Sieci

Updated the blog and rest most of the day...
In the night prepared a traditional dish from Porto, Francesinha, as Francesco was asking me to do it since the first day...
Then we had a small goodbye party ;)

Testone and Giovanna
Franscesco playing cajónGiovanna playing the guitar and all singing ;)

Sieci

Went to Firenze to see Marco's presentation of his final thesis... about crabs :p...
After walked a little in the city and returned to Casa del Vento to his graduation party meet interesting people, some with common friends with me in portugal and talked a lot with two brasilians traveling here, nina and caio...

Sieci

Helped Dorotea in the garden a bit...

Most of the day resting to recover a bit before traveling and updating blog...

Sieci

Most of the day in the bed again...

Went by bike to Pontessieve to buy some food and fruits...

Sieci

All day in bed... sick...

in the night had dinner all together and Lorenzo, another of the house habitants, arrived from a bike trip :D

Sieci

Waked up really early to bring Yolanda to the station (by bike :D)... She returns today to amsterdam by bus...

Feeling a bit sick, so return to bed almost all day...

Marco cutting the wild :p...

In the afternoon helped Dorotea building a composter while everyone was helping in the small garden...
That night two turkish guests from HospitalityClub also arrived to the house :D

Valle Degli Elfi -> Sieci

The last day and night were pretty cold and we felt a little sick and decided to return to Casa Del Vento also yo needs to go to Milan tomorrow early and from the Valley is hard to get there.

After packing everything we walked back to the main road and, as it was a sunny day, saw all the "elfis" working in the communitarian field, sadly we could not help... will try to return again and help them better :D.. in the way back we stopped to have a shower in the fresh water from the mountain...
We hitchhiked back to Pistoia with a guy who knew Portugal and we talked a lot (in italianol) during the (short) trip... After we caught the train to Sieci and had rest...

Valle Degli Elfi

Really bad weather almost all day... barely got out of the tent... just to lit a fire every time the rain stopped (never for much time)... Yo got a little sick...

Valle Degli Elfi

view from the School window :D

We waked up early and walk a little, then we meet Mario and Susan to talk a little and decided to camp...

a friend we found in the way :)

Walked to San Pelegrino to buy some food, in the way we meet Angelo with David, (re)building also a great house in stone...
After comming back, we looked for a place to camp... and made a nice fire... nice day but really COLD...

sunset behind the mountains, in the place we camped :D

Valle Degli Elfi

Sadly in the days in the Valle not so many pictures.... maybe next time...

the School

We woke up early and walked around in this part of the Valley... the Valle Degli Elfi it's a community, already 30 years old, that started as a hippie place... they try to be self sustainable as much as possible, be in symbiosis with nature, respecting their gifts and cycles... we were told that the valley it's pretty big (we just saw a small part of it) with houses spread along more than 30km...

a bread oven :D
(DIY) children play... pretty cool :D

We meet Pamela and Davide and their housemates (can't remember their names) and helped them, they were starting to build their own house (all the houses in the valley are build by the people there, and most of them follow the traditional way of building, in stone or wood... amazing houses we saw) their future house will be in wood, with the pavement in stone, we collected some stones to help david build an amazing wall :D...

free chickens around us, waiting for us to take out some stones, so they could find tasty insects (and lizards) below :p
looking for stones
building a new stable in the main house, and pamela and david's house
the house, build mainly by a couple, the materials are almost all (beside the ceiling and few cement) local!
the wall we were helping building for the new house ground (no cement!)

We had lunch with them and after we meet their children who returned from school... in the valley they have a school just to children under 10, after that they go to public schools outside... the children were really nice and talkative (learning italian, english, french).. we played with them for a while and after, when it started rainning, we returned to the school and rest...

the school playground where we slept....

After we went out again to see a little more....

some of the communitarian fields...

Sieci -> Valle degli Elfi

We packed everything and caught a train to Firenze, to buy some food for lunch...then, by train, we went to Pistoia and walked around to see the city, a nice and calm one :D...

S. Pelegrino

After having lunch we hitchhiked with a really sweet lady who brought us to her house and offer us a coffee (in an irrefutable manner :p)... from there we caught a bus to S. Pelegrino and started walking to valle degli elfe, was already getting late... Luckly, a jeep passed by and ask us if we needed a ride... they got us to the Escuola (School) and gave us food and bed :D... really nice people...

After dinner we went with Emanuel to a 50 birthday party in Casa Sartí, listen to great music, dancing, sangria and cake :D...

Sieci

Me and yo walked to Pontessieve, a small town 4 kms aways to have lunch (found most of places closed, as it was sunday!!..)

Casa del Vento

In the way we try to find wild asparagus (not lucky) and identify other eatable plants in the way (in the end just found rosemarie for making infusion)
Then we planed our trip to Valle degli Elfi, a community near Pistoia, we decided to leave my bike in Casa Del vento and go there by train and hitchhiking...

friend of Dorothea, Franscesco, Alaide, Dorothea, yo and me

Sieci

Went to Sieci to get Yolanda in the train station (She got the wrong train and find herself in pistoia :p in the meanwhile)...

Siece

Then we pass the rest of the day sheltering from the rain in Casa del Vento and talking about last months...

Crazy faces :S

Sieci

Playing with June

Almost all day in Casa del Vento updating the blog...

Casa Del Vento

in the afternoon Giovanna, another Casa Del Vento habitant, arrived from a trip and I went with her to a party of some friends in a funny house (an historical house in the hills, where some antifascists planned the last battle to throw fascists out of Firenze during the 2WW)
There I meet a really interesting girl, Ines, and as the only other foreigner in the party we talked a lot, she just returned from Sri Lanka after some time of voluntary work there :), sadly we didn't keep each others contact (too much wine :p)...
After me and giovanna went to CPA (Centro Popolare Autogestito) a (strange) comunist social center where we meet Dorotea and others in a reggae party...

Communists really don't hide their authoritarian spirit....

Nice evening meeting nice people....