Sun drying tomatoes

Pet parrot

Pet tortoise

Pet dog

Set up for the restaurant

Pizza oven

Matt-a-make-a-you-a-pizza

At the beach

Sat 1 Aug – Wed 12 Aug 2015

After a nail biting, twisty, turny ride up a Tuscan mountain side we arrived at our next workaway at around 8pm – just in time for a pizza party! Our hosts, Laura and Stefano run a home restaurant from their pizzeria and usually serve local pasta called tordelli or handmade, wood-fired pizzas. We had the most delicious pizzas and red wine and then headed off to bed. Sunday was our day off so we slept in and had a lazy day. We had a simple dinner of homemade bread, salad and the most amazing mozzarella called burrata!

On Monday Matt got up really early to go to the forest to chop fire wood, Natalie got to sleep in a bit and did some gardening (planting leeks) and donkey chasing (when they escaped form their pen). The rest of the week followed a similar pattern. Matt finished wood cutting on Wednesday and Natalie did lots of domestic chores like chopping fruits to make jams, cleaning the windows, floors and dishes.

The beach was a 30 minute drive away so we got there three times. The first visit we took the girls with us which was lots of fun – they didn’t speak much English but the sign for help me jump the waves is universal!  On our last visit to the beach we had the most amazing waves as there was a huge thunderstorm the night before. We spent three hours in the water before we had to come home and help make pasta.

The highlights off this workaway experience was helping with the at home restaurant which we did for three evenings. The first evening was easy – just some washing up as we had already made the pasta the day before. Friday and Saturday night was pizza and that was more ‘hands-on’. Stepheno would fire up the pizza oven and had the dough already prepared. We would make a half dozen pizzas for ourselves and the family to eat for dinner for the guests arrived. On the Saturday night we were serving 16 guests but before they arrived we had a two takeaway orders to fill – of 5 and then 14 pizzas!! Needless to say we were a bit tuckered after all of the that – not to mention it was 37 degrees most days! Yet another great workaway experience 🙂