Castello di Romena

A slightly more successful trip to the Casentino to see the house and meet up with R. The heavy weather fluffed up some doubts but we duly put these back in their box.

This perturbed weather is a bit of a setback. The translucent greens of spring suddenly have a heavy and portentous look.

But Macron's emphatic win in the French Presidential elections was great news. As someone - Wolfgang Munchau - said in the FT on Monday morning (I'm getting ahead of myself here), 'This has to be one of the most hopeful days since the Eurocrisis began in 2009.'

As an aside, as we passed through Sieci we noticed lots of pink bunting, bikes, flowerpots, doilly-looking things. The Giro d'Italia is due to pass through on May 17th. It's an 160km four-mountain-pass day and passes through the town outside of which stands 'our' house.