About Me

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Recent retiree--35 year's experience teaching reading, English, adult basic education and volunteer leadership skills. Started this blog to exchange ideas and commentary with friends and others having an interest in joining the discussions. Greatest life accomplishments include: 1.organized my 3rd grade class to check out library books for me to get around librarian's weekly limit--Amazon.com, the Mullins Elementary 3rd Grade Class of 1956 is still waiting for "thank you" notes; 2. volunteered in the Peace Corps, island of St. Kitts, West Indies; 3.taught adults to read, earn their GEDs., and speak English as a second language; 4. bought a border collie puppy for $6, got evicted rather than give him up, and began a life-long love affair with all things "Dog"; 5. joined a physical fitness boot camp in my mid-50s--don't mess with someone who's been doing regulation pushups in wet grass at 5:30 a.m.; 6. walked across Northern England with best friend Sally--over 80 miles from the Irish to North Seas; and 7. travelled to many foreign countries for pleasure and work.

Sunday, August 4, 2013

InSPIREd Sunday & Mosaic Monday - Tuscan Hilltowns and Countryside


This is Pienza, a small walled hilltown built in the mid-1400s in the Tuscany region of Italy. In this photo you can see the white stone belltower and spire of the Pienza Cathedral rising up above the town. Photos used in this post are from a 2000 gardening tour of Tuscany. Pienza was our base location for the tour. Click on the mosaics to enlarge for better views.


From the left: side garden of Pienza Cathedral, the cathedral altar, flowers decorating the baptismal font where we saw a baby being christened on the day we toured,and the sandstone arches of Hotel Relais which was once a monastery and our base for the tour.

Pienza is such a small town that very little car traffic is allowed on the narrow stone and cobbled streets. Everywhere you walked the walls were decorated with flowers and live greenery:


On this tour we not only visited some fabulous gardens, we also traveled many miles each day through the Italian countryside and saw scenes for which Tuscany is known. First photo is a tour bus shot of the sheep whose milk is prized for making the classic Italian pecorino cheese--nice of them to be grazing in a field of wild poppies! In the last collage clockwise: 1. skinny cypress trees accent the hillside looking down into a valley, 2. fava beans growing in some of the reddest soil you've ever seen 3. an olive grove for the famous Italian olive oil, 4. wild poppy fields as far as the eye could see.




Linking to InSPIREd Sunday and Mosaic Monday .

(Blogger trubble! Kind first commenters, TexWisGirl and Eileen, have given me the heads up that the text is not showing up in this post without highlighting it (??) I am getting the text as well as photos so don't know what the deal is EXCEPT that Blogger has been giving me trouble--freezing up, etc.--for this entire post. Sorry for the glitch--just enjoy the photos! Faye)

7 comments:

TexWisGirl said...

your print is not showing up, but if folks highlight they can read it.

i like the poppy fields and the stonework.

eileeninmd said...

Tex, is right about your print not showing up and had a great idea to highlight. Lovely tour of Tuscany. I like the sheep and the poppy field is gorgeous. Have a happy week!

Faye said...

TexWG and Eileen--thanks so much for the heads up about post viewing problems. Blogger has been giving me fits this afternoon so not sure I can fix the problem. Hopefully others will follow your good idea--or just enjoy the photos. These scenes pretty much say "Italy", I think!

Brian King said...

Beautiful buildings! Very scenic looking. I love the fields, too!

Pondside said...

The text might be hard to see but the photos are grand. I'd love to be heading to Tuscany!

Elizabeth Edwards said...

oh good ... now that i found the comment section i see i am not the only one who is having reading issues.

gorgeous views. just lovely. have a great week. ( :

Jill Harrison said...

gorgeous views of a place I would love to visit one day. I hope you fix up your print problem!
I am linking up to you through Mosaic Monday.