View of the olive grove

Matt getting the high up ones

Natalie getting the low down ones

Almost finished

37 creates!

On the truck going to the mill

Off loading

At the leaf seperating stage

Natalie dropped her wine glass into the leaves and had to recover it

Getting a bath

Pulp being taken away

The frist few drops of oil

Flowing into the jugs

Jugs that can’t be used anymore due to health and safety

At home with the goods

Chucking wood

Wed 28 Oct – Thurs 19 Nov 2015

We spent three amazing weeks at this lovely agriturismo (basically a small farm or holding that has holiday accommodation). Adela and Mauro (and Bounty and Nelson, their dogs) were great hosts and we had such a great time and really enjoyed the work!

We arrived in time for the olive harvest but it rained on our first day so we had a bonus day off. But then the weather cleared and we had warm and sunny days for two weeks. This year’s harvest wasn’t as good as it could have been as it was too hot for the olives this summer. Some trees didn’t produce anything while others dropped quite a few olives before we arrived. With the help of Adela and Mauro’s son, we spent 3 and a half days harvesting the crop. The mill was booked for a Monday so it was important to harvest as many tress as possible. It was very enjoyable work – a bit sore on the neck from looking up a lot but other then that we loved every minute. We managed to collect 37 creates of olives which worked out to be 778kgs which produced 109L of oil!

We were lucky enough to see the entire process of turning olives to oil. Firstly, a man from the mill came to collect the olives and drove them to the mill while we followed behind. Then they were dumped into a pit and taken by conveyor belt to the ‘leaf separating station’ (not the technical name). Once the leaves were separated they were washed and pressed and the oil started to flow. We couldn’t believe the colour – we had never seen olive oil so green! Once we poured the oil into our jugs we took them home to be stored. We were even given some oil to use during our stay.

After the big harvest we had a few days off. Then we collected the remainder of the olives that we didn’t have time to do before the mill appointment. We harvested another 4.5 creates which turned out to be an additional 12L of oil. The following day we rolled up and stored the nets, gathered garden furniture and then started on our next task…the wood storage. Adela and Mauro have a wood burning furnace that heats the hot water and central heating system so it is very important to gather enough fuel to burn through the winter. Luckily they have a few acres of forest which is where they get it all. We started by moving some logs from the storage below the house to a space near the furnace. Then we moved last years collection into the space below the house. The rest of our time was spent in the forest gathering as much wood as possible. We loved this work because we were able to poke around in the woods and it was a great weightlifting workout. Matt spent a lot of the time looking for dead tress to fell and with the beard he made a great lumberjack. After we took down the trees, Mauro used his chainsaw (when it worked) to cut them down further and we chucked them to the roads throughout the woods. Then we would pile them into the wagon and off load them into the store near the house. After two weeks of this, we must have gathered enough wood for several winters to come!

On our days off we went to the nearest town and spent time in the circolo (working man’s club/cultural centre/bar); drank cappuccinos, played Foosball and cards. We had a day out in Florence and Siena which was a great bonus as we weren’t planning on being able to see either at the beginning of our trip. More to come on those two outings later.

Overall we just loved our time here; great weather, our own apartment, the Tuscan countryside, being out in nature, cheap cappuccinos, the dogs and tasting all of Adela’s pasta dishes!

Our apartment (back of the house)

Views from our patio

Montecatini at night

Rolling the cheese race in Volterrra

Back of the cathedral in Volterra

Truffles!

Sun setting over Tuscany from Volterra

Mon 19 Oct – Wed 23 Oct 2015

After a 4.5 hour drive south we arrived at our next workaway in Tuscany. It was great to be back in a different part of Tuscany and the weather was so much warmer and sunnier! We stayed with a lovely Dutch couple, Lucas & Truus; we were their first workaway-ers! They had a lovely property with a stunning view of Volterra in the distance.

We arrived in the early evening and Truus made us a lovely pasta dinner. We were shown to our very own separate apartment with kitchenette and large bathroom – very welcomed after going outside to get to the the bathroom for two months at our last place! The fridge was already stocked with food. We made our own breakfasts and we had a light dinner in the evenings. Truus made the most delicious lunches that kept us full into the evening.

We worked from 9-2 each day and had a coffee break half way through. Lucas and Truss worked right along side us and taught us new skills in the garden and doing DIY. Natalie trimmed a lot of hedges and bushes for a few days and then helped Truus do a deep clean of the main house. Matt worked on a few maintenance jobs like painting the car ports, maintaining the stone path, replaced valves on the watering system, cleaned the storage sheds, helped with the cleaning of gutters and making a bonfire.

