Bathing

Paolo made me laugh today.

 I have insisted on having a bath tub somewhere in the flat. First it was to be what is apparently grandly called a 'Vasca Pompeiana', which is a slipper sit-up bath, because there was no space in what will become my bathroom. I rather liked that idea. From my  Vasca Pompeiana

I would be able to admire the view of the Duomo; a candle lit, a glass of Prosecco in my hand, on a winter's night. 

However, I had to abandon my dream in order to create  space for  the rather more prosaic impiante idrico sanitario.,or the water heating system...

But naturally, neither I nor Paolo gave up completely.  And a new bathroom idea was formed, this time on the other side of the flat, and this time involving an antique bath with lion's feet, sitting in the very bedroom itself, with a view over Basilica of Santa Maria del Servi (in fact the Vadimontone Contrada head quarters...) and above is Paolo's drawing of me in the bath, with my glass of Prosecco, enjoying my view over just that. 

This was supposed to be accompanied by the sound track of Otis Redding's Dock of the Bay, the lyrics of which Paolo  had changed slightly:

"I'm sittin' in the tub of the room. watchin' the view at noon

Oh, I'm just sittin' in the tub of the room, Wastin'Time...

Other news from Italia include an outing, yesterday,  with my trekking group Camminando a Quercegrossa- only this time the walking was done in the water on the beach of the Parco della Sterpaia.

We joined a large multitude on this sandy beach where the beach umbrellas seemed to go on forever and  would probably have covered  more or less the entire coast of Tuscany as everyone tried to find a little cooling relief in the waves-

And then, tired; sun-baked and happy, we all decamped to a little country Trattoria on the route back to Siena and had things like  Tagliatelle al Cinghiale...