The flight from Paris to Florence was pretty much on time and my case was one of the first to come out, which makes a change.
Customs was non-existant and I was out of the airport fairly quickly. I had a look around for the Avis car hire place and waited in line with about half a dozen people so that I could try and add my name to the drivers list of the one that had been hired by one of the other people on the course. I noticed that the bus that I had to catch to the railway station was waiting so I decided to get onto that. After a very bumpy ride through Florence I arrived at the train station, bought my ticket and found the train that stopped at Certalfo, where I was to be picked up and taken to the place where the course is taking place.
After about 10 minutes some of the others turned up in the car to pick me up and we then popped to the local supermarket to pick up some stuff for brekky. We then went back to the place that I am staying which is an apartment attached to a house run by a woman called Paula. The apartment is very naiv and quite rustic but is clean and comfortable.
After settling in, I met with the others on the course and we wandered down to La Selva where Shilpa and Riccardo live and the course is to be run. The other people on the course are really nice and we had a nice evening eating and drinking. I even got the chance to put a pizza into the wood fired oven using one of those big metal 'spatula' things. We feasted on foccaccia, pizza, roasted veg, beans and potatoes and finished off with fruit salad, all of which was lovely. Then we walked back to our various apartments marvellung at the fireflies as they lit up the hedges and nearby fields.
Regards,
Gary Nicklin
Please excuse the short message - it was sent from a Blackberry handheld.
