Agritourismo Paradise

Well, here we are just south of Florence, in a city called Siena. We left Verona on tuesday in search of a farm. I had read in the Lonely Planet that there were these places called "Agritourismos," or "Farm Stays." Basically, farmers transform part of their property into a B&B, or camping sites and you can stay there for a lot cheaper than regular campsites. We were driving along a local road from Verona and came across a sign that said "Agritourismo Paradiso." So we followed the series of signs for about 15 minutes off the local road and ended up at a really nice looking farmhouse. Unfortunately they did not have camping, but the woman directed us to another Agritourismo that did allow camping. Ondrej started to explain about the mice and setting traps on their property. Now, between the two of us, we have about a 10 word Italian vocabulary, so communicating is a real challenge. But they were really nice and led us to all of the places to set traps. They had all kinds of animals - pigs, donkeys, rabbits, chickens, turkeys, dogs, goats, etc etc. So he set a bunch of traps and then we headed to the other Agritourismo that had camping facilities.

The map we have is not detailed enough to have all the small farm roads on it, so we are constantly asking for directions, and of course, not really understanding the answer that the people give us. Im always a bit amazed when we end up where we want to be. Anyway, so we got to the other farm house and again, explained about the mouse traps, and again, they were really nice about it. In fact, if I was interpreting it correctly, they found it downright amusing.

Early wednesday morning, we got up to go collect all the traps. Again, no mice. Those elusive little suckers. One of the traps got chewed on by the donkey, but other than that, they seemed untouched.

Now that we found out about this Agritourismo thing, I think we are going to be trying to visit as many as possible. We stayed at one more place in the same area for wednesday night. Its fun getting on the backroads and seeing the rural areas, and these Agritourismos are all really interesting. The one for wednesday night seemed to be owned by an elderly couple. It was up in the hills with a really nice view. And I think we suprised them when we pulled up looking for accomodation but they were welcoming and set things up for us without a problem. Like the others, they were also amused by the mouse catching thing and were totally fine with us setting traps. This place had a lot of animals, but didnt seem nearly as well kept as the other places. There were a lot of dogs, two were running around loose and the others were in kennels. The two that were running around seemed to have some weird behaviors... like not walking straight, and licking the air. Really strange. Anyway, Ondrej set a few traps, and it became clear that the place was infested with rats. He was worried about the rats destroying the cages so he only set a few traps. It was actually pretty gross - rats running around. Ick. No mice the next morning, but thankfully all the traps were still intact. The dogs were barking all night, but it didnt seem like normal dog barking... more like howling. It was pretty creepy. Nice people, but between the infestation of rats and crazy dogs, we were happy to leave that place.

We drove to Venice and spent a few hours walking around and had lunch- its such a nice place, but SOOOO many people. And its a nightmare driving around the cities, so after leaving Venice, we decided to bypass Florence and stay near this smaller town. There are a ton of Agritourismos around - unfortunately, none of them seem to have camping facilities, but we have a place at a normal campsite and this afternoon we will visit a bunch of them and set traps!


I think we'll probably be heading north to France soon!