Vino, Gelato, Pizza and Pasta in Tuscany - Page 7 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
So it is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our long-running forums. They came online in 2000 and brought together so many wonderful Disney fans. We had friendships form, careers launch, couples marry, children born ... all because of this amazing community.
Thank you to each of you who were a part of this community. You made it possible.
And a very special thank you to our Guides (moderators), past and present, who kept our forums a happy place to be. You are the glue that held everything together, and we are forever grateful to you. Thank you aliceinwdw, Caldercup, MrsM, WillCAD, Fortissimo, GingerJ, HiddenMickey, CRCrazy, Eeyoresmom, disneyknut, disneydani, Cam22, chezp, WDWfan, Luvsun, KMB733, rescuesk, OhToodles!, Colexis Mom, lfredsbo, HiddenMickey, DrDolphin, DopeyGirl, duck addict, Disneybine, PixieMichele, Sandra Bostwick, Eeyore Tattoo, DyanKJ130, Suzy Q'Disney, LilMarcieMouse, AllisonG, Belle*, Chrissi, Brant, DawnDenise, Crystalloubear, Disneymom9092, FanOfMickey, Goofy4Goofy, GoofyMom, Home4us123, iamgrumpy, ilovedisney247, Jennifer2003, Jenny Pooh, KrisLuvsDisney, Ladyt, Laughaholic88, LauraBelle Hime, Lilianna, LizardCop, Loobyoxlip, lukeandbrooksmom, marisag, michnash, MickeyMAC, OffKilter_Lynn, PamelaK, Poor_Eeyore, ripkensnana, RobDVC, SHEANA1226, Shell of the South, snoozin, Statelady01, Tara O'Hara, tigger22, Tink and Co., Tinkerbelz, WDWJAMBA, wdwlovers, Wendyismyname, whoSEZ, WildforWD, and WvuGrrrl. You made the magic.
We want to personally thank Sara Varney, who coordinated our community for many years (among so many other things she did for us), and Cheryl Pendry, our Message Board Manager who helped train our Guides, and Ginger Jabour, who helped us with the PassPorter-specific forums and Live! Guides. Thank you for your time, energy, and enthusiasm. You made it all happen.
There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
Moving on with a spirit born to run
Ever on with each rising sun.
To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
But eventually, we must move on and move forward. It is the right thing to do.
So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
And we are no longer charging for the Live Guides. If you have a subscription, it's yours to keep for the lifetime of the Live Guides at no additional cost. The Live Guides will stay online, barring server issues and technical problems, for all of 2019.
That said, PassPorter is not going away. Most of the resources will remain online for as long as we can support them, and after that we will find ways to make whatever we can available. PassPorter means a great deal to us, and to many of you, and we will do our best to keep it alive in whatever way we can. Our server costs are high, and they'll need to come out of our pockets, so in the future you can expect some changes so we can bring those costs down.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your amazing support over the years. Without you, there's no way us little guys could have made something like this happen and given the "big guys" a run for their money. PassPorter was consistently the #3 guidebook after the Unofficial and Official guides, which was really unheard of for such a small company to do. We ROCKED it thanks to you and your support and love!
If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
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We have had a lovely lazy day today. Graeme and I did the supermarket this morning and he made a lovely spaghetti carbonara for lunch. We swam all afternoon and now he has a rib of beef and some potatoes roasting on the barbecue and some local rosé wine chilling in the fridge. Yes I do know I am spoiled.
Tomorrow was to be a visit to Florence but we want to see the Galileo museum and it closes early so we will go to Pisa instead. We plan on driving down to Rome on Wednesday and visiting Florence on Thursday. Friday should be another relaxing day before flying home on Saturday.
I thought of you guys at lunchtime today. We went to Zizzi in Maidstone and I had gelato for dessert and immediately you came to mind!
Ooh I love Zizzi there is one in Aberdeen. Haven't been in ages.
That little gelato shop was a hub of activity last night people just kept coming in for massive tubs of Gelato and taking it home. This town seems to be small enough that a lot of the facilities are used by locals.
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I have some posted on Facebook but I don't have a laptop so it will be next week before I get some in here. They are nowhere near the quality of your pictures though
Tell Rory you can get gelato in the Italy pavilion at Epcot!
Have fun sightseeing!
Oh that's great news we will have some then as well. We always look forward to the Ben and Jerry shop in Universal Studios but Gelato in Epcot will be another treat. I hadn't thought if that.
Lunch was gorgeous, and dinner smells lovely. When we first got married my hubby couldn't cook. In fact if he was doing dinner for some reason which was rare it was sausage beans and chips. He took over the cooking 8.5 years ago when I went back to work full time and is becoming somewhat of a fantastic cook. I'm thinking of sending him on one of the cooking holidays sometime to learn how to do all sorts of different seafoods because it is the one thing we don't make the most of.
I was going to ask how he was with seafood, because if we were to come back and see you (and I say quickly here Hazel has invited us - I'm not inviting myself! ), as well as a return visit to the café, I'd want to sample Graeme's cooking, but of course meat is a bit of a no-no for me...
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I was going to ask how he was with seafood, because if we were to come back and see you (and I say quickly here Hazel has invited us - I'm not inviting myself! ), as well as a return visit to the café, I'd want to sample Graeme's cooking, but of course meat is a bit of a no-no for me...
He is great with fish we are just not very sure about shellfish. And yes you are welcome to come back.
Sounds like you're having a really lovely time and enjoying just being at the villa with little jaunts into town. How great that Graeme is cooking up a storm!