Mr & Mrs relaxing in the pool

GianFranco, our local farmer has a hat for every occasion. This hat, made from 2 paper bags presumably allows air to circulate around his head during the hot weather.

Hay making below the south terrace

Marcello is a lovely local with a wonderful white moustache. He works on our land during the winter months, clearing the woods, hedges. He is a very neat local worker & produces wonderful vegetables for the village community who are self sufficient.

House from behind the olive trees

Walk along the road just past Mastiano

Village veg patch

Walk to Domazzano

This year we have had some wonderful guests. Usually, most come from North America, combined with a sprinkling from France, Holland, Germany, Britain & Scandi plus of course, Russia & Aus, but this year everyone has come from the UK & France.
The terrible Paris bombings put off the North Americans, so it has been a lovely change having families who have enjoyed the garden, countryside, and local walks.
One young lad, Colin from Scotland saw the amazing list of birds at A Corte & Lago di Massaciuccoli, which I attach (thanks Colin, you’ve been very busy)
Squacco Heron Night Heron Grey Heron Purple Heron
Great White Egret Little Egret Cattle Egret
Cormorant Great-crested Grebe Mallard Water Rail Moorhen Herring Gull Lesser Black-backed Gull
Marsh Harrier Peregrine Kestrel Buzzard Hoopoe
Cuckoo
Swallow House Martin Swift
Pheasant
Lesser Whitethroat Blackcap Cetti’s Warbler Reed Warbler Chiffchaff
Pied Wagtail Grey Wagtail
Wryneck Great-spotted Woodpecker Lesser-spotted Woodpecker Green Woodpecker
Turtle Dove Collared Dove
Redstart Spotted Flycatcher
Song Thrush Blackbird
Blue Tit Great Tit Long-tailed Tit Crested Tit
Serin Greenfinch Chaffinch Goldfinch
Robin Wren
Jay Magpie Hooded Crow
Tree Sparrow House Sparrow
Red-billed Leiothrix!! (lots of escapees)

Other guests children saw praying mantis & other creepy crawlies, deer, porcupine & squirrels

We saw a pine martin, cinghiale (wild boar), roe deer, red squirrels, sadly no porcupines this year. We have also seen golden oriels, hobby, red & grey backed shrikes, little, barn & tawny owls

Red backed shrike

Barn owl

I often leave my flip flops by our kitchen door, but occasionally one, possibly 2 would disappear, which really puzzled me. I thought that Hazel felt they were obstructing the door so they were kicked away from the entrance.
One day I was shaving upstairs and noticed an object 40m away amongst the olive trees. They were the missing flip flops. Hazel denied moving them and although it would have been extremely unlikely, I thought a ‘right to roam’ Italian had walked past the house and given them the boot into the meadow below.
I mentioned this to my assistant Dave, who stayed at the house with his parents and he said he had the same problem! They even found a shoe on their walk past Myra’s yellow house at the end of the track. Eventually, they discovered it was a fox that picked them up, presuming they could give it a chew and then dropped it once they got bored!!
As a result we have a few shoes now only suitable for one legged people.
(Nb. There is a cupboard on the left of the kitchen door to store trainers & walking boots)

Years ago, Italian men used to disappear to the town squares in the evenings to discuss life, which generally revolved around women.
They chatted away, but as soon as a women walked passed there would be total silence as the men gauped, chins dropped. When the girl disappeared out of view, the conversation would continue as if they had never stopped.
In the Osteria ‘Il Botteghino’ the women do all the hard graft, while the men sit down, chat & watch tv, no guilt.
Italian men love Saturday evening television, especially with an attractive female presenter. There is no real content to the show but ‘throw in’ an attractive women and they are mesmerized. The football is the same, with the presenter always being a young women with big boobs – no chance of Gary Lineker hosting a program in Italy.
In my photo, the men laughed and chatted, but as soon as they noticed the female swimmer, the conversation stopped and the men just stared at the screen.

Italy offers so many wonderful culinary treats and unlike other world cuisines it caters for the family.

In Ponte a Moriano, we have a wonderful gelateria, which is open until 23.00. All the ice creams are home-made and also available to take home to the freezer. One of the charms is watching teenagers innocently eating ice cream (rather than pouring beer down their throats) or older relatives eating ice cream with their grand children – wonders of Italy’s ageless society. In Lucca, one of the best gelateria’s is Grom, half way along the main shopping street, Via Filungo.

