European Road Trip Day 7 - Florence & Pisa (Tuesday 5th June)

I was a bit worried that everyone would be tired after last night's bed-bug escapades and evacuation, but everyone seemed fine, and we quite liked our new apartment, because it had a balcony overlooking a reasonably busy Florence street, and the sun shone on us while we ate our breakfast there.

We left our stuff in the apartment, and walked back to the centre of Florence, and first of all went up the Campanile of the Duomo. There was no queue, and Tom and Harry were let in for free (6 Euros each for the rest of us). I got pretty tired climbing up the first bit, but luckily it was divided into stages, so we could stop and look at the view along the way.

It was gorgeous weather, and the views were superb - the dome of the Duomo, the tiled rooves stretching out for miles, and the surrounding hills with fantastic villas on them - wonderful. I loved soaking it all in. Very happy to just be there.

The kids looking out from one of the lowers stages.

Long way down!

View from the top.

This photo gives some idea of just how high we climbed!

Looking down!

Afterwards we bought some souvenirs from a kiosk at the bottom, then sat in front of the Campanile for a while watching the world go by. We then walked a similar route as the night before, back to our new apartment. It was nice wandering through the less busy back streets and seeing little shops and glimpses of life there.

We were met at the apartment by the girl who had greeted us the day before, and she was really apologetic, and very nice (and we subsequently got fully refunded for our stay in Florence.)
We then took all our stuff to the car park place, and waited while they bought our car for us. Loaded up, and then while Scott was driving through the crazy streets again, the kids and I put up the bunting I had made to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. (60 years on the throne, today!)

We then headed to Pisa. Towers on hills were a common sight, on the drive.

In Pisa, we parked in a supermarket car park, and walked a short way to within the town walls, where suddenly there is a load of open green space, and there are the three buildings - the round one, the church, then the Leaning Tower of Pisa. (Are you impressed with my vast amount of historical knowledge, and descriptive powers?!)

We very quickly got down to the serious business of taking cheesy pictures!

We then went to the base of the Tower, where you can really appreciate just how much it leans!!
This is the last photo I took, before I DROPPED MY CAMERA and broke it!!!

We sat on the grass in the sun for a bit, while Harry and Tom ran around and did forward rolls like a pair of loonies, and I examined my camera. It could still take pictures - but very blurry, with high exposure, and unable to move the lens. (Like the one below). I was a bit gutted! (But surprisingly more calm than I would have imagined!)

LUCKILY, before the holiday I had been sorting out camera stuff, and come across my old little Sony point and shoot camera which had broken a couple of years ago. I'd tried it, and it started working again. (I think some grass had got stuck in the lens part and jammed it, but over time the grass must have dried up, and then fallen out when I tried it again.) I'd given Lucy the camera to bring on holiday, so she very kindly gave it back to me to use for the rest of the trip. The rest of the pictures are taken with that.

After walking back past all the tourist stalls, and the boys very seriously deciding which souvenirs to buy, we went back to the car park, and Lucy and I nipped in the supermarket to get the next day's lunch. We then drove a few miles to our next hotel. It was a villa in the commune of Lucca, nestled in the Tuscan hills... Oh my goodness... I fell in love with it!!! There were flowers everywhere, and I loved the steps leading up to the doors, with the stone balustrade. Inside was wonderful too - cool marble floors, and a beautiful grey marble staircase going up two flights. We had the top floor to ourselves, with two bedrooms and bathroom. I loved how the whole place had an elegant 1930-40's feel about it, with a beautifully dressed dressing table on the first floor landing, and a hat stand by the door covered with old fashioned hats, and the walls intricately painted etc. The owner greeted us, and said to feel at home, which the kids completely did - they just ran in and out, up and down the stairs, and in the gardens... no one else seemed to be about. I stayed inside just soaking up the atmosphere with a grey cat for company, while Scott settled in a sun lounger in the garden. I felt like I was in a novel - an Agatha Christie or something. It was glorious weather too.

The kids loved the couple of cats who lived there.

After a while we decided to head to the coast (Pisa marina) to get tea.

We parked easily and walked along the sea front for a bit, got seats outside a Pizzeria (along with a some German bikers!), and ordered a pizza each. Harry and I went inside and watched the guy make our pizzas in a proper old fashioned pizza oven, with a little stick fire inside it - cool!
It was lovely sitting on the front in the hot evening sun, looking out at the Mediterranean.

After that we went to a little protected beach bit, and played. The kids got totally soaked.

Harry and Tom had twin beds in one room, with Lucy in another bed in their room, and Jack had a bed in Scott's and my room. The villa had Wifi, so I had fun in the evening sorting through pictures on my laptop, and putting some on Facebook.

European Road Trip Day 6 - Verona & Florence (Monday 4th June)

We said our fond farewells to Sarah, Mitch and their kids, then headed off on the next part of our journey - to Verona. This was not firmly written into the schedule, but we decided to go for it, seeing as we were passing quite close. None of us knew anything about it really, except that Juliet's balcony is there.

