I’m slowly catching up!

Much of this week was without travel, I’m afraid to say. We spent most of the daytime smartworking – the company for which we work allows us to ‘work away’ from your home or the office for up to 20 days a year. It might not sound like a heap, but I am really grateful for the benefit! Much of this week is a blur of food and walks, but I’ll jot a paragraph or two in respect of photos that stir more specific memories.

Have a look at the photo on the right above. The man, in order to perform some works underneath the tiles, painstakingly removed the tiles and placed them in their correct order for re-applying later on. A day or two later – this is how things looked:

And now this year, you wouldn’t know anything had occurred!

A great job, no? The above pic is from a blast from the future (past?) in March 2025.

I did a little walking the following morning and evening:

I’m looking at the food photos and I am not entirely sure where we ate, which is unusual – I can often tell where we ate by the crockery, glassware and table-layout, let alone food. I suspect it was Antica Taverna, but I can’t be 100% sure. The quality looks good, but they’re service spag bol… the soup presentation is unfamiliar to me – at the same time, the cacio e pepe looks great!

Moving on through the week, I had a gelato before we had a larger lunch from a wonderful place run by sisters and their mother: La Carabaccia. They have a couple of set things on the menu e.g. antipasti platters, zuppa alla Volterrana (yay!) and desserts, they rotate their menu every day – they just have a couple of pasta dishes and a couple of secondi (meats or vegetarian). It’s nonna-style Tuscan cooking all the way – delicious, and all the ladies are very sweet too.

We had an early evening walk that day:

And I kept up the cardio-vascular the next day – both first thing in the morning, and a quick mid-morning stroll and gelato raid!

That evening, we decided we’d had enough of Tuscan cuisine (yes, it happens – about once every two weeks), and headed with a friend to Cecina and an Asian Fusion place called SUSHI.BA. We were still on our quest to find a decent Asian place to eat. One has since opened up in Volterra (Ristorante Kibou sushi), and both Niamh and I think it’s one of the better ones – but we don’t each much sushi – so it’s largely the stir-fry, rice, dumpling and noodle dishes we prefer. Are either as good as a Chinese restaurant back home, no. You have to go to one of two Element Restaurants for some wonderful Cantonese goodness.

Anyway, this place was ok – I really liked my beef stir fry – it was well-presented and the beef didn’t taste cheap. I have since returned, but the quality of that dish had deteriorated.

All-in-all, not a bad place. If I recall correctly, the spicy tuna roll was nice this time around.

The following day was work, walk and eating as usual.

Finally, thank the good Lord, we did something on our last full day. We must have felt like cooped-up chickens, because we split to the coast. Both Marisa from Tales from Tuscany and Marie and Lorenzo from Authentic Tuscany all recommended that we visit a little coastal village of Quercinella, so we did!

This is a small place with a rocky, sheltered beach, a couple of hotels and restaurants, just a little south of Livorno. It’s nice and peaceful, although it can get busy. But most of the people who land there are Italian. So, having spotted a couple of carparks, we grabbed one, but Niamh declared it slightly too far away and so we grabbed the other. If you’re lucky, you can actually find some street parking closer to the coast, or maybe the unmarked carpark will be opened.

Anyway, we got out, walked up to the busy street and crossed it, and aimed towards a suburban offshoot. We got about halfway down this, when a kindly resident told us that it was a cul-de-sac, and we should aim for the tunnel underneath the railway tracks which will bring us to the beach. So, back up we went, and walked back to the carpark and found that it did indeed snake under the tracks.

We walked under a second archway, which brought us to the lungomare (seaside promenade).

It was kinda busy. We could see the entire stretch of promenade and knew enough that we had seen it in its entirety. It might be a cosy getaway for the local Italians, but an explorer’s dream it is not. However, it intrigued us enough to make a second visit another time (with find company) and stroll along the rocky pier you can see in the centre photo above.

Italians like their skimpy bathing costumes, and both Niamh and I were in civvies and opted not to walk along the beach. I always feel a bit of a perv if I do so when I’m dressed and everyone else is nearly naked – especially since I sometimes have my phone out to take photos or video. So, really, that was enough of that! There’s a small village area to the south which we still yet haven’t walked around. Instead, we walked back towards a restaurant recommended again by both parties (Lentisco). On the way, we chose to duck into their half-closed carpark and along their outdoor space to the restaurant itself.

If there’s one thing that can be said about Lentisco, it’s that they are located like few other restaurants: on top of short cliffs, with incredible views of the coast – it must be amazing for sundown parties. Today, we would just have a little lunch. We got a seat a little away from a window, so at least one of us (Niamh) could gaze out over Mediterranean loveliness. The people were pretty nice and the good was above average. Sometimes you sacrifice quality for great location, and this was only mildly the case here.

I wanted something light, as I knew we were going to eat later to cap off our holiday, so I went for a fillet of fish with veggies in a broth. Both veggies and broth were yummy, and the fish mostly good, but it still had a fair few bones and was undercooked (as you can see in the pic) in places. They also served us “when ready”, meaning that Niamh was finished her sandwich before I got my fish. Anyway, do me a favour and go in the evening and let me know what it’s like!

On the way back, we went back the way we came, got in the car, and I assumed that rather than taking the fairly dangerous left-hand turn onto the SS1, we turned right and then took the next left back towards Lentisco – cooing at the fabulous very-neo-gothic-looking Villa Jana, thinking we’d have an easier right-hand turn when we completed our loop through the village.

We turned left before Lentisco, and saw a couple of young boys, dressed for the sea, stopping cars and trying to sell the occupants glasses of water. Cute as it was, we didn’t succumb and I took the the second left, which I immediately recognised as the pedestrian route we took, which led us back to the carpark. I felt a complete idiot, but still negotiated the tricky left-hand onto the SS1. This road does have a speed limit, but those who drive coaches and logistical transport on it do not seem to be aware. There are two pieces of good news: the first is that the far lane has a short painted merging lane you can use. Italians are used to these and so won’t panic if they see a car suddenly pull out into one in what looks like the same lane. Tourists, on the other hand, will shit their britches (excuse me), so be careful.

The other piece of good news, of which I have only become aware in the writing of this, is that if I had taken the next left on the promenade, I would have found a much safer route onto the SS1 after about a kilometer through a suburban area.

We were on our way home along the coast, when I decided to drift off somewhere else we’d never visited before: Rosignano Marittimo. It was only a fleeting visit, though. I needed both a drink and a bathroom break, so after parking, we sat for a little while in the cute Caffè Carducci, just off a small piazza.

Although we were refreshed, the weather had taken a bit of a cloudy turn over these mountains, and overall the atmosphere oppressively humid, so we only explored a few hundred meters, gave the gorgeous castle a nod and drove home! We will explore farther another time – apologies!

So, we were at the end of another holiday, and visited La Vecchia Lira to cap it all off.

You can look at the video linked in the last blog, the last couple of minutes of which cover Quercinella and Rosignano Marittimo.

Thanks for getting to the end of this one. I’m happy with the pace, and soon I’ll have caught up with 2025! Drop me a line and let me know what you think!