Tuscany

Before we even got to Oktoberfest last year, our Munich friends asked if we would want to meet them in Italy for Easter next year. 

Daycares in Norway close for the entire week prior to Easter, which means we have to entertain the kids at home or entertain them somewhere fabulous.  Not a difficult decision if you ask me.

But the four of us and our combined 4 kids was not enough.  We have many other European dwelling friends, exclusively former classmates of Martin at the University of Edinburgh circa 2010, so we cast a wide net recruiting others to join us.

Nine adults got in the fun!  Plus 8 kids.

We stayed at an agriturismo, which is a brilliant concept I'd never heard of prior to this trip.  It's a working farm that also offers accommodation.  A farm stay, if you will.  

We had a large house with heaps of bedrooms and even more bathrooms, for 4 adults and 4 kids.  All the others (three couples who had between one and three kids, plus one single) had smaller accommodations just footsteps away.  Our house had a big outdoor terrace and multiuple indoor living areas so everyone could hang out and come and go as they please.  The perfect set up!

Also perfect was the restaurant only a few hundred meters away:

Please don't alert child services to my saying this, but for years I have wanted to "Madeline McCann my kids at a resort in Europe", which is precisely what we did.  What I mean by that is leave the kids sleeping in your room while the adults go to the common area to eat, drink and live!  

If you know anything about that case you know I am an absolute psychopath for even thinking that, but I know this is a very common practice in Europe and that it works drama-free 99.999% of the time.  Thankfully we were not one of the 00.0001%. 

This being a working farm there were lots of animals on display: goats, pigs, chickens, geese and rabbits.

There were reports of a donkey who's allowed to roam free, but it was so free that we never did lay eyes on it.

This place is so kid friendly!  Multiple areas of playground equipment.

Entertainment like ping pong, yard games and bicycles.

Breakfast included, with all the donuts and Nutella two little Ameri-strayla-wegian girls could eat, with tables long enough for our party of 17 to cause an absolute ruckus.

A pool!

But the weather was nothing short of shite on this trip, so our pool enjoyment was restricted to one day of questionable sunshine and warmth.  They kids were desperate for a dip so we all sucked it up in the 18 degree C (65 degree F) temperature.

Two truths emerged from this trip.  All things are possible with:

• alcohol 
• the desire to entertain and tire out these kids

In an effort to achieve #2 and to get a smidgen of actual travel out of this trip, we took our massive dog and pony show on a road trip for two of the days of our week-long trip.

San Gimigano

I have not one photograph to show you of this place, as it was downpouring too hard to take out my phone and snap a picture.  Enjoy this stock photo from Google instead:

 Actually that's not true, I did get one photo when we were undercover protected from the rain, soaking our freezing asses off while enjoying what is allegedly the best gelato in the world.

I don't know what gelato authority deemed this, and I'm sure every gelato shop in the country lays a similarly dubious claim, but Gelato Dondoli did legitimately seem like a popular place. 

We all had pistachio, my fave, as it was too rainy and hectic to try a wider variety of flavors.  If the weather would have been at all tolerable this town would have been dreamy and adorable.  All I can really attest to are wet cobble stones and the inside of one restaurant.

The views on the drive there, however, were magnificent.

Imagine what it would look like in the sunshine!  Tuscany really is the land of rolling hills.

Florence 

Blessedly, of the two days we road tripped Florence had the better weather.  I'd definitely rather get a clearer view of Florence (Firenze, as they say in Italian, which I previously hadn't heard) than the tiny San Gimigano.  The sun even made an appearance!

I wasn't even expecting a trip into Florence, so did zero research about the place and what to see.  Thankfully our travel companions were well informed, so I just followed along and snapped pictures merrily since I missed out on all the photo ops in San Gimigano. 

 After the Duomo di Firenze cathedral (above) it seems like the biggest sight to see is the Ponte Vecchio bridge...which I do not have a picture of because we were standing on said bridge.  However Martin got one of the best pictures ever of the girls while we were on it.

How funny is that?!  Epic photo bomb.

Sadly I did not get to see Michelangelo's statue of David at the Uffizi museum as that takes time, planning ahead and no children - all of which I lacked.  I hope to see it someday! 

I declared that we should all come back in 15 years and relive this trip without bambinos (at that point the youngest - not mine - will be 16.5).  No Madeline McCann'ing needed for a group of empty nesters!

There was an overpriced carousel in the middle of town, which we naturally had to stop for.

In a "what a small world" moment, we happened to be in Florence on the same day as a far away friend! 

Don't get too excited; this was by no means an accidental bump in.  I knew she was in town and planned this meet up with Allie from Pennsylvania.  

She is the sister of Pia from last years trip to Copenhagen, and was on this blog before from her cousin's Queensland wedding back in 2016.  I'd never met her new(ish) husband before and hadn't seen her since 2021, so it was nice to briefly catch up on their whirlwind trip of Italy that included more Michelangelo statues and less wild donkey searches.

Back at the agriturismo I had arranged an Easter egg hunt for the hoard of kidlets, including a neighbor kid who was alone with her parents.

Do you know what a phenomenon little plastic eggs are in Europe?  It is mental how this simple, cheap item hasn't made its way to Europe for use at Easter.  In Norway kids get one giant paper mache egg filled with candy in place of an Easter basket.  My dinky little eggs have impressed many parents, and of course dazzled every kid who goes on a traditional American Easter egg hunt. 

As you can imagine, we ate good in Tuscany.  Good food and good wine!

I discovered a new type of pasta, called pici.  Wikipedia describes it as "fat spaghetti".  

I had it two different times at restaurants with deer meat and pork sausage.  Of course it was cooked al dente, and you could really feel that with the thickness of the noodle.

The dish on the left there is "onion soup" which I was expecting to be French onion soup.  Of course, this ain't France so this ain't French onion soup.  The blondness of the soup disturbed me!  While it was tasty enough, it was no French onion soup.

With such a gaggle of kids the adults did a lot of eating at home and our single friend Max was an absolute rock star and cooked for us while the rest of us put the kids down.  

Somebody marry this man, seriously.  He's a catch!

The kids mainly ate at home, which was predictably a nightly circus.

But the times we did take the kids out they did so impressively well!  We have come a long, long way since Copenhagen 9 short months ago when we learned (the hard way) that our girls were incapable of sitting down at a table and dining in public.  We've prioritized fixing this problem and our hard work has paid off!

Our main sustenance throughout the week was bistecca alla fiorentina, which is a big honkin' thick t-bone steak cooked super rare. 

Martin had it multiple times and would've happily had it for every meal.  Don't get me wrong, it was a good piece of meat but when I'm in Italy I am there for the pizza and pasta, not raw meat.

Of course we had gallons upon gallons of wine, beer, Prosecco, Aperol and my Italian favorite, limoncello!

We had such a great trip with this huge crew.  I hope we're able to recreate it in other exotic destinations, and we are actively on the hunt for similar set ups in different European destinations.  

It fit our needs of entertaining the kids, entertaining ourselves, reuniting with good friends and breathing life back into our once-thought-dead travel lives.