From Hearts News at Il Ciocco, Tuscany

The Mayor of Barga today extended a heartfelt welcome to Hearts and the commune here in the Tuscan hills.

Marco Bolini, who has been in office for a year held a local news conference at the town hall about seven kilometres from the team's base at Il Ciocco.

And he emphasised the incredible links between Scotland and the spectacularly beautiful town.

Mr Bolini told a local news conference: "First of all thank you for choosing Il Ciocco and our territory to come for your pre-championship training.

It is very important that I you can take this time off so we can tell you that the Commune of Barga has very important ties with Scotland.

"We are twinned with East Lothian and we have important relationships with Glasgow.

"It is a double pleasure because we continue to have these relationships with Scotland and at any opportunity we like to create these meetings where we welcome you.

"It is important to welcome a football team because football is like a religion so to have an important club like Hearts from Edinburgh is a double pleasure for Italian football fans."

In response Jim Jefferies said: "On behalf at everybody at the club we appreciate that you have taken the time to honour us and give us great respect which we appreciate.

"It is the first time for most of the people in the squad to be here this year and they did not know a lot about it. I feel like I qualify for an Italian passport as I've been here eleven times!

"They've been impressed by the facilities that are here. The feedback that we get is that everything has been fantastic and coming today is very special."

The manager also extended an invitation to the Mayor to attend a match in Edinburgh in future.

Catch more pictures from today's trip to Barga on our interactive LIVE Blog: Hearts in Italia

On Hearts.TV today - Jamie MacDonald, Jason Thomson, and JJ feature in our behind the scenes update plus there's part two of our big one-to-one with the manager