Marta had booked a trip to Morocco for her and her husband for their anniversary and her mother-in-law was going to be looking after the kids during their stay. We had promised to sleep there so she would feel safer. Marta had also just gotten three lovely kittens so we were more than happy to do so. Unfortunately, after two nights Siru had to fold, though, and return back home since her cat-allergy was getting so bad.

As our co-worker was about to leave on her two-weeks summer vacation we had to clean the apartment just upstairs of our own – Tufarelo. Tufarelo is 8-person apartment and it doesn’t actually count as one of Santa Vittoria’s apartments, it’s rented separately. It doesn’t have a central heating so it can only be used in summer, but it’s really nice and cozy – it has a real Tuscan atmosphere. Noora has been finding a lot of four-leaved clovers, but this week weeding she managed to find a five-leaved one.

On Saturday we went for a couple of drinks to a place Marta had said Foiano’s local people go to. As we sat there we wondered where cattles of youngsters were heading to and out of curiosity we decided to follow them. As we approached our destination we began to recognize that Marta had just previous week explained us where the Colour Festival was going to be. Apparently the event had been cancelled due to the bad weather and been moved to the following weekend – the very same that we were standing in the park confused. Pretty soon a guy came to us waving pouches full of powder colour and offered us a few and advised that we’d have to throw them in the air at the end of a countdown. We had arrived just in time and got all covered with different colours – to think we would have missed it all if we had just stayed in the bar minding our own business. We had some drinks and continued dancing outdoors, exchanged details with the generous guy with the extra powder bags and left home stained but happy.

The week began with suffocating heat (over 34 degrees) in Rome and it was hard to get a good night’s sleep. Siru had determined she’d like to visit Colosseum and Pisa’s leaning tower while in Italy, so that was naturally on our sightseeing list. We also wanted to see Fontana Di Trevi, the Trevi fountain, and the Vatican City with Saint Peter’s Basilica. The Vatican City, as you could guess, was loaded with tourists so we decided to come back the next day. The Trevi fountain was a disappointment – it was under construction and therefore empty. Also the Colosseum was partially under construction and let us down, too. Later in the evening we headed for the Spanish steps to see if we could find a nice place to eat in. We wandered for a while and then decided to go to a place named Alla Rampa – of which we had two possible explanations (based on our free translations):  1. everybody is disabled or, since it was located just below stairs, 2. the disabled lay underneath.

On our last day in Rome we went back to the Vatican City and joined the never ending line to Saint Peter’s Basilica. Ultimately it didn’t take long to queue in and the church was just breath-taking. We gazed the ceilings and walls in awe and even joined people praying in a small chapel aside from the masses of tourists. The architecture in churches, basilicas and chapels built in renaissance is just amazing – all the wonderful details, statues and paintings are work of true masters. After our tour in Vatican we went back to Roma Termini to wait for our train back home and in the meanwhile we found ourselves a nice pizzeria to eat in.

On Thursday we had another wine tour with a group of cyclists and later in the evening we had the biggest dinner so far with 15 Norwegian people. We were supposed to arrange it on the terrace, but as the weather began to change and our napkins started to fly away we decided to move the table back in before the fragile wine glasses would follow. There was lots of wine, laughter and songs as the evening went on and everybody seemed to leave happy.

In the next few days we finished cleaning the apartments and cleaned pretty much every inch of the property as on Saturday we would have a big wedding with 120 people. As we went down on Saturday the big tents had already been put up and the catering staff had arrived. We worked normally until our lunch break and Marta gave us the rest of the day off. She also said we’d be welcome to join the aperitif and the night festivities. We changed our clothes, had a glass of sparkling wine and admired the bride’s beautiful dress. We also learnt that for Italian couples it is typical to be photographed in the bridal car (with and without almost every guest). After a while we sneaked out and had a tour in Valdichiana Outlet Village – again. In the evening we just laid and rested; there was supposed to be a Colour Festival in Foiano della Chiana but we decided not to go since the weather was so unstable. We decided to go to the weddings after party, instead, and had Tiia come with us. There was a real DJ, good music and lots of dancing – altogether a really nice night.
 

Just a reminder for anybody and everybody (not connected to the actual events): even though the Finnish Midsummer traditions include rolling naked in a meadow, remember to check the meadow for nettles beforehand.