We were planning to have a beach day today and a look at a picturesque lake on the way but it started to rain. According to my research this was supposed to be the hottest part of our trip, looks like I’m going to miss out on my second summer after all. Not to worry, we went back to Lucca; I love this place. The streets and old houses are beautiful but unfortunately cameras can’t take as good a photo as your eyes, especially in the narrow streets. I can’t recall the last time I went to a church at home [View Full Entry]

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Off to the market in Lucca this morning to stock up on fresh food, we’re being adventurous and trying new veggies, even the kids. While we’re so close (1hr round trip) we take a detour to Pisa. Hundreds of people trying to do the ‘holding up the tower’ photo (which we also tried), the town walls lined with souvenir stalls (as expected) and dozens of Africans holding trinkets, watches and handbags to sell. But I wasn’t really expecting anything else. So we had a picnic on the side steps of the church and took in the interesting buildings before heading back [View Full Entry]

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Another rainy day; really raining this time. So we stayed in and watched a video, what a novelty. With some wine, cheese and nibbles; cozy and relaxing. In the afternoon we took a look around Bagna Di Lucca, the nearest town. What a lovely little town. It has natural warm springs that are supposedly therapeutic. Napoleons sister was one of the first aristocrats to frequent the area along with many writers and poets. She encouraged it to be a resort town so it has a hundred or so stylish villas from the 1800’s throughout the town. Many of them are in [View Full Entry]

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Florence was nice, we had a wander around looking at all the statues and the Duomo which has a fantastic exterior and lovely paintings on the ceiling. Then thought we should throw in some culture but after waiting almost 2 hours to get in to the Uffizi Gallery we quickly got bored looking at so many dull religious paintings. Yeah their were paintings on the ceiling and statues etc but they didn’t seem to be as impressive as what we saw in the little church in Ceriana. [View Full Entry]

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Off to our next Italian village, up another narrow windy road. The mountain’s not quite as steep but the drivers are just as ignorant. The 10 min drive to the next town takes us 15, I would prefer to go even slower personally. The town is surrounded by a forest of tall chestnut trees (so I’m told); it’s so pretty. Bright green leaves with small white flowers and when the breeze blows snow petals fall. Another very pretty traditional village, with steep (really steep), cobbled streets and stone apartments. Our apartment is really homely and the kids are rapt, satellite TV, [View Full Entry]

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I’ll be sad to leave Ceriana, it has been an incredible insight into Italian village life. They are like one big family. The church bells ring throughout the day and night but thankfully the night time ones are quieter, then at 7am the ring for 1 minute to wake everyone up. At around 8am the streets are full of people meeting to chat on their way to start the day. The shops shut their doors (although the fruit & veggie display outside is just covered over) and the streets are quiet while they have their main meal of the day. The [View Full Entry]

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Went back into France today, Ken (our GPS) took a detour around Monarco but that was for the best, the Grand prix was on the weekend so it would have been chaos. Nice would also be really busy as the film festival was on so we stopped at Ville Franche-sur-mur. It was quite nice but being a Monday it was a little too quiet. Most of the shops were shut and it was a drizzly day. We wandered around the port area laughing at the rich people as they hopped off the boats that had bought them to shore from their [View Full Entry]

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A drizzly day this morning has allowed us a lazy day inside….until I hear a band start up. At the Piazza in front of the church is a band in uniform and a gathering of people, then from the church comes 3 girls and a boy who have just done their 1st Communion. In white communion dresses, throwing handfuls of rose petals they dance out of the church. When their baskets of petals are empty they run back inside to refill to again run around the crowd and down the streets throwing petals. When they’ve finished Darcy and Lucy picked up [View Full Entry]

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I lost Darrens wallet last night; his version of a nightmare. I went back to the bar where I had bought the kids an ice cream and he said a ‘portafolio’ was found in the street, he thought the guy was going to hand it into the Carabineri (police) but it’s not there. We wandered back and forth up the street obviously looking lost and confused because a guy came up to me when we were about to cancel our cards at the phone box and indicated that the wallet was taken to the ‘municipality’. He helped us out and we [View Full Entry]

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We needed to do some washing so went into San Remo, $A10 a load, wash only. This is bedlam. Cars and scooters darting everywhere, so we decided to park the car ASAP. We drove into what looked like a multi level carpark but in front of us was a closed gate; then we discovered it was automatic. We had to hop out and the car was taken by machine to be slotted into the car parks. But San Remo is just too chaotic. We finally finished the chores we needed to do then back up to Ceriana. I took the kids [View Full Entry]

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