Ok, I’m escalating again. I am so sorry not have been updating this as much as I would have liked. The problem is that as well as actually being on holidays, I grew a little tired of writing the same old stuff and showing the same old photos.

I can only imagine what it’s like reading them. So, if this somehow is the first of my blogs you’ll ever read, I’ll point you in the direction of Blog Archive – please go ahead and read the past issues. They’re free and, at the time of writing this, also ad-free!

Anyways, I have now decided to concentrate on new stuff, places visited, festivals, and showing some occasional walk photos. I hope you prefer this topic shift and you continue to enjoy reading the blogs, and why not, have them make you consider a trip to the area.

On with the show! There now follows a series of highlights that occurred during the rest of July.

We meet a fair few people through Instagram, as do the people we meet – if that makes sense. As a result, a lot of them are also interrelated, and in turn we meet even more people and hang around in groups together. Two of those people we met were Fran and Nick, who bought a renovation project some time back, with a potential view to opening up part of it as accommodation. They live near Lari, a lovely little converted fortress of a hilltown, a little past halfway between Volterra and Pisa.

They invited us over for a chat, some food a soak in their pool. We arrived there, after having a wobbly old ride up their shared driveway and parked neatly on their properly. It’s surrounded by olive groves and other land that came with the property – and in the distance you can make out other properties, similarly situated. They made a wonderful purchase.

After initial greets and chats, it was time for nibbles and grub. Normally, I avoid tuna, as I associate it with the tinned variety and the awful-tasting burps it brings. However, nicked cooked ours with a smoky rub over a flame and it was absolutely delicious. We then changed into our swimming costumes and hit the pool. The water was so warm. I remember trying to float, but still swimming eludes me completely. I can’t even float without stiffening up and sinking in panic. Everyone was very kind! Something I’ll have to unlearn one of these fine years. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the heck out of ourselves to the extent that, for months afterwards, we looked for properties with pools, or the potential to house same. It’s wonderfully cooling.

I did have some walks of course, and if you get up early enough, you can get the cloud-lake effects. Here are some of the better shots of this I took:

We had two incredible food-based quests come to a successful conclusion during this month. The first one was based on finding somewhere that serves good quality Cantonese cuisine. Prato was, and to be honest still remains, the largest town we have not yet explored yet in Tuscany. This is not a good thing. We have tons of time to rectify it, though. One of the, I’m sure many, good things about Prato is that they have a large Chinese community, most of which is somewhat west of the old town in a mini Chinatown. I’ve known about this for some time, but the problem is Prato’s distance.

One day, we decided to bite the bullet and after looking up Prato’s general area for ‘cucina cantonese’ (our favourite Chinese is Cantonese), we found a place called Element, which is on the outskirts of Prato, just beside a large shopping centre and cinema. It was only a ninety-minute drive(!), so we headed there for lunch. It’s funny when you approach Prato. A lot of the signs are in Chinese characters and Italian. The bus stop timetables are similarly inclined. We accidentally passed by the restaurant with its small carpark, and doubled-back to park there. If the carpark is full, you have a pair of massive carparks in the shopping areas nearby, with just a five minute walk back to the restaurant.

We were put at a table and noticed that, for a time at least, we were the only westerners in there. We were given a menu, and I think we were given the usual chit (now mostly replaced by a tablet) to order, but the quality of the food looked far, far better than it does in the usual all-you-can-eat places scattered throughout Italy’s larger towns. It looked fantastic coming out to other tables too. Here’s what we got:

I particularly loved my beef dish. It was velveted, but not overly so. The black pepper was a thin coating, a little fiery and sweet. If you clicked the link above you’ll have seen the restaurant only scores 4 stars and has 99 reviews. I can guess at two things – Italians aren’t overly fond of Chinese food – which I don’t think is true, as the fusion restaurants can often be quite busy – especially the one in Volterra. I think the problem here is that the food in Element is a good deal more expensive than it is in the fusion places – scanning through the reviews, the service can be a little slow. We won’t be back as often as I’d like, but that’s only because it’s three hours in the car, there and back.

After our glorious meal, we checked out Jysk in the large shopping centre nearby – Niamh just testing out some ideas. We got in the car and decided on what to do: explore old-town Prato or old-town Pistoia. Well, you’ve read this far, so you already know. We headed west towards the latter. The one thing I remember about this road – in fact, I found it particularly quite extraordinary – was the number of plant nurseries along the way. There really was one after another, kilometers of them, on both sides of the road – not sure if they are wholesale or retail, or both. Something to bear in mind when we eventually move over for good. Right now, we couldn’t in conscience fill the apartment with plants, as they would just up and die.

We hit the outskirts of Pistoia on its Eastern side and were pleasantly surprised to find walled sections, lined with pleasant avenues on the outside. We could have selected a carpark inside the town, but the turn into it is rather narrow and sharp, and we’re jittery around damaging rented vehicles. We went instead to this large carpark near one of the town’s hospitals.

From there, it was about a kilometer into the main piazza of town (Piazza del Duomo). The first half of it was a little modern/suburban, but the old-town charm took over and I found myself being happy with our choice of parking spot.

There were some nice beauty-spots on the way, but the central part of the old-town is, as in most cases, the star. We arrived, and the square was set up for some medieval horse-based event – pretty sure it’s a circular jousting course, and it looked really impressive. I think we were there on a Sunday, and so one thing I have to point out is that it was soooo quiet. There were a few people knocking about, but given how lovely Pistoia’s old centre is, it was a surprise as to how few there were.

And then the second culinary miracle happened. Not just in the same year, nor in the same month, but on the same day! Are you all sitting down? We came across a gelateria which we scored a 1.0 on what I call the “L’Isola del Gusto” scale (1.0 being as good as my favourite Volterran gelateria – not biased at all, am I?!). You can find it in the corner of the square, not too far from Pistoia’s enormous baptistry, if memory serves me correctly.

It is called ‘Una Mole di Gelato‘ and it seems to be open outside the tourist season! The flavours were wonderful and it was a shade creamier than gelati I’d had in the past, and the lady serving was gracious and engaging – which also adds to the points.

After the gelato, we went on a fairly lonely explore of the town. It’s really lovely in the centre, and there was plenty of evidence that the place could be very fun during festivals or on lively weekend nights. Good shopping there too, closely surrounding the more historical parts. We started with the colossal baptistry (check the video below) and worked our way through the town’s lanes and streets.

On the way back, we stopped off in Piazza della Sala, which is moments away from the main square. I believe they hold markets there, and it seems to be a bit of a hub for socialising – both it and the lanes that shoot off from it. I was to drive home, so Niamh had a drink, while I had a double helping of lemon soda in Pub Vecchia Praga – the lady serving us was lovely. In hindsight, I probably had too much sugar that afternoon!

The drive home was quite lengthy! However, I have in my mind maybe to spend a weekend in Pistoia some time, especially during a festival.

The last highlight was the sixth birthday party of our favourite cocktail lounge: L’Antica Velathri Café. As you can see below, the owner, Pietro, tends to go all-out in celebration!

I’ll leave you with some photos taken in the car on the way to the airport to fly home. You gotta love those sunflowers in full-bloom!

Below is a video of our time in Italy during June/July 2024 – enjoy! Thank for reading the blog. Do let me know what you think of it. I’ll try to keep on top of it, I swear!