Under The Tuscan Sun

Monday 24th August

Florence is beautiful, Rome is in ruins!!!

Well Florence – what a beautiful old renaissance city….lots of statues, stonework and wrought iron! We did the hop on hop off bus tour which once again gave us all the sights we needed to see including the pretty town of Feisole and the Di Vechio Bridge which was the only bridge in Florence to have survived World War 2. The temperature was 42 degrees so very very hot for these two kiwis. We meet a great German couple Roy and Grid and daughter Kimberley at the camp ground and went for a really memorable meal with them. Brent and Roy had the bistecca alla Fiorentina (a huge 1kg steak) – and they both couldn’t eat it all – believe or not. After dinner the 5 of us went to Piazzale Michelangelo where Roy and Grid produced a lovely bottle of red wine which we enjoyed whilst overlooking Florence at night and watching people tango dancing – this truly was a night to remember!!
From Florence we drove through the beautiful Tuscany region to Lake Terasimeno – where we were relieved to have a swim as the temperature was in the very late 30’s. From Lake Terasimeno we travelled through the Tuscan Hills where we saw lots for rolling valleys, grape vines, olive groves and sunflowers – to Lake Bracciano which is the lake that supplies water for Rome. Lake Bracciano whilst providing us with a way to cool down was also a good place to see Rome via public transport rather than driving!!
Saturday saw us leaving camp ground at 9.00am to catch the train into Rome…. Rome – amazing to see and hard to believe that some of the things we saw were built BC – whilst now they are in ruins we could imagine what they were like in ancient times. We did a guided tour of the Colosseum and Palatine Hill with passionate guides who loved telling us both the history and their stories – the Colosseum which is probably Rome’s best known monument and which was a big arena which could cater for over 50,000 spectators watching gladiators, crocodiles, lions fighting men and they also housed the public executions – today you need a good imagination to picture all this or a very animated guide as most of it is in ruins.
We also did the Hop on Hop off bus tour and saw the other sights that Rome has to offer including St Peters Square and Vatican City. The temperature whilst in Rome was 46 in the sun and 39 in the shade – so very very hot…. you can survive a day on water and ice-cream – the only challenge is to eat and drink faster than they melt or get warm!! We arrived back at the camping ground at 10.45pm so a huge day out for us.
We are tonight in San Felice Circeo which is out on the coast, so not quite as hot as inland – probably only 36 degrees. We are in a very small camping area across the road from the beach and where the owner has been bringing us food to try – such as last night a home-made spaghetti with fish eggs, prawns, chilli, parsley…yum yum yum. This morning he bought us bread with a home-made confit.

Our next stop will be Pompeii….