L'Arancio Affittacamere Lucca

... was nice. This time I was staying in an all girls dorm room! Exhausted I checked in and ate dinner at 9:30 and then crashed in bed at 11. I slept till 10 which is not normal for me and decided to stay in Pisa instead of going to Chinqenterra because a day of rest in a small village sounded amazing. when I woke up fully rested i met a girl named Sophia from Sweden. We went to a cafe for crossaints and cappacino and then took a walk to sit and rest in the botanical garden ...

... trip to Pisa the highlight was sharing a bus with a family of Hull City fans and seeing our attractive fixture list.

Tonight in the restaurant was Italian night and we had 30+ nationalities singing in Italian - Oh Sole Mio. Not one of the waiters is Italian. THe highlight of the meal was meeting a couple from Illinois on their 40th wedding anniversary. She says it took 25 years to train him and he has been a good husband for 15 - I say with time off for good behaviour he could ...

2 storey new hotel (built in 2003)

Staff 5*

Rooms 4*

Food - breakfast 3*

Food - dinner 5*

Wired internet in room safe built into outside wall quite sound proof from outside, but not next door.


Food

Dinner silver service waiting with excellent menu free wine on seating to cleanse your palate a good selection of reasonably priced wines some local (a nice soft palate Chianti) also a free desert wine with desert ...

... from Riga to Dublin, cost less combined than my one-way ticket from Dublin to D.C.), but they keep costs low by charging exorbitant fees for straying outside of their very tight rules. So far, it hadn’t been a problem, although I’m certain that I’ve broken the rules a few times – usually they don’t care about it. I’ve actually never had a problem with Ryanair yet, not counting delayed flights. Well, at the Malta airport, I had my first ...

... of the volcano - I think they are pushing their luck.

We docked in Messina, Sicily around 11:00 and boarded our bus for the trip to the pretty town of Taormina. This town dates back to 39 AD and is located on the side of a mountain, similar to Positano. It has a spectacular view of the ocean and Mount Etna, which still has snow on it and was also gently smoking away. Our guide said that a few years ago Etna had lava flowing ...

... fishing out change for a toll booth, turned the emergency blinkers on.) We stopped to see the beautiful new house of our friends Richard and Eveline Uren, and go to one of the beachy restaurants people attend to see and be seen. After a two hour traffic jam, we made our way into Cannes in order to drive for half an hour in circles around the Hotel de Ville, nominally looking for the Sofitel saw advertized, but mostly attempting not to criticize Dad's ...

Moved camp today headed for Italy. Dropped into Grace Kelly's pad (Monaco) for a bit of a look around and drool at the huge yatchts moored in the harbour. GPS took us right down to the waterfront! Boys had a ride in a Ferrari 360 around the Grand Prix circuit - they were pretty stoked at that! Toured the Palace which was beautiful inside. Could see a bit of a storm brewing, and it was pretty windy so after going round in circles for a bout half an hour (GPS was ...

... we settled in for our long wait. The time passed rather quickly with each of us walking around town in shifts, as someone had to watch our packs. Now sitting on the platform I looked up at the departure screen and there was a 55min delay on our train, perfect! By this time I was exhausted and not feeling well, but we began conversing with a Swedish gentleman, who had just climbed the mountain in the distance. Together we all passed the time chatting away and finally an hour later our ...

... I had never heard of it before but it's now one of my favorite pieces of art. It's increadible, Mary's skin glows), Da Vinci's Adoration of the Magi, Michaelangelo's Holy Family, Raphael's Madonna of the Goldfinch, Titan's Venus d'Urbino, Parmigianino's Madonna of the Long Neck, and Caravaggio's Bacchus. There were about five billion zillion other pieces. It's so amazing to see how much ...

... in the Alps, it was his first time on an extended trip abroad and he couldn't stand crowds either. He immediately became my hiking buddy, and we celebrated our new partnership with a cheese, chocolate, and wine drunk out of teacups picnic. Jake had read about a hiking trail that went up into the hills surrounding Cinque Terra, so we decided to go that route instead of the wussy touristy way. So, the next morning we got up early, bought some amazing fresh bread from the just open ...