Forte dei Marmi

Forte dei Marmi is a very wealthy part of Lucca in Tuscany.

Most families own houses here that they come to just for the summer, as did the family I worked for.

In the centre are many intimate restaurants and designer interior and fashion stores, and not far from are the privately owned beaches- hundreds that run along for miles. 

Carlotta and Nicoletta

I love this photo it's so telling. 

These are the beautiful children I taught English to in Italy, and was unknowingly appointed nanny to. 

I think it's the first time I've seen them sit still together. 

Every morning we used to sit on this very couch and pull out the same old books- they would always ask for the one in which a lion eats a boy, and every time we read through it they were surprised by this development.

Nicoletta was my favourite, she stole my heart (right).

Pietrasanta

I lived and worked in Forte dei Marmi while I was in Italy, but not far from it, Pietrasanta, was my

 favourite little community. 

It was not until I travelled further across Europe, into other Italian cities and South of France, that similarities started to show between each city and the things I found charming about the town, and the historical buildings and sites that had been so well preserved, were prominent in so many other places. 

Forte dei Marmi market