I went to a conference at the end of April. It was in the mountains (Apuane Alps) in Toscany, slightly South East of Pisa. I flew to Florence on sunday the 21st (took the bus at my place at 5am! Ouch!) and arrived at the hotel Il Ciocco (http://www.ilciocco.eu/index.php) in the evening a few minutes before the first talk! The conference was about integrins, molecules that allow cells to attach to their environment. I work on these guys if you want to know. The conference was really nice and really intense. Only just over 100 persons attending so a very small conference where you get to meet a lot of big shots who have all known each other by their nicknames and make you feel like crap… Can anyone explain to me why I DON’T belong? Never mind it was still good!! Especially because I had a little cheer up call every night from my David!!

And the very best of course was that I got to stay over in Italy from Friday to Sunday! During the conference, we were always free for 4 h each afternoon and that was really welcome!! So I walked around in the mountains around the luxury hotel where we were. There was a tiny village named Treppignana. Only 20 houses over there but if you search, you’ll find quite a few things online about it! That’s because other people have attended conferences at Il Ciocco before me and the only 2 places you can walk to around are Treppignana and Barga a slightly bigger village (almost a city!! It has shops like a yummy ice cream place!! and even a city hall). Of course both of them have a church. Seems that in Italy they place the church first before the ice cream place… Some things I will never understand. Anyway Treppignana was cute. I went there with 2 Finns. It was bloody hot but worth the short walk in the mountain. There is a couple of Britts in the village. We chatted with the lady for a little while. She seemed dead bored out there although she has lived there close to for ever. She said that in 1945, a few months before the Germans surrender, there were quite fierce fighting going on there. The Americans were in Treppignana and the Germans in Il Ciocco.

Then I went to Barga the next day with a guy from Holland with an unpronounceable name. Nice guy but no clue about walking. I warned him that plastic flip flops wouldn’t do to trek the 10 km round trip from the hotel to Barga but he thought it should be fine. Even before reaching Barga he had 2 enormous blisters under his feet so I had to finish barefoot. I was dressed like a warrior as usual and luckily for both of us, I had 2L of water in my super duper Camelbak. Barga was cute and ice cream were eaten in a religious silence. We visited the church on top of the hill. Mind you part of the building were dated from 980 AD. They don’t joke about history in Italy. They have been there. There was a tiny museum behind the church with a map of the area drawn by Da Vinci. Cool stuff.

The last day I visited a local Winnery called Tenute di Badia (http://www.tenutedibadia.it/form_eng.html). The lady there rents some appartments on their property for tourists. They also make about 10 wines, some cookies and some delicious olive oil. Frankly the wine was not great. I bought olive oil, some Vin Santo (sweet wine) and some cookies that you should dip into the vin santo. Strangely this lady and her family spends almost all her holidays… in Brittany!!! I gave her my mum’s phone number just in case.

After the conference I got a lift by the organizer of the conference and his wife. Big shot but nice guy. They also wanted to go to Lucca, a smallish town about 40km North and I wanted to see it as well. I spent the Friday after the conference there then in the evening I took the train to Florence where I had reserved a bed in town. Lucca was really nice and peaceful, especially compared to Florence which is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO packed with tourists that it is bloody painful! Lucca is a fortified town with cute buildings all over. Lucca has the great advantage of having the best pizza I have ever eaten!! I know it doesn’t mean much but dammit!! it was so delicious! I bumped into this tiny shop only because customers, all Italian, were eating their bits of pizza sitting on the sidewalk outside the shop. Popular place. They cook giant pizzas, only a two or three kinds, and sell bits of them by the weight. It was not only the best but also the simplest pizza I have even had: only tomato paste and herbs. I managed to find a seat at one of the few tables inside, in front of a cute Italian granny who told me during the whole meal how good she thought these pizzas were! I also ate a slice of something else which looks like a yellow pizza and is made of chick peas. The cathedral was nice too…

Then Florence… WOW!!! Go to Florence!! I went there with Christine a mere… 20 years ago. I had forgotten how magnificent and how crowded. But definitely worth a visit. There was a 4h queue in front of each monument (ie every bloody building). I ran away and got inspired by coming back around 5 when I got in immediately! Well actually there was a queue at the entrance but I saw a sign saying that people with backpacks should go through another entrance so I went there and there was no one and nobody asked me anything about my backpack!! Italian organization I guess! So I did not get to visit the Cathedral but I saw the Palazzio Vecchio and that was totally wow! How marvelous! All famous painters, sculptors, architects, scientists you have heard of were there waiting for me!! What a feast for the eyes (and for my camera…). As I could take close ups with my 270mm, I noticed a lot of humor in many of the paintings. David, the naked guy who came to represent freedom for some reason, was outside in the square, competing with all sorts of beautiful other sculptures. All this was just nearby the Ponte Vecchio, the only bridge in Florence that was not blown up by the retreating Germans. Tough life…

Then I went back home to get some calins which were super welcome!!

Check the photo album ‘My trip to Toscany at the end of April’ on top right of the page.