The 'renting a car, driving the west coast of Italy ourselves' plan went a little awry when Hertz wouldn't accept my Thai driver's license (My new TX license is setting somewhere on Deaner's desk-Mark told him to just keep it until we came this summer!! I don't know if I blame Hertz much, I'm not totally convinced a Thai driver's license should be globally recognized either!) So Mark is our primary driver and I'm the navigator not the foundation of a nice, peaceful, enjoyable drive. We always do so much better when I'm driving and Mark is navigating. NO GPS!! and no English map!! The first thing we did after loading the car and orienting ourselves to our Italian car was pray. We prayed hard for God to protect us and help us-we are needy especially driving out of Naples!
God answered! We were able to get out of Naples without any accidents, no one even honked at us and only had to apologize a little to the boys about our attitudes! Once we were out of Naples and on the autorun, A1 it was a 6-lane road around Rome-whew! We wouldn't want to take a 6-lane interstate through the whole of Italy, so we ventured off and stopped for lunch in one of the oldest Medieval cities of Italy-Viterbo. Europe is sooo old! We are wearing out our Fodor's, Italy, travel book and found one of their suggested eateries and were not disappointed! The Italians might not be too friendly but MAN, do they know how to cook!! Nathan commented that he had written yesterday on Facebook that he had just eaten the best Italian food ever! After our meal he said he would have to change that status to, "I JUST ate the best Italian food ever!"
The tomatoes, the real ROMA tomatoes have not disappointed. The cheeses, the gellato, the pasta...the boys had a most delicious eggless pasta yesterday while I savored a chickpea/water chestnut soup. How in the world do all these Italians stay so thin for their Italian fashion? I think it's all the smoking and wine?!
After leaving Viterbo we drove along the west coast of Italy towards Pisa, Italy. It was really beautiful, the rolling hills were still green, dotted with many olive trees and vineyards with herds of sheep grazing. That was on one side and the Meditarranean Sea on the other. The hills are filled with ancient cities some still having their original city, stone, walls in place along with watchtowers. The houses are just as you imagine when you think of Tuscany-muted colors of rust, yellow, green, two-storeyed stucco houses with window boxes filled with geraniums and greenery. At one point Mark actually commented that he was glad we were driving!! This from the man that at one point in Naples rather heatedly voiced, "Why in the world are we driving and not taking the train?!" Which ironically we saw that Eurostar rail is set to strike so perhaps it is better to be driving ourselves!
It gets dark really early this time of year in Italy by 5:30 we were already using our car lights and it was starting to drizzle rain/snow. Thankfully, we are so close to the coastline, only a few miles inland over 10 inches of snow is forcasted overnight. We made it to Pisa around 6:30 and quickly found a hotel and were in bed by 7:30 thus up again at 0430!!!
We hope to tour Pisa this morning and the infamous Leaning Tower before driving on to Genova, Italy to board our cruise ship bound for Greece. We just want to be sure and allot ourselves enough time. The cruise ship will leave with or without us!
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