We arrived in Verona just before 10am, in a torrential downpour. We had no idea where anything in Verona was, so just wandered from our underground car park to the centre of town. Whilst we were sheltering in a big hall-type thing on the front of some building, and trying to figure out where Juliet's balcony was, some other tourists came in, and I went and asked them for directions (they were very well organised Germans, with a large book on Verona - compared with our free {clearly not very useful} paper map from the car park!). They got us headed in the right direction.

Never knew there was a colosseum in Verona! It was built in AD30.

There were some lovely streets which we wandered through, and it had stopped raining by then.

Yay! We found it!! The courtyard at Villa Capuleti - I was really chuffed to be there, especially as it felt like an extra treat we hadn't really planned.

The legendary balcony of Juliet.

I liked all the 'love locks' on one of the gates in the courtyard.

The crazy love messages graffitti in the entranceway to the courtyard.

 Back in the Centre of Verona...

 ...where we were accosted by some centurions...

We then headed towards a water park near Lake Guarda, after stopping off at MacDonald for lunch, and a supermarket to get to breakfast and lunch for the next day.

We got to the water park at about noon, but very disappointingly for the kids it was shut for the day, due to the rain. They were pretty sad, and then we spent a frustrating time trying to get on the right road towards Florence, and our next apartment. It felt a bit grumpy in the car for a while - rain, grey skies, no water park, and the satnav messing around, but it didn't last for too long.

We had to drive past Modena (at about 2.30pm), which I was not too keen on - it being the epicentre for yesterday's earthquake (which was 5.1 on the Richter scale), and the worse ones the week before. I was glad to make some distance between us and Modena, anyway.

We carried on to Florence, and spent a slightly scary time driving through the centre, to get to our pre-booked car park. We couldn't follow the satnav very easily, and kept getting off track, but circling ever closer! Finally we made it to the indoor car park place (a couple of streets from our apartment), where you leave your keys, and they take the car and squash it in somewhere. It looked like we had dumped our entire worldly possessions on the floor of the garage area, to take with us!

We made our way through the streets - complete with massive laundry sack (the apartment had a washing machine), wash bags, shopping bags with tea, suitcases etc! - and met a girl who let us into the top floor apartment of a tall terrace of apartments on a narrow street right in the centre of Florence.

It was a cool apartment!! Kitchen dining room, and a bedroom with canopied bed, and lovely heavy furniture, with ornate mirrors and tall windows and shutters. Both the rooms had mezzanine levels, via spiral staircases, with two more double beds.

We made tea, put the washing machine on, then headed out for a stroll around Florence in the lovely evening sunshine.

Harry terrorising the pigeons.

The Duomo, and surrounding building (Baptistry, Campanile etc.) are pretty amazing - all that green and white and pink marble - and just BIG. It was hard to get a picture which captured the scale if it.

We also wandered through the square (Piazza dells Signoria) which housed the Town Hall (Palazzo Vecchio), and replica of Michelangelo's David, plus lots of other statues. We sat and listened to a guy playing classical music on the guitar - it was just a nice atmosphere. Everyone happy.

I like these pictures of Lucy and Jack. (I love how well they get on with each other, particularly since Jack started secondary school last September.)

The Loggia dei Lanzi - an open air sculpture gallery of antique and Renaissance art, including 'Perseus with the Head of Medusa'. (1554) - and the guitar guy.

We then walked along the River Arno, and past the Ponte Vecchio (rebuilt in 1345 - there's been a bridge there since Roman times, and it was the only bridge in Florence not to be destroyed by the retreating Germans in 1944).

Ponte Vecchio.

 

Back at the apartment, we got the kids in bed, and I was sitting putting some pictures on the laptop, when at about 10.30pm Lucy woke up and came down, saying there were insects everywhere. I had a look and realised they were BEDBUGS!!! We checked on Harry who was in our bed, and Tom in the other bed, and there were bedbugs there too! I managed to keep Harry asleep, while keeping bugs away from him, and put Tom in with him, but we realised we couldn't do that all night, so Scott rang the apartment people, and they said they would send someone round in about 10 minutes to take us to another apartment a couple of streets away. We quickly packed everything up (including the 2 loads of washing I had got done and was out drying!), and then a lady took us to a new two bedroomed apartment, with bed-settee in the kitchen-dining room. It felt like quite an adventure!
We quickly got the kids settled, and had got the wet clothes all hung out again by 11.30pm. I was a bit paranoid about bugs again, and checked on the sleeping kids a few times, but it was fine. I was bitten really badly by bedbugs once several years ago, and it was terrible - I really suffered with it, so I was worried that the kids would have been bitten and be in a lot of pain, but they were all completely unaffected, thank goodness!