If you'd like to know where my Italian roots come from...

[Marco]

Have a look here, and you'll discover why I'm a Celtic FC supporting, Scottish/Italian daftee:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15127389

Barga, in Tuscany, in Italy, is where my family originate from, and where we currently have a holiday home. It's beautiful little mountain village, and definitely full of 'Tally Scottish dafties!

Marco.

[Sandro]

Cool !
I've never been there, but I saw a lot of other places in Tuscany that I really loved. And food and wine in Tuscany are fantastic...

[Mr Kipling]

Chris Rea, from Middlesbrough, is half Italian and half Irish.

[Marco]

Hi Sandro,

Cool ! I've never been there, but I saw a lot of other places in Tuscany that I really loved. And food and wine in Tuscany are fantastic...

Indeed they are, although not just in Tuscany, but in the whole of Italy. Vicenza is also beautiful, and of course I love Venezia, which is one of my most favourite cities in the world! It must be good to be so near

We're going to be spending much more time in Italy now than we have done in the last 10 years, where before we were looking after Del's dad at home, who sadly passed away last year, and so we couldn't go away for any lengthy periods of time.

However, it now means that we have much more free time to do all the things we've been wanting to do for years, and one of them is going back to my roots and visiting Barga, so that's where we'll be going this summer, for about 3 weeks, although we'll also be touring around the area, as we'll have the car with us. One of the places we want to return to is the Cinque Terre, where we visited 10 years ago, and was utterly stunning in its beauty...

We always drive to Italy, so we can be mobile and bring lots of goodies (loads of food and wine) back with us!

Marco.

[Macca]

Looks like a very beautiful place. And warm!

[Marco]

Its as bad as going to Greek islands to find most the bars are English run

Lol - nah, it's nothing like that, dude! Any Scottish connection ultimately stems from having strong Italian roots

They all have Italian parents and grandparents and Italian names (like me), just with daftee Scottish accents (), because they've grown up or have had businesses (cafes and chip-shops, etc) in Scotland. They all speak Italian (like me) and sound Italian when they do so.

That's a very different thing from English people buying businesses in Spanish tourist resorts, simply to cater for the tasteless and unadventurous English tourists who want nothing else but egg and chips and English beer!

Marco.

[Marco]

Looks like a very beautiful place. And warm!

It is in the summer, Martin - different ball game in the winter, as you're way up in the mountains!

Marco.

[Wakefield Turntables]

That's a very different thing from English people buying businesses in Spanish tourists resorts, simply to cater for the tasteless and unadventurous English tourists who want nothing else but egg and chips and English beer!

Marco.

+1 to that. Why bother going abroad to a different country when all your gonna do is eat English food and drink lager

[Macca]

+1 to that. Why bother going abroad to a different country when all your gonna do is eat English food and drink lager

They don't really want to go abroad at all but they want a bit of warmth and sunshine which you can't gurantee here, even in August. So Spain fits the bill as it is cheap and only a couple of hours on the plane. They don't go for the culture, indeed if it was not set up to be 'just like home' then they wouldn't go at all.

[Marco]

Exactly, as I said, boring and unadventurous Brits!

Two weeks of doing nothing but sunning yourself by a pool, with other similar cretins, getting skin cancer and eating and drinking muck, inside a purpose-built concrete jungle.

Whatever you're into, I guess. I'd rather stay at home and stick pins in my eyes...

Marco.