One afternoon, after we finished work, we walked up to Montecatini and poked around the little village. On our day off on Sunday we visited Volterra which was the site of an Etruscan settlement. We were so lucky to arrive during the cheese and truffle (not the chocolates unfortunately) festival! We watched the cheese rolling race – which was a hoot and then explored the town. We came upon a little market where locals were selling cheese, truffles and olive oil – we had lots of samples! As the time had just changed it got dark rather early so we decided to return the next day to see the other side of the town which we had missed, that included the Roman theatre.

We were originally planning to stay for two full weeks but our next place had asked us to come early in case the olives were ready to be picked! So after eight days we were on our way again.

Second BBQ – Matt made the burgers 🙂

Wed 9 Sept & Thurs 17 Sept 2015

Our final post on this crazy ‘Centro’ experience are photos from the two BBQs we had during our stay. As all of our provided meals were vegetarian, we were all very excited for MEAT every once and a while. But as time went on we got pretty used to not eating meat but we won’t give it up all together. For the first BBQ, Barmichael put on an amazing spread. He was a great cook and we loved it all (especially the chicken and lamb). For the second BBQ we bought our own meat from the tips that were left for us from a group. Matt made the burgers and we grilled some sausages too. There were vegetarian sides as well but….not important (hehe). We had lots of drinks, music and dancing and they well into the night – good times!

Thank you to all of the wonderful people whom we’ve met – the stories we’ve shared, the laughs we’ve had and the memories we’ve made, we will keep with us forever!

Working Guests: Hamish (Australia) – Louis (Australia) – Fran (Chile) – Christine (Brazil) – Alicija (Poland) – Fabienne (Switzerland) – Lennart (Germany) – Maeva (France) – Rita (Hungary) – Shannon (USA) – Ash (Australia) – Jess (Australia) – Natasha (Australia) – Hana (New Zealand) – David (New Zealand) – Jakub (USA) – Elina (Latvia) – Selim (UK) – Paul (UK) – Nancy (Germany) – Becky (USA) – Michelle (Canada) – Zoya (Canada)

Staff: Michael (Ireland) – Kitija (Latvia) – Barmichael (USA) – Robert (UK) – Bodhi (Germany) – Oma (Italy) – Viramo (Italy) – Arne (?) – Loredana (Italy) – Kirtan (Germany)

On our way to Monttarone

Orta San Giulio

Fri 25 Sept – Sat 26 Sept 2015

Our five year anniversary was spent visiting some amazing spots in the area. On our actual anniversary (Friday) we packed a picnic lunch of egg salad sandwiches, popcorn and little ‘juice box’ sized white wine. We drove up the mountain to Mottarone which we were told had amazing views of the surrounding lakes and Alps. We were not disappointed. Luckily we had a beautiful and warm day and we could see for miles in the distance. Mottarone is a small ski resort in the winter and makes claims of being able to see seven lakes – we could only spot six though. Lago Maggiore was the largest and most impressive but we could see our little lake too (it was great to see it from such a different perspective)! After our picnic lunch we went for a ride on a little luge track, come roller coaster. We each got our own car because Matt wanted to go much faster than Natalie (you controlled the speed and breaks yourself).

Our original plan was to go out for dinner but there was a group leaving ‘Centro’ and the chefs were making their special lasagna and tiramisu which we absolutely couldn’t miss! So we headed up for a romantic dinner with our fellow working guests. Then we stayed and had a few drinks at the bar.

Celebrations continued the next day with a quick swim in the lake after lunch and then we got dressed up and headed to Orta San Giulio to explore the little town and have our private romantic dinner. Orta was really special because it has a lot of historic buildings and there is a little island within the municipality that has a monastery on it. You can see it from most points around the lake but the main piazza in Orta has great views of it. After poking around the town we had a lovely meaty meal and a generous portion of gelato for dessert. The whole experience was an anniversary to remember!!

View form Omegna looking down the lake

Fishies

Jazz art

Omegna was the biggest town on the lake, located at the northern tip. It had lots of amenities like banks and a hospital. We had a few trips here during our stay – very lovely. That is all.

The ‘small’ waterfall

the ‘big’ waterfall

Oh the elusive waterfalls! We heard about these waterfalls when we first arrived, a ‘must see’ for any working guest at ‘Centro’. It took us six weeks and many explanations later to find them. It wasn’t that they were hard to find or very far away but the directions were somewhat confusing when they were verbally explained. Also, we didn’t get around to it as we were spending lots of time at the lake.

