Buongiorno dall'Italia

We decided to fully embrace the European vacation schedule. I think it’s well known that Europeans have much more vacation time than Americans. And they use it all. And they’re proud of it.

Last summer several of our coworkers disappeared for 4-5 weeks in the summer. There was no checking in on email, there was no working a little in the evening. They literally disappeared for a month in the summer.

So in the late fall last year, we came up with an idea. We would spend three weeks away somewhere. But we still have a little bit of American in us. So the plan was that Adam would work remotely for a week while I was off with the girls; in week two we would both be off; and in week 3, I would work remotely while Adam played with Charlotte & Olivia. The more time went on, the more & more I got excited about this concept.

We set out some criteria for location. We wanted to be able to drive there in a day and have our car with us for the vacation. We had to have a good internet connection (remote work was key to the success of this plan!). We wanted a house or place with a yard so we had a private area to run around in. We wanted a pool to swim in. We wanted to be near a beach and a city with good train connections so we didn’t have to drive everywhere. This all sounds amazing, but it’s actually quite difficult to put all of these criteria into a google search without having a city (or country) in mind. Many nights of internet research between 8pm when the girls are in bed and 10:30pm when I am in bed later we settled on an agriturismo outside of Lucca in Tuscany, Italy.

Agriturismos are working farms that double as a countryside B&B. Some rent out a room in the farm house, some, like ours, are converted barns that now stand as an additional house on the property. Most are still family run. In order to qualify for the Italian tax incentives that come with being an agriturismo, the farm must generate more money from its farm activities than from it’s B&B activities. The tax authorities can rest assured, we saw & heard the owner fire up his Lamborghini tractor (seriously, the Italians!) every morning about 6:45am.

Our place ticked all the boxes and turned out to be a great home base. The property was about a 15 minute drive outside of Lucca and had a camping site for RVs on one side, but our (no so) little barn was a bit secluded from them. We had about a 4 minute walk to the other side to get to the pool. It had a decent kitchen and it only took me 3 days and a few singed knuckle hairs to figure out how light the pilot light on the stove! It even had a second dining area that we could use to craft and color without having to pick it all up to eat. There were also 3 separate bedrooms so everyone had their own space. We were quite pleased with our choice of accommodation.

It took us about 7 hours to drive to Lucca from our house and in that time we talked about our goals for vacation. The first was have fun. The second was to swim a lot. The third was to eat pizza and ice cream every day on our trip. The fourth was to see if Italy had playgrounds. You might guess which generation was in charge of goal setting.

Driver extraordinaire, smiling but not taking his eyes off the road

When we arrived we had clear objectives, it was time to start implementing the plan.

I didn’t even have the suitcases fully out of the car before Charlotte had pulled out her swimsuit.

YOLO

Off we went to the pool.

The next day was Sunday and we decided to go into Lucca and explore a bit. We were not sure yet how much time we would spend in the city vs in the rural areas vs exploring other parts of Tuscany, but we wanted to get our bearings a bit.

The city of Lucca is surrounded by well-preserved ramparts. It’s quite ironic. Lucca hasn’t been involved in a war since 1430 yet it is one of Italy’s (maybe the world’s) most impressive fortresses and a perfectly intact wall. Most Italian cities tore down their walls to make way for modern traffic but Lucca’s wall keeps all the traffic outside of the city leaving a quite delightful and mostly pedestrian friendly city.

Low and behold we walked through the gate and we found a playground.

We played for a while and then wandered the city aided by our own personal Magellan (pretend he was Italian not Portuguese).

The navigation skills of the 6-year-old could explain the extreme hill climbing Adam went through this week.

Check out those calves!

We walked around town until we were hungry … well 3 of us. One of us accidentally passed on lunch.

Don’t worry, we woke her up eventually.

Besides, she was awake for the important part of the day.

I can't believe I almost missed this. - Olivia

The first full day and we were already doing really well on our three week goals!

The next day was Monday and Adam had to work. The girls and I spent the balance of the week visiting some Italian Gardens, checking out all the playgrounds in Lucca, visiting the Italian grocery store where we found a VERY surprising condiment, doing just a little summer homework, and eating our body weight in pizza and ice cream, swimming and hanging out “under the Tuscan sun”. We even managed dinner and snuggles with Dad in the evenings when he was done working.

BBQ sauce is such a rare item over here. I bought all six bottles on the shelf!

Over the next 8 or so posts we’ll detail our exploration of the rest of Tuscany and updates on the all important vacation goals. But just know, week 1 was a total success.

The 8th of July

If you do something twice, it becomes a tradition…right?

We celebrated the 4th of July at the American Diner again this year. But not on the 4th because the diner is closed on Tuesdays. So we had our 4th on the 5th. No matter, we had to work on both days anyway.

I like to think we make the owner laugh a little with the gusto which we celebrate the US.

As the three girls got dressed for the outing, Adam noted that we all busted out our patriotic gear and asked if he needed to change from his lime green shirt. You’d think after 18 years of marriage he’d realize that “you can do whatever you want” really means “yes, this is a family photo op; your participation is required”. He does not.

Olivia also demonstrated what I call balance in life. She has a love of apples…

… and milkshakes …

Using the force to pull the spoon into her mouth...

