olive groves

On Saturday 13th, we packed up and moved house. A beautiful sunny day, we traveled north east towards Florence and arrived at 'Casale le Vigne' between Reggello and Donini (25km east of Florence), winding up and up and up along the tiny, narrow roads; gripping the seat (G driving) as we squeezed past cars going in the other direction- kids oblivious.... So beautiful in the autumn colours - everything, everywhere covered in leaves; orange, green and yellow.

Our lovely hosts Elena and Alessandro met us at the end of a long pencil pine-lined, pot-holed driveway that wound through the working olive groves (olives being picked by labourers as we drove in) over a creek and up and down a few more hills.
Florentines, they explained at length the history of the beautiful old barn/dove cot that they had restored and we settled in with the fire roaring and gifts of their own olive oil and 3 euro bottles of wine...

View from the dove cot (camera not capturing the endless rolling hills in the distance....magical...you'll have to imagine....castle turrets popping up between the layers of clouds!) and facade of the house.

We love it here!