Blogs from Tarquinia, Lazio, Italy, Europe

The Etruscans While almost all the passengers got up at the crack of dawn and headed to Rome for a 10 hour day, I opted for the path less traveled. Our bus took us through the port city and out into the countryside. Fields of lavender and gorse were interspersed with fields plowed and planted. The soil look rich and fertile. So beautiful. Our first stop was the Etruscan Necropolis where a small portion has been excavated, just enough to understand the burial procedure of these ancient Italians. Our guide today was obviously knowledgeable but had a thick accent and with my hearing I only got a sparse phrase hear and there, usually, “6th century before Christa”. This was way before Roman times. Although the signage was in Italian, the site itself was self explanatory. Each ... read more

Tuesday night continued The rain eased off a little, but not enough to make us move anywhere. Watching a little television, the water and storm seemed to have caused all sorts of problems in Rome, which is not far from here. We had a few food supplies in the car and ate those, and had a peaceful evening relaxing. I had another look at the car and can't find a mark on it. Surfing the web, I find out we had one the premium bonds, only £50, but it all helps. Wednesday, 5th November, 2008 Plan for today, move from Ladispoli to Agoripoli. Another fairly long drive. We hope to be in an apartment for the next seven days, so not sure of internet access. ... read more

With a sad heart, we said goodbye to Proceno this morning and headed to the Rome airport to catch a flight to London. The good news was that I didn’t have to say goodbye to Mom and Lynn quite yet. We had decided that we wanted to do one more stop before we got on the plane, so we stopped about halfway to Rome at Tarquinia. This is a spot famous for its Etruscan burial grounds and it is a great place to wander around. We started with a picnic in which we finished off everything that we had bought during the week and hadn’t quite eaten yet. We did end up with two extra bottles of wine that Mom tried her best to get through Rome security, but didn’t quite make it. I like to ... read more