To clarify there are two sets of waterfalls; the ‘small’ and the ‘big’. The small waterfall was actually pretty big the day we visited as it had rained for a few days before so there was lots of water. We weren’t quite sure how to hike up to the big falls (so named as there are many falls flowing down) so we returned to the big falls a few days before we left. It was a wonderful autumn day – we saw lots of different mushrooms along the way and the leaves on the oak trees were turning glorious colours! Glad to say we ticked those ‘must see’ destinations off our list.

View from Dolphins Bar

Matt, Ash & Lennart jumping off the dock

Lennart & Jess

We spent a lot of our free time swimming in Lake Orta at the town of Pettenasco. The lake shore was only a few minutes drive from our house. We were lucky to have lots of free afternoons and days off to enjoy it! During our two months stay, we had (what seemed like) a lot of rainy and rather cold days but we still managed to go for a quick dip almost every week. Matt was even swimming in the rain one day. It was warm enough to go swimming on Thanksgiving Sunday (our last swim of the season). Near the end of our time at ‘Centro’ we discovered Dolphins Bar. While we had seen it many times on our way to the lake, we popped in for a cappuccino a few times in October. When it wasn’t warm enough to swim, it was still lovely to sit by the lake with a coffee and enjoy the views.

Best view on our way to work

Toni the pony greeting us on the way to work

View from the pool terrace

Big spider in one of the rooms we were cleaning

View on the way home after a dishwashing shift

Casa Bisetti

Casa Bisetti (view from our balcony)

Otto – Casa Bisetti cat who is always up for a lie in the sun

One side of our room on the day we left

Found this little guy in our room on the second night

Volunteers handprints on the kitchen wall

Chill cat

Matt tending the bar

Canadian Thanksgiving

The wood shed

Butter and chocolate melting together and an excited Matt

Sun 23 Aug – Mon 19 Oct 2015

We spent the last 8 weeks volunteering at Centro d’Ompio, located just above Lake Orta (near Lago Maggiore and Lake Como, in Northern Italy). ‘Centro’ is an international seminar center and hotel for conferences, training and workshops. We were lucky enough to be two of around 12 volunteers working over the last two months. We met some amazing people and made life long friends.

We arrived on a Sunday evening and crashed a birthday party for one of the workers but got to try some yummy birthday cake! It was a great way to meet everyone. We lived in the staff house, Casa Bisetti, with the other volunteers  in the village of Pratolungo and hiked the 15 minutes up a rather steep hill for work and meals. We had a cozy bedroom on the first floor with a low ceiling,  dark wooden floors, an old closed up fireplace and one of the windows was covered in ivy – very romantic. We did have to go on a bit of an adventure to the toilet or to have a shower, but it was a bit like camping and all good fun (when it was warm and sunny, not as much fun in the rain, cold and middle of the night).

When there were paying guests, several professional chefs cooked the most delicious vegetarian food (buffet style) and we discovered some yummy things like nutritional yeast, gomashio (toasted sesame seeds) and lapacho tea that we will incorporate into our diets when we settle down again someday.

We did a lot of different tasks during our stay and we even had a schedule – Natalie loved the organisation and structure of it all. Matt was usually assigned to handyman duties which included chopping wood, painting and moving things around. He even got to tend the bar when Barmichael was away for two nights. Natalie mostly did housekeeping that involved cleaning and making rooms for the guests. She also did a lot of kitchen shifts that involved prepping the many, many vegetables needed to feed between 30-60 people. She even prepared meals for the volunteers (when there were no guests) including breakfasts and a special Canadian Thanksgiving meal. We both did our share of washing dishes too! All in all we learned a lot of new skills and picked up a few tips about running guest accommodation and working in a professional kitchen.

Most evenings were spent hanging out with the other volunteers. There were two BBQs, a few jam sessions, many nights of playing cards, sharing stories and laughing a lot. More to follow on that and some of the day trips we had during our stay…

Fri 14 August 2015 – Sun 23 Aug 2015

After leaving the Cinque Terre we drove an hour or so north to our next workaway in northern Tuscany. We arrived in time to help our host, Paul change over his guesthouse on Saturday morning for a new family that was arriving. We learned how to clean the pool and then we went for a swim!

The next day was Matt’s birthday. All he wanted for his birthday was to stay in a place with an infinity pool. We thought that a hotel with this kind of luxury would not be affordable but turned out that our host had the most amazing infinity pool overlooking the Tuscan mountains (we have had some great luck on this adventure!).