Ponte a Moriano has a wonderful delicatessen opposite the car park at the far right of the square, beyond the post office. He cooks wonderful food to take home, delicious slices of roast beef/ meats, home made pastas etc. We drop off our dishes for Alessandrio to make up lasagnes & aubergine parmigiana, which we collect the next morning. On Friday, he prepares lots of fish dishes – fritto misto and an Italian favourite baccala (salt cod). This is often sauteed in olive oil or with tomatoes; it is amazing. The shop is only open in the mornings and shuts at about 13.30.

On Tuesday morning there is a market in the main square at Ponte a Moriano. You can buy fruit & veg, clothes, local cheese & honey, plus a wonderful fish truck with squid, octopus, prawns, clams and wonderful selection of very fresh fish from the fishing boats at Viareggio.

Also in the square, is a restaurant / pizzeria, Da Pinza. Tony cooks 200+ pizzas an evening and the best dishes are on the board. It is very popular with locals, it’s very bright, not romantic but offers good food at excellent value. My favourite pizza is Bianca, version without the tomato sauce. It is based with mozzarella, then Parma ham which can be put on the hot pizza cold (crudo) or cooked in the oven (crudo). I prefer it raw as it soon cooks in. This is then topped with marscapone cream. I call it the indulgent Italian bacon sandwich!

I was rather surprised to see at a 13th birthday party, the children eating chips & sliced frankfurter pizzas – I never thought I would see that in Italy! DA PINZA: Via Nazionale, 1207 – Ponte a Moriano (Ponte A Moriano Square) Tel: 0583 577 760. Closed Wednesday. Take aways & take away pizzas

On our side of the river is an excellent family trattoria called Antica Locanda di Sesto. This has existed for hundreds of years and serves wonderful Tuscan seasonal food, from their farm. Aurelio is the 40 year chef, who also cooks all over the world at special events & Lambi, the front of house with mother Raphaela. One of their pastas is crispy Cinta Senese (rare breed pig) pigs cheek tossed with the pasta & water in a wheel of pecorino. This is the best pasta dish in the world although my wife would say their seasonal truffle & mushroom taglioni is even better!!


Antica is a wonderful serene restaurant, great food and Raphaela graceful chooses the most charming staff. Our favourite restaurant & wonderful family, 10 mins by car from the house. Aurelio is famous for his Bistecca di Fiorentina steaks and other meats, cooked on his wonderful olive wood grill.


www.anticalocandadisesto.it Via Ludovica, 1660, 55100, West side of Ponte a Moriano.
Tel: (0039) 0583 578181 Closed on Saturday. Must book

There are lots of other good local restaurants:
Botteghino is an amazing Osteria, very simple & cheap, no frills, with the best pasta – Macheroni with mushrooms, Tordelli (local Lucca meat ravioli) & pasta picanti – slightly spiced tomato sauce.We love this pasta.
Mains: Roast beef – wonderful pink beef slices, Trippa (tripe with tomatoes), Baccala (salt cod), Fritto Pollo, Coniglio – Tuscan fried meat (chicken, rabbit in bread crumbs) & Beef steaks. On Friday they have a Livornese fish soup, similar to Bouillabaisse, which is really good (very busy, so must book).
Via di Matraia 1505, San Pancrazio 55100. Tel: 0583 406 406 http://www.osteriailbotteghino.it

Erasmo: On the river 500m North of Ponte a Moriano, Parking 50m behind. Pleasant family & environment, but grilled meat has sometimes been over cooked.

Butterfly: Michelin starred fish restaurant, on road to Lucca, 100-200m from Esse Lunga roundabout www.ristorantebutterfly.it Tel: (0039) 0583 307 573 SS.12 del Brennero, 192 Marlia, Lucca

Ristorante/ Pizzeria La Fenice Morianese di Morinese – Via di Morianese, San.Cassiano di Morianese 4600, 55100 San Cassiano di Morianese (LU) – good food at a very reasonable price (Good insalate di mare, pasta, pizzas, fritto misto, steaks etc). Well run, pleasant environment near our house.
Closed Tuesday. 0583 578 786 https://www.facebook.com/Ristorante-La-Fenice-Morianese-1499692056958522/

