Arriving in Grosseto, Tuscany

We spent the rest of our week in Italy at this little gem in southern
Tuscany. We used this as our base from which to visit the surrounding
areas. It was nice to visit Italy when it wasn't busy yet so just about
had the whole resort to ourselves.

This is the Registration area - I only took this photo to remember how
extremely helpful the staff was to us. They allowed Tracy to use an
extra room at the back for his makeshift office so that he could get
some work done over the Internet. They also gave us great day trip
recommendations and good advice in seeing areas that might be
interesting to the boys. When the gal spoke in English to us, I had a
hard time not laughing as her accent was such the stereotypical
Italian - I loved it! I can still hear her giving us directions for a good
lunch spot for our last day in Tuscany.

We arrived in the early evening, unpacked and found a grocery store as we hadn't eaten much since breakfast that morning. The boys loved playing tag in and around all of the buildings while I made dinner. It was a good thing that there weren't many people staying there that night.

Knowing that we would be tired from a hectic few days, we didn't plan anything specific for Wednesday. That being said, we didn't want to sit in front of the computer watching re-runs of Psych episodes while in Tuscany. So the gentleman working the registration area that morning gave us a few recommendations. Ends up that it was a rainy day and a bit colder than we were hoping. Winter coats again.

Castiglione della Pescaia is an ancient seaside town where the modern city grew up around a medieval fortress. This was under 30 Km away so a quick trip indeed after being in the car for many hours each of the previous five days. Though raining, we were able to enjoy the beauty of the area. But because of the rain, we didn't doddle as long as usual. We did, however, find an ice-cream shop so it was still a successful day!

Castiglione della Pescaia is an obvious tourist area and seeing that tourism
wasn't at its height, not many places were open. This little cafe area looked
so charming though and gave us some neat ideas for our back patio.

The streets were so narrow that I couldn't imagine seeing
any vehicles besides bicycles or motorcycles on them.

A part of the original wall of the city.

We found this rock work interesting - hadn't seen something
like this before visiting Castiglione della Pescaia.

And then, we did find a vehicle on a street! Can't imagine
the challenges of driving through these streets. We
ended up seeing a few Smart cars as well.

Cool doors at the entrance to a church

Just beautiful!

Overlooking the town.

I really enjoyed how many potted plants we saw. They
add so much life to a place that is all stone and brick.
And imagine the beauty when they start flowering!