Tonight will be our last night in Ciona before we head to hotel near the concert tomorrow. Last night we had a big dinner here at Ciona as the girls did a mini cooking class with Franca and Mimma.
Aleks and Martina arrived from Slovenia just in time. They rode the motorcycle down, all 500 kilometers which took about 10 hours with stops! No way Lori and I would ride a motorcycle that far if at all, too uncomfortable!
We had a nice plain, simple, tuscan dinner here at the estate. The boys swam a lot yesterday while I took a few from our group back down to the jewelry store. Our friends Mike and John must have spent enough to buy a small car there in the last two days! They even bought me a gold and leather bracelet as a thank you gift which was totally unexpected and overwhelming, but they insisted. Between that and the cashmere goat factory, we joked, they single handedly revitalized the Tuscan economy. The mother and son now run the jewelry store as the father who was very famous, passed away from throat cancer unexpectedly 2 years ago. Their shop used to be in Milan and Franca said they made jewelry for the top clientele in Italy and from around the World. Then they decided to move back to Tuscany and the father passed, and the son, who was trained by his father and in the U.S., kept the family name going. Anyhow, they were really nice.
Today we’ll all split up into small groups and go do things on our own and then start to pack tonight to check out tomorrow. Hope all’s well, GB