The festivities continued on Saturday when some friends invited us and every American expat we could think of to the lake for an epic BBQ.

We arrived in style.

And played and swam until we couldn’t play and swim anymore (who are we kidding, that will never happen!).

It looks like she’s really far out, don’t worry, she can stand there & Adam was just cropped out of the photo

A great way to celebrate the 5th and 8th of July!

Building Shanty Town

Today started with a text from a friend.

"Hey - You want to play hooky from work and take the kids to the kids construction site in Buchs?"

A quick check of the calendar to make sure there weren't any important meetings, and "Yes"

So off we went.

This place is essentially an open plot of land with piles of building material, tools, and paint and an uninhibited license for children’s creativity. There were exactly 4 adult workers and zero liability wavers signed and the only rules were wear your safety jacket/helmet, and let an adult work the table saw.

All the tools and building supplies are donated from a couple of the local construction companies and everything will be taken apart and put back to "normal" at the end of the summer. But for the next 7 weeks, I can only imagine this whole place turning into the most egregious code violation in the Rhine Valley.

Thermomix Demo

I’d been working with my new team for about a month when at lunch one day someone started discussing a dinner party she was throwing over the weekend and the food that she would be making for the party. I can’t remember everything she was going to make now, but I do remember it being a very long list. I made some comment about how she was going to need to take Friday afternoon off work so she could cook all this food. She said that wasn’t necessary as she would just use her Thermomix for all of it. When I had a very apparent blank look on my face, the topic of conversation quickly turned to what a Thermomix was and how magical of a kitchen appliance it was. Come to find out this conversation is had often on my team as the team of 11 seems to be split 5 pro-Thermomix, 5 con (I have, thus far, abstained from the vote). And believe me, we re-vote at least once a month when someone has a party and uses their machine or if a new recipe book is released or if there is a new attachment or feature discovered.

One of my co-workers got tired of my refusal to engage in the debate (and wanted to win me to the pro- side to break the tie in her favor). She invited us over to her house for lunch and said we would make everything (except the beef roast) in the Thermomix.

We got there and I quickly realized that she’d bought all the ingredients and we were literally going to make lunch together.

We started by inspecting the wizard machine.

The recipes are programmed into the machine (which also has a scale as part of the unit) so it will tell you how/when/how much of each ingredient to add. No measuring cups or spoons needed! The time and space saved in the washing up process alone is a big advantage to the pro column in my mind.

We started with a broccoli salad, all we did was dump florets of broccoli, quartered bell pepper and quartered apples in the machine (along with the other ingredients for the dressing) and click the buttons on the machine and in about 6-8 minutes, whala - salad

It was pretty tasty too.

Next up we made some dough for dinner rolls. Again, all ingredients in, press the magic button & you have dough. We set it, covered with cling wrap in the sunlight on the counter for about 25 minutes while we made the other food, then came back to a doubled dough ready to roll out and plait into a loaf of bread.

We had dinner and ended the afternoon with chocolate muffins and strawberry ice cream, both made of course in the Thermomix.

She won me over that is a super useful, quite versatile machine (though at the $1500 price tag, I probably won’t be rushing out to purchase one anytime soon ... unless, of course, it can make banana muffins...)

Gutenberg Castle

Today was a day for picking strawberries. Amanda learned from some of the school moms last month that there is a local farm in Buchs where you can go pick strawberries and it sounded like a great idea for a slow Saturday in July. So we loaded the crew into the car, along with our favorite berry picking baskets and headed for the country side. Which in a place like the Rhein Valley was a short 10 minute drive away.

We arrived at the farm to zero fan fare and as we drove up to the buildings noticed that no one was around. This didn't feel right so Amanda hopped onto their website and discovered that the previous week had been so good that they had run out of ripe berries to pick. And disappointed though we were, the weather was nice and we were already out of the house and there are still a few local places we haven't been to yet.

So today became a day for princesses! Gutenberg Castle overlooks the city of Balzers in southern Liechtenstein.

At the base of the hill is a play ground and the local church. I'll let you guess based on the pictures what the girls decided to visit first.

The church felt very imposing despite serving a population of fewer than 5,000 people. With it's thick stone walls and stately appearance you could be forgiven for thinking it's actually a fort from up close.

And with the playground and church explored it was time to go up the hill.

We arrived at the top a little winded and ready to explore.

But discovered that the main castle is closed to tours and only a few of the other buildings on the site can be seen by appointment only. There was a small information board that posted a few interesting facts about the castle such as:

• The first written mention is from 1263 when it belonged to the Barons of Frauenberg.
• It became a possession of the Habsburg empire in 1314 and remained in the royal families possession for more than 500 years.
• It was purchased by the municipality of Balzers in 1824 and has since passed between property of the principality and private ownership a couple times with the last sale occurring in 1979 when it passed back into the hands of the state.

While Amanda and I were busy brushing up on our Balzers history the courtyard was open and free to roam so the girls ran around the grounds for a bit and we got some pictures of the family with the a view of the village in below

Satisfied that we'd seen all there was to see we started back down the 60 meter high hill and paused for a few photos on the way.

And apparently we wore someone out ...

Oh and by the way, somewhere along the way Olivia managed to find a strawberry.