Casa Alba Lucca

... that this town of 89,000 people gets millions of visitors a year because of such an architectural screw-up! Anyway, we took a few happy snaps of us in front of the Leaning Tower; freshly restored, it is now so bright and clean-looking, and with the bright blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds in the background, the pictures we took in front of the tower almost look fake (but really, we did go there, despite our bad stomachs; no t ...

... mais apres presque 900 ans, elle est toujours la. dans le meme espace, il y a la cathedrale et un autre batiment , tous ca, en marbre blanc. En dehors de cette attraction, pise possede encore une bonne partie de ces fortification. si non, c'est une ville etudiante, avec 3 universites,donc il y a quand meme pas mal de vie

... as the place was so cramped and nothing else to do in town, but ended up having a good night both nights we were there.


Sunday did the walk between the 5 towns from Riomaggore to Monterosso. Took about 4.5 hours including thestops in each town to check them out.
The views out over the Ligurian Sea are stunning. Leaving one town and seeing the next far off in the distance, and sometimes a lot higher up in altitude, was really cool.

... and I had a wonderful 50th. Everyone sang to me in the small restaurant. Thank you everyone for following us and keeping us close with your wonderful comments. To sign off I will say that.....
"There is nowhere like Home".
Love Mick and Lisa

... on internet and then back to the bar for more wine and tapas.

Sun 15
Did some chores... yes we have some, we are not totaly void of resposibility. Went to the supermarket to stock up on food and went to an Aire d'service to empty Theo (our Thescott cassette toilet). Enough of that and we were back in the walls checking out the Antiques Market and eating Gelati... YUM!!

... an exciting time. I even had a chance to truly see the team rivalry when a Napoli fan crossed over into our section…brutal! I was even pushed in attempts to get this guy out of the stadium.

I visited a quality control center in nearby Prato. I was exposed to a number of tests performed on products before they were put onto the market.

I’ll update you soon,

Siara

We had planned to explore Lucca, but woke up to rain, which hadn't been forecasted until the afternoon and mainly Thursday. So we changed our plans and had a day in the apartment so that the kids could catch up on their homework. I walked to the supermarket to get a few more things, but otherwise we stayed in while it rained most of the day.

... in a huge old building. It was a great place and we had a private room with its own bathroom and three sets of bunk beds. It was only about six and we were so tired so we tried to find something for dinner but nothing was open yet. We ended up settling for fish and chips (rídiculous) and Samantha settled for dry cereal in the room. After a great nights sleep we spent the next morning riding ...

... to head out to do hiking and the beach today. It was a bit overcast in the AM, but hopefully it cleared up by the afternoon. Leaving the hostel behind (Ostello 5-Terre, a great place, the only weird thing was that they had timers on the showers and it would shut off after 5 minutes - you had to pay 50 cents extra if you wanted another 5 minutes of water), I headed to the train station and took the train back to Vernazza to see if my AC adapter ...

Woke up at 12:30, after going to bed at 6am. James is still asleep in his bed, whoops! He was going to go see the statue of David at 7:45! Went to an internet cafe and booked our hostels in Rome and London. Don't think we'll be seeing Frank again on this trip, it's just too expensive and there's not enough time! Bummer. Had some pizza for lunch, then went to get gelato. The lady asked us if we wanted a cup or a cone. Jim wanted a cone, I ...