It was an early start! Getting up at 4.30am to be on the road by
5am. Unfortunately the weather had
packed up so we began our trip in the rain.
We decided to add an extra couple of hours to our trip to Rome so we can
see some cool places along the way. Our
first stop was the beach side city of Genoa, which was pouring with rain so it
was more of a drive by than anything else.
The city is built right to the ocean with bright buildings packed in
literally on top of each other. We drove
past the most amazing looking pirate ship, submarine and shoreline (without
stopping, no one was keen to get wet).
Next we were off to the little fishing villages of Cinque Terre. To get there we drove along winding skinny
roads, up and down steep hills. There
were so many little 3 wheel mini trucks with trailers, they were so funny. It was all very exciting the rain had eased
by the time we were there, so enthusiastically we jumped out of the car for a
good look around only to have the rain set in super heavy after the first few
minutes. The town was lovely and the
coastline beautiful, except that we were all soaking wet and the water was pretty
rough. It is definitely somewhere that
if we have the opportunity we will come back.
Getting back into the car, little kids without pants, wrapped in
blankets, socks drying on the heaters we were off to Pisa. This time the rain actually did stop long
enough for us to get out and have a little stroll around Pisa and take photos
by the leaning tower. We were all
impressed with the tower; it’s actually really pretty and to our surprise
surrounded by other buildings. Today I
developed a new strategy for hounding street vendors, when they try and sell me
their stuff, I just sell them something back for double the money ... I
absolutely love the puzzled looks on their faces. I really want to buy some cheap plastic
watches and put 2 or 3 on my arm so I can quickly roll up my sleeve and make
them an offer they can’t refuse :+)
Allan and Taylor think I’m nuts, but it’s so much fun! Our next stop was Florence, we were
definitely running behind schedule so had to do a quick taste test of the
city. We walked past two cathedrals, the
main Duomo is magnificent and huge, it is also quite different on the outside
compare with all of the other ones we have seen (no time to go in). It is the largest stone masonry cathedral in
the world . From here we walked to the
Ponte Vecchio bridge which has lots of little shops along the bridge, very
cute! Lastly to Piazza della Signoria to
see the (fake) David statue, plus a bunch of other statues. We didn’t have time to go and see the real
ones, but the replicas were still very impressive and the square was very
cool. We have decided that we will visit
Florence properly in October when we are staying in Verona, it is a really
great city and we certainly didn’t do it justice. Once again we were caught by the rain, at
least this time it wasn’t too heavy.
Finally we were on our last leg of the trip to Rome. Rome greeted us with a massive thunder and
fork lightning storm. The rain was so
heavy we couldn’t even hear each other talking.
After a crazy wet, fun packed day we had made it and were all happy to
snuggle up in our new home for the week. Oh, the picture of the car windscreen is of a sock on our broken window wiper ... nothing like a bit of kiwi ingenuity until Allan could fix it.
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