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36 hour trip to Italy. Still great.

February 17, 2010 in Italian Cars, Italy in the media, winter in italy | No comments

Most searched places this winter on Travel + Leisure site? 1. ITALY! Then Costa Rica, Paris and New Orleans. Just back from Italy, this week. was stellar. New Orleans a couple weeks ago. In Italy there had been lots of rain so the fields were just green green green. Some sort of winter crop? Can you believe these shots are from mid-February? I was there and was incredulous even in person.

sanvenanzowinterday

Was only there in Italy two days. Saw a million things, ate most of them. Visited some towns I’d never seen before. Always something new to wonder at in Umbria. Even in the middle of winter.

See you in Italy,

Stew Vreeland

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These will get you to the church on time

October 8, 2009 in Italian Cars, PANICALE, Special Guest Writer | No comments

ORVIETO, Umbria, Italy – We leave for Italy in: 1 week. 7 days. 148 hours. But who’s counting? Me, is who. In the meantime our friends Cay and George are in Panicale and having a fine time of it. I’ll let their iPhone words and pictures tell the story of a typical day of spontaneous fun in Italy. It’s all about being open to the moment.

ferrarichurch2
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Just as we arrived in Orvieto this morning a whole string of Ferraris
came roaring by and parked beside the Duomo while Mass was going on
inside. Only in Italy! There must have been 30 or 40 of them. Didn’t
mean much to me, but George was going nuts!

Orvieto Underground was really cool and we went down into the St.
Patrick’s well with the two circular staircases.

Only 4 day left and still so much to see! But we are enjoying it all
and it is so nice to come back to Panicale at the end of the day!

Cay

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OK, there’s a great story here dealing with lost opportunities,
temptation, marital relations, luck, and redemption. All intertwined
with Ferraris, including an F40 modified for the street.
Wait till you see my pix from the real camera
(I took about a zillion), plus short videos of 40 red Ferraris
zooming down the stone-lined, side streets. One of those religious experiences you
get once or twice in life. Cay wasn’t quite so moved, but I took it to be
a gender-linked miraculous event, in the land of saints.

George

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Must be a cultural thing. Red Ferraris, White hair, Blue jeans and Blue dress shirts. I’m getting one of those blue shirts so I can hang out with the big guys the next time it’s Take Your Ferrari to Church Day.

See you in Italy, and see you there real soon!

Stew Vreeland

P. S.
If you want to follow along via Twitter, click this link, then hit “follow” under my getting-ready-to-go-to-Italy face. We’ll try to send a blurb and photo a day. Prefer facebook? We’re equal opportunity and we’re on that as well. Go “be a fan” and you’ll be all set

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It was a dark and stormy night.
(part three of a series)

September 15, 2008 in General Globe Trotting, Italian Cars, Italy in the media, Motorcycles, Real Estate, Traveling, Vespa/Ape, woodstove | 2 comments

DARK AND STORMY NIGHT IN ONTARIO
BAYFIELD, Ontario, Canada–Fine weather turned to foul weather and that turned to famously abusive Ike. Just as we were pulling into our Bayfield Ontario on the shores of Lake Huron so was the tail of the hurricane and everything went black. And wet. And wild. They had seven miles of road closed on one side of town. Lakes in people’s yards and standing in the fields of ready to harvest crops. Crazy. We stayed inside and talked cars and apes with Ken Johnson and his wife Delores and went our to eat in the hurricane. I went out barefoot to avoid being soaked and put on my shoes just before getting out of the car and going into the restaurant.

We got up this morning and loaded the Ape on the back of the Tahoe.

And there it is! And now we’ve got an ape following us wherever we go. Looming large in our rear view mirror like some crazed tailgater out of a Steven King novel bent on leaping right over us. So, there’s that. And now we have to do fret about busting thru customs with a 25 year old three wheeled Italian motorcycle. We idled in line for awhile and then explained it slow and carefully to the border crossing lady and her uniformed associates as more uniformed people ran by pointing at it going “what the heck is that?” Finally “pull over there” became the answer we expected. But when we got it inside a real matter-of-fact crew cut guy said “who’s importing the scooter?” I raised my hand. And asked if I could go to the bathroom. We’d been driving forever. The guy sighed and waved me to the elevators. Just like I’d planned, by the time I got back down, a responsible adult, Paul as it turns out, had pretty well settled everything and they were stamping my papers with what they no kidding called “the full BS stamp of approval” and we were solid gone before they changed their minds. No tax, no charge just “have a nice day.”
APE from ontario
ape of ontario
LAND OF THE FREE AND HOME OF THE APE

Finally. We’re back in the US, back in the US and we seem to have a newly naturalized ItaloCanadian with us. Can’t wait to get this little green bit of Italy settled into life on the farm in Gray, Maine. We’d be well on our way but now we’re sorting out Paul’s Lancia in the morning. And starting our caravan of Italian cars across America to Maine.

Non vedo l’ora amici, non vedo l’ora. And I can’t wait. Getting closer to home every minute. Stay tuned.

See you in Ape, (I’ll be the one waving like mad and grinning my face off)

Stew Vreeland

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