With summer well and truly underway here, we've been looking for activities to do with the kids that don't involve just sitting at home with the blinds down and the fans running, spying out the windows at anyone crazy enough to be out in the heat.

Today is officially our one year anniversary of moving to Italy! On 10 July 2023, we landed at Pisa's Galileo Galilei Airport in 38 degree weather. It feels simultaneously like it was last week, and a decade ago.

I always used to wonder how families coped with the neverending Italian summer break, but now I know. Either they have retired grandparents on hand (sometimes living in the same building), or they send their children to campi estivi.

I dream of achieving perfect cross-ventilation. Our neighbours think we are insane for keeping our windows open all the time. And we feel the same about them having theirs permanently shut, with blinds down. 

I always wonder when the week will come that I will sit down to write you this letter, and I won't have anything much to say. Almost a year into this crazy Italian adventure, and I haven't even come close yet!

This week I've had the absolute pleasure of welcoming Mum back to Italy. She arrived on Friday last week, landing in Bologna. I drove up from Lucca to collect her, and then we bunny hopped our way up into the Dolomites (my manual driving continues to be a work in progress).

The dramatic increase in tour groups and tourists has been astonishing these last couple of weeks. All of a sudden, guides with little flags on poles are everywhere. Cycling through town has become a game of dodgem cars.

We've been enjoying the most perfect springtime weather here in Lucca for the last week and half. It's been nothing but blue skies, incredible greenery and flowers everywhere. Truly magical. 

Siamo tornati a Lucca, finalmente! The last five weeks have been very special (and very tiring!) as we criss-crossed the globe, catching up with friends and family.

Hello from Australia! We have made it back to the southern hemisphere, after 24 hours in transit between Rome and Brisbane.

Last weekend was Easter. Pasqua here in Italia. We hired a comically small Fiat Panda, squished ourselves and our bags in, and drove north towards the Veneto. The motherland.

A quick update on the paper bin situation. After three missed collections, defiance reigned in the neighbourhood. Everyone left their overflowing paper bins out day and night, in protest of the lack of service. I can only imagine the number of calls being placed to Sistema Ambiente to complain about the desecration of the local streets.

Unlike at home, where you have one day a week when all your bins are collected, in Lucca different bins are collected on different days. So, five days out of seven, you have a bin to remember to put out.

Life in our new apartment is endlessly entertaining. The other night we made the mistake of trying to use our oven at the same time as the lights, and we managed to blow the main fuse. Italian wiring is truly insane. 

Well, we've done it. We've officially (finally) moved to our new apartment. Between the dreaded ZTL, rain, and sickness I would be lying if I said it was anything other than a very unenjoyable experience. The outcome, however, is fantastic.

I have heard from many people that Italians take everything - including the kitchen sink - with them when they move. But we were quite surprised when we realised that the previous tenants even took the light globes and shower curtain railing with them when they vacated the apartment!

While I am still very easily rendered mute in the face of an Italian inquisition, I am at least now able to comprehend a little more of what is being said to me. And by quashing my instinct to panic, I can form monosyllabic responses to most basic questions. 

The spa consisted mostly of indoor and outdoor pools, all heated to a delightful temperature. The main outdoor pool had a swim-up bar, which was packed from the moment the place opened at 10am!

When we first arrived in summer, we were very much lumped in with the hordes of sunburnt and obnoxious tourists. And fair enough too. We didn't know where we were going, we continually walked on the wrong side of people out of habit, and we failed time and time to order and pay correctly in busy bars and gelaterias. In short, we just generally got in the way. 

Last weekend I decided that we needed to go for an adventure. Something to get us out of town and burn some of the kids' endless energy. I researched online and found a gorgeously run-down but still very fun-looking little train in Viareggio. Un trenino.