Sogni d'Oro Lucca

... river! It was pretty cool. We discovered that this church was built in the 14th century to house a thorn from Christ’s crown. Kind of interesting.

Crossing the river at Ponte di Mezzo, we sluggishly walked onward to Piazza dei Miracoli, where Pisa’s massive cathedral, baptistry, and famous Leaning Tower all are. The piazza itself is one of the loveliest we’ve seen – sprawling green lawns, teeming with ...

... 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

... San Cassiano-- the Church

A View from San Cassiano
When we got back I went on a bike ride of my own, tooling along the little roads into tiny villages like Lammari. I found a church from the ninth century, considerably older than anything I’ve ever been inside of. It makes you feel very, very young.


At the cafe in Lammari
That evening’s supper: spaghetti carbonara as made ...

[J] The nice thing about getting to know some people in a foreign place is suggestions - restaurants to eat at, museums to check out (or not), etc. Today we took the suggestion of one of our new friends on a town to go and visit: Lucca. We'd never heard of it before we came to Florence and may not have made a trip there, but we took the suggestion and we're glad we did. Lucca is known for its city walls that are still ...

Cinque Terre Day 1 Caught the train from Venice to Milan and went out to Linate airport to pick up Chards bags!!!!! she can at last wear her own clothes!!! Somehow made it back in time to catch the train to Cinque Terre. Met a young Italian girl on the train who told us a saying that the italians have about Kiwis - "three sheep for every man" (tee hee). Long story short we ended up staying in the crapest hotle in Italy "La ...

... down in the bath/pool/spa. The German girl later came up to me and said that her father had been impressed with it. Very classy to have a vat for "treading" the grapes, with a seat so that the workers didn't have to stand while crushing the grapes. Oops! She also told us that they had visited the gardens at Villa Garzoni, and that it was a great place to take a picnic lunch and a bottle of wine. I hadn't been particularly impressed with what I could see of the Villa when ...