Camping Il Capannino Bibbona

... the first to have blue prints. I even got to have a private tour one night of a friend of Vilmo's winery and he gave me a wine tasting of all his red wines made from his famous Orcia grapes. I chose the one I liked best and Vilmo bought a case and the guy gave us one for free.
The best night has to be when Vilmo took me and Emily, the Canadian woman, to a dance club. The club was full of middle aged divorcees and married couples. All the men were ...

... for our walk through the walled village. There is a 14th century fort with make up part of the walls. Today it is used as a prison - your not supposed to take photos of it, but I snapped a couple off before I knew... luckily I was not spotted by the local polizi. The town was cute for sure but I'm not sure it deservered all the accolades given to it by other travellers we had met in Lucca. Having said that we did take more photos than usual.

... of fresh mozzarella (softball size) and
salami, sliced it and ate it at the bar. None of the guys really spoke to each other, they just sat down one by one and ate. Everyone was transfixed on some Italian game show. The entire staff wore white undershirts and kind of shuffled around, but whenever we had an exchange with them, they were so kind and had huge smiles. We loved it.

Cinque Terre tomorrow to beat the rain predicted for Friday! Can't wait for this!!

... br>
Leaving the terminal, it felt very much like Dublin with the long twists and turns. But I refused to draw the parallel since we had a terrible time navigating that city and finding accommodations! And that was during the daytime.

Cycling along dark roads in a city with no reference, was to be our first introduction to the infamous Italian driving. Cars all jumbled together at ...

... this was built, they still weren’t too sure what god was controlling the world so they wanted to make sure that all their bases were covered.

Then we went to a local vineyard for lunch. What a spread! It was a 4-course lunch with 7 types of wine and 2 kinds of olive oils. The best thing there though was this Italian-style lasagna with truffle oil over the top! It was so good that we ...

I have resolved to try and keep this blog more up-to-date.
So much has happened since late July that i wont even start writing it down, but to summarise our drive as follows:
Arcachon
Bordeaux
Flo rac (Ardeche)
Montpellier where the family ...

... our balcony!

Back on the Ruby, we had time to relax on the Sun Deck. It was a very warm afternoon, in the high 20's so a relaxing couple hours seemed in order! Being a tourist can be exhausting!

We made sure we had dinner early as the final show of the Broadway Ballroom was in the Princess Theatre at 8:30pm. This show rivaled a very high level performance as the show featured the talents of the ...

... in case the horses or riders fall. It is a big event here but unfortunately we are too early in the season to see it (it happens 8 days after we leave). From here we walked to the Duomo, which has Michelangelo and Bernini paintings and sculptures. But it was getting too late to go in so we decided to head for the car. The problem was we were all turned around and went the wrong way, but eventually figured it out and got back to the car with our clean laundry. There was a music festival ...

... buildings. It is nearly 200 feet tall, 55 feet wide, and leans at an 85-degree angle. The tower was built over two centuries (beginning in 1173) by at least three different architects. Each one tried to correct the leaning problem by compensating in the other direction to no avail. When it was finally finished in 1372, it was left in a sort of slow-motion fall until 1838 when it began to fall at a rate of one millimeter per year. In 1990 it was closed ...

... Sunday: It was absolutely gorgeous today! As I threw open my double shutters onto my double terrace I was shocked to see the picturesque view of Portovenere that I have only seen in Postcards for two days previous. Another breakfast was awaiting my consumption on the terrace. After oh so filling, breads, cheeses and fruits mom and I packed up and loaded the trusty steed that was our car. Did I forget to mention that while we were in the garage wondering how we were gonna make the ...