Ciao

Well westarted Sunday morning off by heading to an Irish Pub downtown Rome to watch the Aussie/NZ game....yey AB's!! Then we managed to get to the Colosseum and have a look around inside, and then went through the Roman Forum which is next door. It is pretty impressive to see how much of it is still in tact and the way modern stadiums are based very much on the same principle.
The streets around the Colosseum were still blocked off by the police when we went through so it had somewhat of a carnival atmosphere with people wandering around the streets, street sellers and entertainers. They had done a great job of cleaning up after the riots as there wasn't really any signs there that they had happened.
We enjoyed our last night in Rome just cruising and found a really cheap restaurant just down the road which was a nice family run business we would say....very old school Italian.

Monday morning we were up super early to catch the train to Florence. Only a 2 hour trip on the high speed train and our first class tickets got us a free paper, drink and a snack for the ride - just like being on an aeroplane. From there we headed straight for the car rental place to pick up our rental car and have a first attempt at Italian traffic - holey cow! You definitely take your life into your hands driving here....we don't think there are actually any road rules, pretty much just a free for all, try and make as many lanes as you can, weave in and out of traffic at will without indicating, and the one way streets make no sense at all! There are scooters everywhere, and we actually saw one just after it had been hit by a car....not surprising! Logan has had lots of fun driving on the wrong side and trying to figure out how it all works.....definitely an experience.
After getting a little lost in the countryside we managed to get most of the way to our villa, and the owner came and escorted us the remainder of the way....about 25 minutes out of central Florence and we were really in the middle of nowhere. The house were have been staying in is a medieval tower house, there are lots of them around Florence, and it was built around 1100. The apartment we are in is the top 2 stories of a 4 story tower, and is adjoining to the main house which the family who owns it live in. It is actually and active farm that produces Olive Oil as a main income with a whole heap of sideline products including honey and saffron.
Within several minutes of parking up a squirrel ran across in fron of us, and the property is elevated so we have a fantastic view over the Tuscan countryside with a castle on the hill opposite us. The tower is all stone, with a stone floor on the main level, and a wooden floor on the top. Everything has been kept very classic Italian villa and even the windows have wooden window covers. The kitchen bench is solid granite, and we have to boil the kettle over the gas hobs......very cool and it is like taking a step back in time.
We had to do some grocery shopping at the local town of Pontassieve......that was quite fun! Everything is CRAZY cheap here food wise. Wine is 2 euro per bottle and the really good stuff is 3.50 euro.
We spent the day in Florence on Wednesday looknig around the Accademia Gallery and Uffizi Gallery, we saw the Statue of David which is huge and extremely impressive! Then yesterday we headed out to Pisa to see the Leaning Tower and Lucca which is a little Medieval town about an hour or so from Florence. On our way back down the driveway to our villa we had a deer run across in front of us, they seem to be everywhere as well, and we are picking the frequent shots we hear through the valley are people out deer shooting. Beats the horse meat we have seen in the supermarkets!

Unfortunately this is our last blog as we received the sad news that Saras Gran passed away on Tuesday so we are now heading home a little earlier than planned. A wee bit of a sharp jolt back to reality, but we have had a wonderful time over here!