A trip to Tuscany

Stephanie had been wanting to rent a villa in Italy for a family vacation for a long time, and she found what looked like a very nice place on TripAdvisor.  She planned everything almost a year in advance, and invited everyone to come, including my mom.  Unfortunately, the great hip fracture of 2014 made it impossible for her to get there, but we still had Stephanie, us, Christa, Tom and Sophia there. Because of the logistics involved, two cars were necessary, so I drove down with Zoe.  We stopped at a restaurant near Susa for some delicious mountain fare (I found this place in the Yellow Book)

And after a few more hours of driving, made it to a nondescript dirt road, which we followed almost to the end to find an incredible villa.  It was, as the cliché goes, out of the movies.  High ceilings, fantastic kitchen, private pool.  I felt like we should have been arriving by private plane or helicopter.