Here it is, 2012, and I still haven't finished my entries on the European trip. So it's time to get off my lazy butt, and get these done.

It really wasn't interesting contrast as we drove down to where we were staying. We left the mountains of Switzerland, drove across a huge flatland, and ended up in a hilly, coastal mountain area. We were staying on the property of an old manor, in an apartment that used to be part of the carriage house. It was very roomy, with very high ceilings.

Over the next several days, we visited a number of towns and cities that are quite famous. We went around the entire wall of the old city of Lucca. It is hard to imagine it as a wall now though, the outside has all been filled in and it looks much more like a levee now. We also wandered around the old town a little bit. (I slathered on suntan oil, and my legs got a decent tan. After Lucca, I didn't bother with suntan oil anymore. The base tan was all I needed.)

We went to Florence, where we were able to buy a few souvenirs and gifts. Sadly, much of the old statuary was inside. The lineups were horrendous, so we only saw the copies that were still outside. I think it was here that we saw an interesting aspect of old Italy. Several centuries in the past, some of the important buildings were re-faced with marble. On itself, this doesn't seem too exciting. The weird thing is when you take a closer look; the marble was stolen from old Roman ruins. Some of the plates for the refacing still contained the old Roman inscriptions from the original buildings. I guess it was too difficult to ensure that the inscriptions were on the backside of the plates.

We also saw Piza. This was really strange as there were clouds scudding across the sky. Yes, the tower still has a lean. Yes, you can see where the lean was adjusted halfway through the construction. The strange thing is watching the clouds scudding across the sky. They made it continually look like the tower was about to fall over. I'm glad I was in a wheelchair, as I'm sure if I had been standing I would've fallen over. My balance is bad enough now, but this completely upset it. The place was also mobbed. It was hard to take a photograph, as people were constantly walking in front of you. The grass was also littered with idiots sun tanning. Not that there's anything wrong with taking a break and tanning, but a lot of these people looked like they had been lying there for quite some time. Why go there if you are just going to suntan for several hours?

And of course, we went to Vinci. We got there in time to quickly to tour Leonardo's museum. (We were late getting there, as our GPS let us down. It seemed very confused as to how to get to the town.)

We also spent some time driving the hills behind the manor. That was quite interesting, and we got some beautiful views.

As I think I've mentioned before, driving in Italy is quite surreal. There can be five lanes of traffic on a two lane road. Signs tend to lead you to within 15 km of your goal, and then disappear. (This means actually getting to where you are trying to go is almost impossible.) There is a lot of backtracking involved. The drivers are also crazy. Most cars have some sort of dent or damage on them. We found out that everyone has a good safe driving record, because nobody claims anything. They would rather drive a wreck than have their insurance go up.

One thing I loved: we went to a pizzeria that made authentic, Italian pizza using gluten-free crusts. The pizza was, in a word, awesome! I desperately wanted to go back a second time, but that would've meant that Jim and Brett could not drink during supper. And that wouldn't have been fair.

Rainer