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Thur, May 31: San Gimignano & Volterra, Italy
Lovely medieval town. I is a very picky pizza eater but he chowed big time on pizza at a little restaurant we found here. Valterra is also a beautiful medieval city founded by the Etruscan people. W was especially interested in going to the Estrucan museum. Valterra is also right next to a state prison for hardcore life term prisoners. Somehow seems weird that such bad people would be locked up in such a beautiful place.
| On our way to San Gimignano. |
| Near the parking garage in Valterra. |
| The view over the fence in the photo above. |
| Yes, I'm still intrigued by the extra wash thingy. They were occasionally also found in the public bathrooms. |
| We found a nice playground in a big park. Would have been the perfect picnic spot if we'd only known. |
| At least both boys were able to move around and stretch their legs. |
| Our navigation system, aka JohnCleese, took us for a real ride here! This is an actual road that was in the system but it got even worse. We almost got stuck going up an overgrown, muddy hill. We actually turned around and went a long way back. |
Fri, June 1: Montecatini Terme, Italy
A rainy last full day in Italy. Montecatini Terme is a spa town known for
its natural springs. We took a funicular ride up the mountain to Montecatini
Alto. It's a train that goes up a very steep track. The train itself is made
uneven. I really loved it. The top wasn't so interesting -although there was a
pretty cool old castle or church - and it was about to rain so we took the next
train ride down again. We ended up driving to a popular town called Lucca in the
pounding rain. I really wanted to see it but D was asleep by the time we got there so we actually drove
back to Montecatini Terme. We knew that there was a cave that had tours in
the afternoon and it was raining off and on anyway. We ate at a nice hotel restaurant and went into the caves. We had
a very fast guided tour. It was a cool little place though and there was a tiny
little bat hanging upside down to greet us as we entered. We got back to the
Little House early, packed, and had some pasta.
| On the funicular. |
| At the top of the mountain at Montecatini Alto. |
Sat, June 2: From San Miniato, Italy to Luzern, Switzerland
We left Italy early and headed north through Switzerland. We planned on
taking on overpass to get there so we could see the mountains rather than just
tunnels. We did drive through some of the mountains but the main overpass was
closed so we ended up going through a big tunnel anyway. The mountains were
unbelievably gorgeous (I'm a mountain type even though I grew up in the
flat midwestern U.S.). We stayed over in Luzern and after a stressful (D NOT
happy and full of a stinky diaper!) search, we finally found a hotel. We got D to sleep quickly and then had a really lovely (seriously!) dinner in the hallway. I
had a loempia with rice and chocolate ice cream. W had some sort of
casserole and a pretty dessert. We also had a nice little carafe of red wine. I had french fries
:-).
Leaving San Miniato, Italy
| The mountains in the distance! |
| At a little rest stop. |
| Breathtaking! |
| From atop the mountain we drove up and over. |
| Actual snow on our summer vacation! |
Sun, June 3: Luzern, Switzerland
| Our hotel in Luzern. Up early! |
| From our hotel balcony. |
| Poor tired baby. |
| Hmmm. Should we go through Germany (D) or France (F). Life should always be full of such 'tough' choices ;-). |
