Holiday breeze

Work's out and holiday's in! Four whole weeks just for relaxing and enjoying oneself. I have no holy intentions of washing the rest of the windows (I have only about 25 % of them covered) or going through the wardrobes or cleaning up the garage. Nope. I will devote these four long-awaited, hard-earned holiday weeks to the things I enjoy the most in life. Quite simple stuff, actually; travelling, good food, a couple o' cocktails every now and then (more preferably "now" than "then", but not before noon!), meeting friends, doing some sports, reading non-important books that you don't need to remember afterwards, swimming and lying in the sun. Purrrrrfect. And all that is finally here.

Tomorrow we will pack up the car and start our tour de Europe. The first day's goal is to leave home with everything of high necessity with us and to reach Turku harbour on time. The ferry to Stockholm, Sweden, will sail at 8.15 PM and our plan is to start from Tuusula, Finland, at 4.15 PM. I have already made a list of what to pack two days ago and all the hotel reservation documents, important contact information, passports, maps etc. have been gathered up. In the morning we'll have plenty of time to pack our personal belongings. After all, we are used to coming and going so the packing part only takes a short while.

Until now I didn't have any time or energy to start making detailed plans for our time in Florence (Firenze). This evening I flipped through a few pages of our new Lonely Planet guide about Italy. I really like the style of the guide book and it seems to concentrate on exactly the same things that we are interested in. I think we're going to find it very useful. Here's also the map book we bought two years ago on our previous road trip. It shows all the tiniest scenery roads with less traffic that usually are definitely worth driving through.

..and what else would be better to get you on the proper italiano-mood than decent Amarone?

 Verrocchio Amarone is one our favourites. It has quite a strong taste and goes very well with tenderloin beef. "Made of Corvina, Molinara and Rondinella grapes dried for about 90 days, this Amarone is a wine with a great character. This wine has been aged for 24 months in small Slavonian oak barrel and refined for 6 months in the bottles. It is a perfect company to red meats, game and seasoned and spicy cheeses. Serve at room temperature." --> http://www.verrocchiowines.com/amarone.php I highly recommend!

Mmmm. Can't wait to find some new Chianti to try. With pizza or salami or cannelloni or....





Here's also a picture of the backseat of our car equipped with the new DVD-system. It even has a remote control!

Talk to you soon!