La Treggaia

Ah La Traeggaia! We have discovered the most wonderful holiday house in Italy. This is where we drove to once we were over the Alps. Part of what made it different from the rest of the holiday was that it was one of the few weeks which we spent on our own as a family; the other thing was that it was so nice that we hardly went out anywhere - but spent happy days, swimming, reading, dozing, playing tennis and barbecuing. The owners of the property, Laora and Paolo lived on site, and all the facilities were shared with them, which turned out to be great. Laura appeared at our door carrying freshly cooked Italian delicacies, Paolo joined us for games of tennis and their grown-up-son shared ice-creams with Boris, Norris and Doris by the pool.

Once Doris is no longer a 'baby-in-a-cot' there will be too many of us to stay at La Traggaia sadly - unless anyone fancies looking after an extra child for a couple of weeks one summer?!

The view from the terrace, at La Traggaia.

Our week at La Treggaia will also be remembered for my "most scary moment" of the summer. On the first night there, I volunteered to go and get the shopping at the big Hypermarket Ipercoop at Montevarchi. A friend of the owners of the property kindly drew me a sketch of a road map and I set off. Once I was several miles (sorry kilometres) from the holiday house, and in a huge one-way system surrounded by motorway junctions, it became apparent that (i) I was completely lost and (ii) the map I was given had a fairly abstract relationship to reality! I then also discovered that (iii) I couldn't get anyone with a mobile phone to answer and (iv) the road atlas had been mistakenly unpacked with the suitcases and finally (v) it was getting dark.

Random driving about didn't help at all, so instead I had to systematically try every turning from each roundabout looking for landmarks I recognised. Needless to say, several hours later I appeared back at La Treggaia, rather flustered and bewildered, and having to explain to the family why there was no food!