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Europe » Italy » Tuscany » Arezzo
July 7th 2010
Published: July 7th 2010
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hello again, sorry to take so long to publish, but as you can imagine, travelling in a campevan is not conducive to writing blogs on
computers. however, must admit have been very very lazy when we got to fondi and settled down in the house, however, we have been so busy
that time has just got away from us.
well lets continue the 'grisswold' travels.
after successfully negotiating paul around the city without the benefit of gps (see previous blog) we managed to locate the camping ground that we could stay in. straight away he dragged me up the hill into the town. Arezzo is set on top of a hill and you need to climb up the stairs, in the distance I spied an escalator, but paul wanted to hike up the stairs, fortunately, i managed to drag him over to the escalator saving my legs, there was in fact 2 escalators, one following the other thats how far down the hill??? we were. immediately upon arriving at the top we were rewarded with a spectacular view of the hills and vineyards and mountains, and in the church there was a wedding taking place, naturally i had to have a look. we meandered our way around the town, it is very spectacular, the movie "la vita bella' was filmed here, and obviously it was a very popular place to get married as we saw 4 different wedding parties in different sections of the town. one bride was dressed in a dark blue suit with long skirt and red shoes, red hat, red flowers and the groom was dressed in matching blue suit but with red shirt, red flower in button hole and guess what red shoes!! he looked so stupid and she was floating around photo here, photo there, looking like a dual coloured m & m.
we spent the afternoon taking photos, gawping at everything, then went back to camper to rest up in the afternoon as usual, the local siesta makes it difficult to stay hanging around town as everything is closed. later in the afternoon we returned to continue our meandering around the sites, that night we had dinner in a local trattoria and the owner was very interested in australia and wanted to know everything about the town. one of the most beautiful towns in tuscany, loved every minute of it. we stayed overnight and left the next morning to head off to orvieto, via some small towns - citta di castigilione sul lago and cortona. as we were travelling along the road, paul spied a sign for cortona so on go the indicators and off we go, up and up and up and up, just about needed oxygen, when we got to the top and looked down shit, how high up we were. park and off to see the sites, the town was built almost vertical up the mountain, lots of exercise, no wonder i am losing weight, pity about the stomach though. there was a small fair selling things and raising money for cancer research, had a good look around and then back in the van and down down down the hill, around and around around we go. wonder i did not throw up. along the road again until we got to castiglione sul lago. found parking free, wonders will never cease, and a nice stroll around the town, the olive trees were fantastic, must have been about 100 years old or more, all the little shops offered free samples of their wares, salami, wine, oil, cheese, chilli, just about had lunch going in and out of the shops, so cute and touristy, lovely town overlooking the lake. we went down to the lake after lunch and had a look around and then headed back on the road again to orvieto.
orvieto must be one of the most prettiest towns in tuscany, set high on the hill with all the vineyards in the distance, a gr8 park with a fantastic panorama. they had an antique fair going on, we had a good look at everything but unfortunately, everyone these days seems to know the price of these items, so they ask over the top for them. right at the top of the hill is a duomo very similar to those in siena and firenze, some cute shops but was very very windy up there and quite cold. we spent the afternoon wandering around checking things out, stayed in the camper ground for the night and then had another good look at things the next day.
in the afternoon we set off to pick up the autostrade as paul had decided that after 2 weeks on the road it was time to head for the home base of fondi. for those who dont know we have a holiday home in the city so will be a little more space, however, i must say that the camper has been a lot better than i expected, lots of room and a comfortable bed, shower, toilet etc.
we drove down towards rome as the house is about 100 kms south of there. one the way we decided to ring our australian friends angelo and silvana as they were on hols here in italy at the same time and staying in a town about 30kms from rome, paul being paul doesn't explain himself very well, said to ask if the bus goes up to the little town they were staying in. this town is very very small and has little streets as it meanders up the hill, from this i thought he wanted to leave the camper at the bottom in the main town and catch the bus, i rang silvana and she said yeah there is a bus this is where you catch it from, so we went to this town and paul says to me, but this is not the way we usually go there, as we have been many times before and usually approach from the other direction. so we started to argue, next time he is going to use the gps etc etc as i dont know who to use at which point me as usual kept arguing, you told me to ask if the bus goes up there so i thought you wanted to catch the bus, what he actually meant was if the bus can fit so can we!!! MAn need to take up mind reading next time, so up and up and up are you getting the feeling that everywhere we go, is up the top of the mountain, then you would be RIGHT, as we were rounding the corner, there were our friends going down to look for us, think about it they are on top about 450m above sea level and they start walking down to look for us,!!! we stopped picked them up and continued to the top,

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