Our stay with Paul was a last minute thing as we were originally going to head over to Portugal, but after more consideration we decided that we should remain in Italy for the rest of the summer. Unfortunately, after our arrival the weather changed and it wasn’t as hot as it had been and we had a few rainy days so our time in the pool was limited. We did some weeding and watering of Paul’s amazing garden – Natalie loved the pumpkin patch and got to water it every day! We turned over the guesthouse twice and swept and cleaned the very long driveway. Paul was a great host who played the most amazing music and was a great chef (even though some of our dinners started at 10pm). We were so grateful that he was able to take us with such short notice.

During our stay we were contacted by a host in the northern ‘lake district’ of Italy asking if we would like to come and work at their seminar centre. We accepted with the hopes of being able to stay for a few months.

Sorry that we didn’t take a lot of photos or do much exploring during this week and that it has taken a while to post!

Riomaggorie

Monterosso

Monterosso

Monterosso

First sighting of Vernazza

Vernazza

Corniglia

Manarola

‘Steps’ down to the ‘beach’ at Corniglia

Manarola

On the boat to Riomaggorie

Riomaggorie at night

Wed 12 Aug – Fri 14 Aug 2015

We left Laura, Stefano and family on Wednesday morning and drove to Riomaggiore in the Cinque Terre. Natalie had booked a hostel here, one of the five villages of the National Park, thinking it was a good point to explore from. We were aware of the car parking situation (very limited, about 30 spaces and only a few free ones) but hoped we would get lucky – and we did! After driving up and down the mountain a few times looking for parking miles away we waited next to the tourist information contemplating where to park (the next town over and pay 20 euros a day, or outside of the National Park and get a train). Many cars were coming and going and hanging about waiting for parking but low and behold Matt spotted a man with a drum heading towards a van. Natalie ran over and asked if they were leaving and they said yes, so she hung out next to the spot while the band packed up and Matt snuck in with the car. We were then promptly confronted by a man who was also waiting for that spot, but for not as long and he didn’t even send his wife and child to stand there and hold it – amateurs! Turns out that area of the car park was free! Great luck!!

We headed down the main street in search of our hostel. We found a little hole in the wall where we were to check in but the actual apartment we were staying in was 208 steps back up the mountainside! Yikes, this was turning into a stressful visit so far. We arrived, albeit out of breath, with pillows in tow and headed out for a bite of lunch (around 3.30pm by then) and to explore the village. We discovered lots of people swimming in the cove so we hiked back up to the hostel to change into our swim suits. We met a nice South African girl, staying in our room, who gave us the low down on hiking the Cinque Terre.

After a swim and lazing about on the rocks we grabbed some dinner at a lovely, over priced, little restaurant. We went back to the hostel, played some cards and went to bed early in order to have an early start for our big hike the next day.

We woke up at 7.30am on Thursday morning and got the train to the first (or last, depending on how you see things) village of Monterosso. We had a cafe latte and croissant to fortify ourselves for the challenging hike ahead, then set off. Note: when ordering a cafe latte in Italy, be sure to include the word cafe, or you may end up with just hot milk! Two hours up hill and down in rising temperatures and we arrived at the next village (drenched in sweat from places we didn’t know sweated!), Vernazza. We filled up our water and had a rest and then headed off towards Corniglia. Another 1.5 hours up and down (mostly up and over as Corniglia is not on the sea) in even hotter sun. We had a lovely lunch overlooking the sea in the town.

The coastal hike from Corniglia to Riomaggiore was closed, however we could have hiked through the vineayrds above but we weren’t sure of the route and we were really exhausted. We had heard that you could actually hike some of it so we headed off towards Manarola but were stopped by a missing bridge. We tried to hike along the beach but that was a dead end too! So we decided to take the train to the next village. We stopped for an ice cream in the next village before getting on a boat to back to our village. We loved the boat ride – it was only 10 minutes but it felt great to get out on the water! We hiked back up to our hostel, put on our swim suits and headed back down to the grocers to get some supper of olives, crackers, squid, sausages, walnut pie and wine in a carton to have a picnic on the rocks and watch the sun set. Despite olive oil spilling all over Natalie’s reusable shopping bag and then on her sun dress it was a lovely way to end a long and rewarding day!

The next morning we checked out and had breakfast at a little cafe over the water and then headed off to our next workaway just an hour north in the northern Tuscan hills.

Sorry for the very descriptive text but we loved the Cinque Terre so much it couldn’t be helped! We very much highly recommend visiting this place (perhaps not in the height of summer if it can be avoided!)