Forza Italia

We've come down through Italy and I have to say it is beautiful, la bella vita is in evidence here.

Milan:

We started in Milan but as first port of call into Italy, I was a little disappointed. The city is quite built up and very industrialised, I was expecting fashion on every corner and a certain chic essence oozing from the place. All I found was grimy buildings and lots of traffic. Of course you have your designer boutiques, but I'm not exactly in the market for any Gucci at the moment!

The most obvious tourist attraction in Milan is definitely the Duomo, a huge Gothic cathedral that takes centre stage with the beauty quotient in the city. I'm not religious, so it doesn't have any significance to me as a place of worship, but it certainly was impressive.

One of the best parts was the Beatles exhibition that we went to, which for me was great. It went through all the history from1960 - 70, concentrating on 68 a period of worldwide upheaval, from Vietnam war to civil rights movement.

Apart from that, the most exciting thing was a thunder and lightening storm, the likes of which we don't see in Ireland very often. It had everything from thunder and lightening, to rain and hailstones the size of eggs!

Verona:

Home of Romeo and Juliet, we of course had to go see Juliet's house and famous balcony which was filled with the obligatory tourists posing.

Verona was one of the most picturesque places we visited. Al streets lead away from the Arena, a huge Roman amphitheatre, that today is still used for concerts, opera and ballet. Down the narrow streets, there are trattorias, designer shops and the best gellatorias- ice cream shops, in the world.

It sounds cheesy but even the light and the air seems different there, a subtle smell of oranges carries on the breeze as you walk around.

Venice

We did't actually stay in Venice itself, but Mestre, the closest you can get while still on the mainland, and it may sound stupid, but I didn't actually realise that Venice is an island. We went in by bus every day, which only took about ten minutes, because, the prices there are crazy. Even to use the internet is 8, 9 or 10 PER HOUR depending on the place!

It is again a beautiful place, but I think it has perhaps lost some of its magic by surrendering itself completely to tourists. Around every corner stalls selling tacky souvenirs, pushy tourists and the absolutely stifling heat make a heady mix. Maybe at a different time of year you could appreciate it more, but the only relief was the cool breeze found sailing along the grand canal on a vaporetto waterbus which picks up lots of people at each stop exactly like a bus.

Florence

When we got to Florence we headed straight for the museo della accadamia which houses the statue of David.

We walked around the city and took in the views, but I wouldn't recommend visiting main cities in the height of summer. Queues are order of the day and the city is literally taken over by American tourists.

We rented a car and wanted to get right out of there and get into the heart of the countryside.

Anghiari-Tuscany

I came across a website which you sign up to and it puts you in touch with people on farms looking for people to work as volunteers. In return you get free accommodation, for for us has turned out to be a great deal.

We ended up finding a nice American who took us in to work for him on his goat farm. On the first day, we were up at 5:30 to feed and water the goats. Now I'm not a morning person, and ordinarily, this would have been torture, but I actually didn't mind. We were up with the sun and stripping bales of straw into the troughs. Brent, is who we are staying with and he has about 70 goats including the milking ones, kids and billy goats, which all have to be fed and watered. After that its up to the chickens to feed them and collect the eggs.

Later in the day, Brent said he had the "deal of the century for us". On day 2 were to go up to his other house, Priello, up in the Tuscan mountains and clean the place because he had guests coming and didn't have time to do it himself. In exchange, we got a five bed, five bathroom house to ourselves with a private pool for four days. I think it was a pretty good deal!

Since then we've been back on the main farm doing our farming duties, which I love. In fact the farming life could be for me. Apart from our one little incident yesterday, everything has gone smoothly. We were left in charge of bringing the herd out for their daily graze, which is harder than it sounds. They just go in any direction and when one heads somewhere, the others follow running behind. Just when we thought we had gotten them under control quietly grazing in one spot, Brent comes running out shouting "This isn't my land kids!", while we were standing watching them nibbling on an apple tree. Whoops! Needless to say we had to quickly usher them out of there, so you could say our first goat herding experience wasn't exactly a dazzling success.