Paginatitel

Day One - Friday 13th - An ominously superstitious day for some, but a day that dawned with beautiful warm weather and excitement. People were going off on their separate ways, some to visit the Piaggio motorcycle museum, some to nearby Pisa, others to Florence and Sienna. The non-Piaggio travellers were transported to the railway station in good time to catch their respective trains when one small hitch arose - The Italian rail workers had decided to go on strike! After some wandering back and forth, some ice cream & coffee they finally returned to their hotels for a lounge by the pool and a visit to the airfield - They didn't seem too disturbed and appeared to have enjoyed their abortive trips!

That evening many of us elected to go to Pisa others to stay and relax in their respective hotels. The Pisa troop did all the touristy things that visitors were expected to do! Some of us even resorted to climbing up the famous leaning tower to get an appetite for another delicious meal - By the end of the day most of us were tired and happily flopped into our beds that night.

Day Two - Saturday 14th - Another beautiful day and one in which the organisers intended us to keep busy and moving. After an early breakfast, we were coached off through the undulating Estrucan countryside to the historically lovely town of San Gimignano, perched high on a hilltop. Tour guides walked us through the town and its buildings giving us the history of the place - and boy oh boy did it have some history! And yes - the ice cream tasted good there too!

Later in the afternoon we were taken to a spa bath to sample the delights of sulphurous warm water swimming - surely a first for the AYA - The bathers had to wear hair net thingies or rubber swimcaps, some red, some blue - It's surprising how many of us looked like burnt out candles or even worse, matchsticks - as we stood, pale limbed, waiting to immerse ourselves in the pongy water. It was lovely and great fun. Of course being intrepid and brave aeronauts we simply had to have a formation fly-past swim around the spa, echelon left deftly changing to diamond seven formation as we swooped past the impressed, if somewhat bemused, locals. We even managed to make a new record. How many Grummaneers can you fit into a smelly bubbly jacoozy-thingy? 15. That's how many. A world record yet to be challenged!

That evening was the event's main banquet, as previously mentioned, we had at least 110 people all gathered in the Congress Hall of Peccioli. The mayors of local communities had been invited together with the mayor of Capannoli region. With such august dignitaries present most of us stayed well behaved and reasonably quiet! Not!! The dinner was given solemn opening grace by our resident grace-giver Richard North and the festivities began in earnest.