Six months on and Liz and I were on our way to Venice on honeymoon.  We would have made it sooner but as we were both born on the same day and same year, we thought we would make our wedding day that date as well.  Venice was Liz’s choice.  I am a country person at heart and have a dislike of cities, but I have to say Venice, in spite of its reputation as a tourist trap, has to be one of my favourite cities in the world now.  That is in spite of the almost criminal prices for anything from gondolas to food and drink, which ruled Venice out as somewhere we could settle for long term.

     By now the Italian way of life had become more of an attraction to us than just holidays.  Also we both felt it was time to look at life from a more relaxed angle, so we trawled the web to find a small holiday let in Tuscany or Umbria that was not going to cost the earth.  Eventually we came upon "Gira Travel", who turned out to be a great company; very helpful and almost worryingly cheap!  Sure enough, they found something for us; a great cottage in a wonderful position to explore Tuscany and Umbria.

     Tuscany is everything you might imagine it would be from the many books and stories about it. Everyone should go there at least once to explore the region.  But be warned!  You have to look very hard to find a resident of Tuscany among all the tourists!  Umbria was quite different in a number of ways.  There were fewer tourists from abroad, but it seemed to be more popular with the Italians; even in September, one could still find a lot of Italian holiday makers on the camp sites.  To my mind, Umbria had a much better feel to it.  The locals were people who had lived there for generations, and it could almost feel like coming home.  For us, however, that was the stumbling block.  The locals really were like the English back home, so reserved and private.  We felt it would make a lifestyle move to Umbria very hard for us foreigners.