Lucca:
Il Giglio.We love this town restaurant, especially the risotto with wine reduction, superb. We prefer to sit inside, in the summer, you may want to sit under the window for a little breeze. Very good food & service. Must book www.ristorantegiglio.com Piazza del Giglio 2, Lucca Tel: (0039) 0583 494058

San Bartolomeo, Via dell’Anfiteatro 29/A 55100, Lucca 39 0583 496 124
https://riccardofranchini.com/2016/02/11/st-bartholomeo-ii-visita-lucca/

Pieve Santo Stefano:
VIPORE: Positioned in a lovely country location, a 25 minute beautiful drive away at Pieve Santo Stefano (west of Lucca). Tel: 0583 394 065. This restaurant had a good reputation in the 1980’s & 90’s, but perhaps now the lovely drive & views are more memorable than the food! The starters & pastas are good but main courses aren’t good. Hopefully, this will change. http://www.vipore.it/restaurant.htm

MATRAIA area – 20-25 mins:

Ristorante Pizzeria ‘Le Colonne, Via Communale Matraia, 23, Matraia. Tel: +39 0583 402390 – lovely area, out door seating and nice 30′s dining room. Good food, fair price, full of locals

Osteria Da Giomo, Via di Mezzo, 3, Valgiano (infront of church). +39 340 8562675. Closed Monday & lunchtime. No menu/ daily dishes, great popular local – good food & excellent value

Viareggio:
Ristorante Da Miro – Superb seafood restaurant on the harbour wall. Wonderful cold & hot mixed starters, superb pastas & fish. Try the Cacciucco, a strong tomatoey fish soup main course, similar to bouillabaisse
Via Coppino Michele 289 – Viareggio (LU) | danielepoleschi@gmail.com www.ristorantedamiro.com Tel. 0584 384065

Trattoria Buonamico: This restaurant was recommended to us by the lovely lady at Dahlia Beach club is situated 1Km inland from the beach, Via S.Andrea 27, Viareggio. http://www.trattoriabuonamico.it Tel: 0584 943 266 This is a very well run trattoria with wonderful daily specials (lots of fish) and a perfect way to end the day after the beach. Excellent.

Pietrsanta:
L’Enoteca Marcucci – http://www.enotecamarcucci.it Tel: 0584 791 962 La Cantina dell’Enotecca Marcucci, Via Giuseppe Garibaldi, 40, 55045 Pietrsanta Closed Monday
Very cool town & restaurant., not cheap but great experience

Casone, Garfagnana:
Il Casone, this is run by a wonderful man, Guiseppe and serves lovely mountain food. In the winter it is a ski resort, summer outdoor activities but the restaurant & hotel is always open and serves wonderful food after a stunning 1hour drive. Localita’ Casone di Profecchia – Castiglione di Garfagnana (Lu) 55033 – Tel. +39 0583 649028 http://www.hotelilcasone.it

We would love to know your discoveries? There are lots of good restaurants, but these are some of our regular haunts.
Follow some simple philosophies, such as eat fish on Friday & not on Monday, eat fish when by the sea and stews & more wholesome foods when in the mountains.
Italians dont like paying tax, so they don’t tip.
House red, in the UK this is often looked down on but in Italy it is excellent, local and should represent the quality of the restaurant (about €12/ 15/ litre).
Buon appetito

The Venetian walled city of Lucca is full of art & beautiful culture. The magnificent Duomo, Chiesa di San Michele is constructed beautifully with marble from Carrera but the real charm of Lucca are all the small corners and smaller churches like Basilica di San Frediano.



The choral recitals from the churches in the early evening are wonderful and really capture the spirit of Lucca

Last winter 187 cinghiale (wild boar) were shot in the valley, they are very secretive and seldom seen, but you sometimes see them in the car headlights at night. We are keen wild life fans so drive carefully at night looking at the wildlife and generally see a cinghiale every 3 or 4 days. Usually they move higher up into the woods & mountains to breed during the Summer months. They can be quite destructive, rutting up the grass, so we have now put up a low electric fence to discourage them – this is not on during the summer months.

We watched this large boar snuffling around on the verges on the road towards Gugliano before crossing in front of our car.

In April we saw a pine martin, which are quite aggressive little beasts but they are not easy to spot. Usually they are seen at twilight or at night but there are several of their round nests high in the pine trees. I haven’t seen a porcupine recently. I believe one or two have been shot in the village veg patches. It is illegal to shoot them but they were a delicacy, cooked slowly in a pit in the ground.

At the end of March the swallows arrived and immediately started re-building their nests in the barn with mud from the stream. The hoopoes, turtle doves and golden oriel were pairing up for the summer season. I love the sight of thousands of fire flies in the summer, sometimes the whole valley is lit up with their wonderful beautiful glow.

Tuscany is a very organic province and the locals produce a lot of honey which is sold locally. We have 2 men who have stored some hives 200m up from our house.

In the evening a young boy takes his hawk, Sid out for a fly. You may hear his little bell. He was born in November 2015, so is still learning how to hunt.

In the spring we have lots of flowers, wild garlic & asparagus in the valley, plus oliander, roses & hebicus in the summer.

Most of the young Italians want to live in the cities, resulting in an ageing population in the countryside. We wonder what will happen to the traditions when they move on. Our farmer GianFranco is now 76 and was in hospital during the winter. He hand milks his cows and is always working but who will look after the land when he is too old to continue? It is a worrying thought? When we arrived in 1999, grape vines surrounded the house, but global warming and wet winters caused a blight to the vines, so a few have been removed and replaced with olives.
During the war, locals said the valley was full of wheat fields, so have been changes over the years.

During the summer we hopped on the train to Modena, a wonderful city nearby, famed for being the birthplace of Pavarotti, the home of Ferrari and now Massimo Bottura’s, wonderful Osteria Francescana.

Modena is a really interesting city, a university town full of beautiful warm tones. It neighbours, Bologna the real food capital of Emilia Romagna (& Italy) where so many famous dishes have originated, such as Bolognese, Lasagne, Mortadella, Cotechino and Zampone and only a stones throw from the beautiful city of Parma – Parmigiano cheese & Parma Ham.

Massimo is one of the most relaxed chefs in the world and his recipes carry so much charm, humour and taste fantastic. The restaurant is so serene, surrounded with fantastic paintings, quirky sculptures from Damian Hirst and other international artists. The atmosphere is very relaxing, uncrowded with lovely knowledgeable but relaxed service.

Part of the 3 part starter from the Italian sensational’s menu

little pillows stuffed with baccala (salt cod), part of the starter

wonderful parmesan & truffle fingers

Massimo’s humorous take on fish & chips (ice-cream). A crisp stuffed with aola (fresh water fish) & carpione ice cream

Delicious crispy tempura with a wonderful soft squid & tempura in an amazing Mediterranean tomato & caper consume

Lasagne, as a child Massimo’s family used to argue who was going to eat the crispy top to the lasagne, this is his crispiest top with the colours of the Italian flag

Eel swimming up the river Po. This was a truly amazing dish, delicious eel with sharp apple & polenta

Local working man’s lunch – mortadella with focaccia, served with a beer. A classic Bologna dish

Five ages of Parmigiano Reggiano in different temptures and textures

Foie gras ice lolly, made with 50 year old balsamic and hazel nuts, so wonderfully smooth

Turbot with green sauce

Caesar salad, which includes 2 ingredients hidden within

Freddie tucking into the veal

Spin-painted veal with horse radish

Seafood bisque served fish heaven – John Dorry with squid ink

Oop’s, I dropped the lemon tart?

Rice pudding

Coffee & chocolates

This experience was one of the best things we’ve ever done. It is booked up several months in advance and dates are released every quarter, so you have to be quick as they go in seconds.

We also had the wine pairing (which included beer & dessert wine). The wines were not classics but fantastically sourced to compliment the dishes and were very generous, unlike the wine pairings in London restaurant, which are extremely mean. Massimo is a wonderfully generous spirited person.

Osteria Francescana, Via Stella 22, Modena, Italia 41121 www.osteriafrancescana.it
Tel: +39 0592 23912
E-mail: info@francescana.it

Tuscany is a very long province on the west side of Italy and as a result has so many wonderful different foods. These foods really typify the people and the landscape. The links below show some fantastic foods.

Rare Tuscan & Ligurian pasta called Testaroli, a thick pancake, sliced, made with chestnut flour and cooked over chestnut wood, usually served with pesto or mushrooms.
http://www.turismo.intoscana.it/allthingstuscany/tuscanycious/summer-food-escapes-in-tuscany/
http://www.turismo.intoscana.it/allthingstuscany/tuscanycious/tuscan-cheese-guide/
http://www.turismo.intoscana.it/allthingstuscany/tuscanycious/tuscan-food-products-google-map/