Summer is on its way!

May has been a great month here as usual.  Glorious weather and the poppies are out.  Sadly we didn’t manage to get to the steam train in Siena mentioned in April’s blog - it doesn’t run all year round and we missed the window so I think we will have to do it in September now.

We got the Vespa’s out and my little cinquecento, it always feels like the summer is here when we do that!  I’m so much more confident on my Vespa these days (only taken ten years!) and I’ve been going out for coffee and lunches with friends and getting there on my little trusty steed!  It feels very Italian I must say. 

Our guests have all been lovely and have written some great reviews so we are very happy about that of course.  We have some regular guests coming next month all the way from America so we’re really looking forward to seeing them again and we had another returnee group staying this month.  It’s so good to see guests returning year in year out, it really makes all our efforts worthwhile. 

A couple of our groups took advantage of our new offers, one family spent an evening with the lovely Claudia from the world famous San Fabiano vineyard in Arezzo and another group had an afternoon with the mums and kids making pasta with Alberto, a local chef. (The dads went into the local village for a few beers!).  All the activities took place in the gorgeous kitchen at Casa Leana with some great feedback.

We took off to Perugia mid month to watch an individual time trial stage of the Giro d’Italia. It’s one of our regular annual trips out.  Being in Perugia we took the tram up to the top of town which is a little adventure in itself in my world.  We also found a gorgeous restaurant where we had coffee and cake at around 11am and liked it so much, we decided to stay for lunch.  With the fabulous views and a bit of people watching, it was a perfect afternoon in the sunshine!

We love cycling events and we’re hoping to go to the first stage of the Tour de France next month which bizarrely starts in Florence (I know!). 

In other news we’re thinking about getting a sit on lawn mower which I am very excited about.  You may recall from previous blogs that I usually do quite a bit of the mowing at Casa Leana so lawn mowers are always of interest to me.  Sad but true! Watch this space to see if my dream becomes a reality ha ha. 

It’s the Euros next month so that will most probably be Leigh watching football matches most of the time and analyzing England’s performances!  Last time this happened England got to the final and it was against Italy and Italy won!  It was emotional as you can imagine and took a little while to get over the disappointment. 

That's it for this month.  Have a great weekend.  

D I A N A   xxx