

 

Text: When we entered the dome at Semifonte, they were preparing for a wedding later that day.  They were kind enough to let us look around and one girl took the time to explain a bit about the history.

 

Text top Page 14: The streets were very narrow and navigating through some of the walls and buildings made it rather interesting!  We drove through Petrognano and San Filippo all the way to Barberino, which turned out only to be about 10 km from where we started out.

 

Text Bottom Page 14: Our first grocery shopping trip was quite an experience!  Milk and egg products were in the dairy aisle, with no refrigeration, wine was cheaper than Coke and you had to wear disposable gloves to pick up the produce! Overall, we didn't find it expensive - we spent about 60-70 Euro every three days for seven people.

 

Text: Our first home-cooked meal included appetizers of fresh olives, bruschetta drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar and cheeses.  We had chicken and roasted vegetables and Caprese salad. We picked fresh rosemary from the garden and bought a little basil plant to pick fresh leaves from.

Text top Right:  Villa Sella literally means "House of the Saddle".  The building was the original stables of the estate, which had been in the owner's family for hundreds of years. He is an architect and designed the complete renovation into the beautiful place we were privileged to stay in!


Text top left: The villa was painted in a soft yellow, and decorated with reminders of its origins as a stable.  In the living room, a unique piece of art was made with old tools, horseshoes and other items found during the reconstruction and renovation of the building!

 

Text: At the end of our first full day, we started getting a little silly and had fun with the horse head.  My favourite picture is of Dale nibbling Gayle's ear!

 

 

 

My Italy Trip - almost ready for printing! Title Page and Day 1

Due to the recent changes of Creative Memories, I can no longer share an album via their website, but I realized today I can through my blog!  Enjoy, ladies!

 

Title Page - This will also be the cover but with the dates on it.

 

Next will be a Table of Contents (not completed yet), then this page beside it:

 

 

 

The writing on the this page is legible at full-size, it reads:

 

Our first meal in Italy was at a family-run restaurant, Pizzeria Maroni, in the little village of Sciano, about half-way between our villa and the town of Certaldo.  It didn't open for the evening meal until about 8 pm, and we were the first to arrive.  The place filled up quickly with families of all ages.  The pizzas were amazing, baked in a wood-fired oven and all fresh ingredients! The restaurant was so good that we went back a few times during our stay.