Our Summer Holiday: Part 2

After three fun-filled days at Centre Parcs, the family Richmond returned home for a couple of nights to unpack, do lots of laundry, and pack for our summer holidays parts two and three…

Part Two: Visiting family in Fiuggi

All packed and ready to go, we flew off to Rome on part two of our summer holiday: to visit family who live in Fiuggi, a small spa town south of the capital, which is also where Richmond Daddy and I got married almost five years ago.

Thankfully the aeroplane journey was quite straight-forward and Allegra was a very good little traveller. There were three main factors that ensure for a relatively stress free journey: (1) the time of travel was good, not too early/not too late; (2) I packed A Lot of snacks; (3) Richmond Daddy had downloaded numerous episodes of Peppa onto the iPad. Sorted.

On arrival in Rome, we went to pick up our hire car – which took freakin’ ages, who knows why but despite the queue not being particularly long, we were kept waiting what seemed like an eternity. Thankfully Allegra remained in good humour and kept herself and those around us entertained by making new friends with some little Spanish boys – one in particular who she wanted to kiss and hug a lot, he wasn’t so sure, neither was Richmond Daddy!

Finally, we were off, and enjoying the novelty of the sunshine, having left behind a very rainy UK. About an hour or so later and we were in Fiuggi, checking into the Grand Hotel Palazzo della Fonte, which is a stunning hotel and where we had our wedding reception, so is special to us. And because of that, we were also treated to a room upgrade and given the very warmest of welcomes, it was lovely to be back there.

Our first night in Fiuggi and we went to my Nonna’s house for dinner – homemade spaghetti with meatballs in a homemade tomato sauce, deeelicious! My Nonna makes that for me every time I go to visit and at 93 (or thereabouts!) she hasn’t lost her touch! Allegra turned out to be a big fan too, slurping up the spaghetti enthusiastically and wolfing down the meatballs, followed by some fruit. Nonna was very impressed at her eating prowess (which in Italy, goes a long way!) and had already reported to my dad by the following morning that Allegra had been such a good eater the night before: as I said, it’s the kind of skill and trait that is widely applauded over there!

We spent three days in Fiuggi and these largely followed the same pattern… Breakfast on the beautiful outdoor terrace in the shade, the mornings spent by the pool with only 5 or so other people there at anyone time – meaning Allegra could have the full run of the place and enjoy a good splash around, which she did! – then over to visit the relatives for lunch, an afternoon snooze, pootle about, then back to the relatives for dinner! Most relaxing and very food focused – what more could you want from a holiday?!

It was lovely to see Allegra play with my cousins’ children, who are of varying ages but all were keen to entertain her during the holiday – one even introduced her to Peppa Pig in Italian (that was a happy moment!!), maybe that could be the way to ensure Allegra grows up bilingual?!

 

By the end of the holiday Allegra had seemed to master the word “ciao”, which was good, but we still have a way to go on learning Italian – still, it’s a start at least.

Our time in Fiuggi seemed to fly by and before we knew it, we were off on the last and longest leg of our holiday – a week in Sardinia: our summer holiday, part three.