Almost Time to Go

THERE IS SOMETHING nice about returning 'home' after a long vacation. Ok, not always -- but sometimes. We'll leave Italy with mixed feelings: we're sorry to leave but are also kind of ready to get back to the south of France. The kids are particularly excited to get back because they start 6eme next week (6th grade) and that means they will be with me at my school for the first time. It also means they'll be in school with about 1200 other students ranging from 6th to 12th grade. Yikes/Fun!

Most of you know about our summer situation. In a nutshell it is this: we have to be out of our house because the owner of the property uses it and rents it out during the oh-so-lucrative summer months. That means that each summer we have to (or 'get to') find a place to go for about 12 weeks. What makes it slightly complicated is that 4 of those weeks come while school is in session so we are forced to find somewhere to stay in the oh-so-expensive Cote d'Azur. Maybe that's why the place we have found for the past two summers is a 40 sq. meter (you read that correctly) apartment in a villa in Roquefort-les-Pins. (Note: to be fair, its great! Very, very small -- but great. It's on the lower level of a beautiful house owned by a great 80+ woman named Madame Ferment. Nice terrace and lovely pool for the kids).
But once school is out we are free to go where we want, or, more precisely, where we can find something suitable and within our price range. We've been very lucky and this year is no different. Macchie, the small village where we have been this summer, has been wonderful. The house we rented is beautiful, charming, 'homey', and located in an incredibly beautiful part of Italy -- just on the Umbria/Tuscany border.

We leave this weekend and we'll miss it. Excited to get back, but we'll miss our summer in Italy Much of it is documented in the posts that follow. One last family photo -- this one from the great Tuscan village of Pienza: