Casabiancalana Lucca

On our way north, from Rome, towards the Italian Riviera we made just a slight detour to Pisa to see the famous Torre Pendente (leaning tower). We're here to tell you, it is in fact leaning and we weren't interested in climbing to the top to see if we could get it to lean any more (and trust us, with the amount of pasta, vino, formaggio, etc. combined with the large amounts of tourists at the top of this structure... you never know). But ...

Good Day everyone,
We've been traveling throughout Tuscany the past few days. We hit rain in Pisa .....lots of rain....but we used the Cathedral as a sanctuary ....imagine that! After the rain we drove to a beautiful and sunny view of the Mediterrain Sea. Came back that evening and decided we ...

... 8230; and couldn’t find a park… jagged a disabled spot and thought we could always rip mick’s leg off if we got questioned.. Made a dash about 500metres up the road to see the leaning tower… it really is leaning!!… then quickly back to ensure the car was not towed away… back on the road heading north to Porotvenere..

Tuscan Hills

The drive from Venice to Tuscany was eventful (as always). First we wanted to see the Adriatic Sea.. We knew we were near the coast but finding a road which led to the sea was not so easy… even our sat nav lady Shirley couldn’t seem to find the sea… all we wanted was enough sea to put the feet in and say we had been to the Adriatic Sea… please note wet feet in venice the day before could not be counted as Adriatic Sea ...

... the southern most of the five towns. As soon as I got there it felt unique. Narrow alleys full of stairs leading in every direction, obviously helping me get lost on the way to the hostel. Luckily for me a cute old Italian lady poked her head out of her door and directed me, in Italian, which way to go. I didn’t understand a word she said, but it got me to where I was going.

The hostel that had been ...

... staying in Torano a small town, perched in the mountains where marble is mined.

This will now be our home for the next couple of months.

As we aren't technically travelling at the moment we are temporarily suspending our blog, but will start up another blog about our lives in Tuscany.

Happy reading for now, and we hope you enjoy the winter or summer where ever you are.

... just a bit northeast of it is Marlia, where I stayed with cousins. It’s country, with farms and gardens and even some factories.

Lucca and Environs
It’d been twenty-five years since I’d been to Italy, which means that, if I continue this pattern, the next time I go I’ll probably be in a box. My mother’s cousin Giuseppina is now seventy years old, which I why I didn’t ...

Today we woke up bright and early to check out Lucca inside of the gates. Michael came home and was nice enough to be our tour guide. We wandered around looking at many plazce gardens and towers all over Lucca. We stopped by a nice place for lunch. There, we were able to look through a book with information about all the famous and extravagant Villas around Lucca ...

... with Pesto, Pasta, Preusciutto, Bread, Oil, and of course some amazing Italian wine ... yum yum Today we walked the 5 cities, they are all very pretty ... but to be honest in this heat if you've seen one you've seen them all. Speaking of heat, ever since I have got to Europe I don't think I have stopped sweating. We all take at least 3 showers a day...and that is not because we want to but because ...

... probably try to sleep it off between today and tomorrow. The trip to Interlakken, Switzerland is looking really good for the last weekend in February. Next weekend is Venice and should be fun. Unfortunately, I really haven't found a travel partner. A lot of people aren't following through or are making the process more complicated than it has to be. Everyone seems to want to travel in a group but it gets messy that way. We'll see how it goes. Ciao for now!