ITALY! Part 3: Hanging out in Greve

The villa where we are staying is called "La Rota", which is Italian for the huge stone wheel that is used to crush olives into olive oil. It is a beautiful stone structure built in the 18th century and set among fields of grapes and olives. The view out of bedroom window is breathtaking. Every morning, when I am fussy from waking up, mommy or daddy sit me in the window and we watch the trees and birds outside. Feeling the cool wind on my skin instantly calms me down.

Today we recovered from the previous day's adventure and just slept in, then looked around the nearest big town, Greve. The villa is in a tiny hilltop village called Panzano (don't bother checking the map- it's not on most), but Greve is about 10 minutes away and has all the shopping and food anyone would need. We looked around the main square and found a really cool toy giraffe and a awesome rattle. Of course I insisted on playing my new gorgeous musical instrument all through lunch! For lunch, daddy let me try something called Risotto. It is kind of like rice, but much tastier. One bite and I was hooked- I tried to grab the forl away from him so I could shovel the wonderful stuff in faster!

While we were in Greve, we also visited an artist's shop called Gallery Civette. We learned that this is the Italian word for my favorite animal: the owl! We bought a nice watercolor of an owl fo my room and mommy and daddy got paiting souvineers of their trip.

In the evening, we all got dressed up in our special outfiits and took Christmas card photos of the whole family. That part wasn't as fun becuase I was really tired. But you can only do so much in one day in Tuscany!