Greetings from Northern Tuscany

After the non-stop flight from SFO into Frankfurt Airport, we've made the drive down to the Lunigiana region of Italy, visiting Worms, Germany and Lucerne, Switzerland along the way. Now that we've had a chance to settle in, I'll tell you a bit about what we're doing.

We'll be touring around Italy in the next week, stopping for a night in Pistoia, one of my favorite, little-known Tuscan cities, and then checking out some special tours of Florence that might interest you. After that we plan to take a trip to Puglia, then France. Stay tuned.

As usual, we've taken advantage of a lease-buyback plan that the French offer. It's the best thing to do for long trips. You get a new car with great insurance. We're here for three months, so it pays off.

What's new this year is Citroën's participation in the buy-back program. We leased the diesel car from a company in Canada, and while the procedure wasn't as fluid as with more established Renault and Peugeot programs, everything turned out fine and the car is great. It's easy on fuel, which costs around €1 a liter here in northern Italy. (Get current prices of fuel in Europe.)

Find out more about lease buy-back programs (you'll have to have the car for at least three weeks to make it worthwhile, although many people like the new car and the peace of mind they get from the full coverage insurance so much that they pay extra to lease a car short-term.)