Monday, February 26, 2007
Tuscany
Monday 5th February
What should have been a quick 3 hours trip to our next destination in the Tuscan hills turned out to be 8 hours of hell. There was again thick freezing fog, which no doubt contributed to the accident that shut a huge section of the motorway we needed to go on. Not realising to start with that about 100 KM of motorway had been closed, we made a couple more attempts to get onto it at different junctions, this of course was done through very slow moving traffic and we were invariably turned away. We spent about 5 hours driving along minor roads with a billion trucks and other cars and nothing was happening quickly! When we did finally arrive at the campsite, reception had closed and the “guardians” were nowhere to be found. Thoroughly exhausted and fed up we ignored all the signs saying, “You must not site your caravan without permission” and promptly sited our caravan without permission.
Tuscany is very green, the main reason being it rains a lot here! On one of the dry days we took a trip to Pisa, it has a tower there and it leans. Filling the boys with information about the tower, we were greatly disappointed to find that children under 8 cannot go into it. Due to this our visit to Pisa was short and sweet.
On a cold damp day we visited Pinocchio Park located in a small village where Collodi spent most of his childhood. The park was an interesting find, full of sculptures depicting different parts of the book. It was laid out well and the boys had fun running up the different paths to find the next character. At the end we decided to purchase the direct English translation of the book by C.Collodi and read it to the boys. We are all really enjoying the book and glad we have got the true version.
We went to Lucca where the walls of the town have been turned into a Park and many people walk, cycle and run around them. We walked the 4.2 km with the boys and spent a pleasant few hours there, luckily there were several play parks along the way that took their mind off the whole walking thing.
On the way back we stumbled across a carnival and decided to join in. Here the spectators as well as the people taking part in the carnival dress-up, especially the children. They also believe in throwing handfuls of confetti bought in huge bags and spraying silly string. The result was very colourful and messy; there is no way this would be allowed in the UK. It was a lot of fun and although the boys were not too enamoured with having confetti and silly string thrown over them, they really got into the spirit when we bought some for them to throw on other people!
On a glorious sunny day we visited Florence, after the usual car parking nightmare we ambled to the Duomo. We climbed the 463 steps to the top of the dome to admire the panoramic view. All 3 boys walked all the way with no complaints. About 2/3rds of the way up you come out onto a balcony in the interior of the dome where you are greeted by a huge fresco, covering the entire dome, depicting the last judgement. How the boys didn’t suffer from nightmares I am not entirely sure. Not much was left to the imagination about what it is like in hell and damnation.
As Gelato (Ice-cream) is meant to be a Florentine invention we could not spend the day there without indulging. So with tummies full of ice-cream we meandered to the Piazza Della Signoria where there are many inspiring sculptures, including a copy of the famous Michelangelo’s David. We did not attempt to see any of the famous art galleries; the last attempt was too fresh in our minds for us to try again.
On then to the Ponte Vecchio the oldest bridge in the city, it is lined with Jewellery shops that literally sparkle. Although there is a lot more to see in Florence with three young children you have to be realistic about what can be achieved.
Since coming on the trip Max has developed quite a few warts and they were starting to get itchy so we thought it was about time we braved going to a doctor. This done we were referred onto a dermatologist. Unfortunately the Dermatologist did not speak a word of English and obviously my Italian is non-existent, I can apologise for being English but that is about it. So without further ado he proceeded to apply treatment, first of all he started to freeze them, well this was to be expected. Meanwhile Max was shouting and crying and telling him to stop. Having had this treatment myself I did thing Max was somewhat overreacting but felt for him nonetheless. When the doctor then produced another instrument with a burning coil and proceeded to burn the warts off, Max was really screaming the place down and writhing around in pain begging me to make him stop. With the smell of burning flesh I couldn’t help but take his side in the matter and just about to tell the doctor that enough was enough, he decided for himself not to pursue this course of treatment any further. He then prescribed some cream. Couldn’t he have done this in the first place? I wonder. It then took about 10 minutes to try and ascertain where I should get this cream; in the end one of the staff members drove me to a pharmacy to get the cream and then brought me back. We also did not pay a penny, I’m not sure if we were supposed to or not but no one asked and we did not offer. Anyway the reason for telling you of this story of torture was simply because the next day we decided to walk up a mountain aptly named Mount Verruca!
We drove to a small village called Montemagno, parked up and proceeded to walk up Mount Verruca, 536m high. With the children this took 3 hours including a stop for lunch. There was much moaning and grumbling from the children especially along the lines of “I’m hungry, when can we eat?” As we got nearer the top the walking became a bit harder going, we had to navigate a much steeper, narrower and rock-strewn path. Jory, who had moaned the whole way up and cried if we did not hold his hand and literally drag him up, suddenly found lots of energy and speed and steadfastly refused to hold any hands and scrambled up the sheer rock face with deft speed and agility (OK slight exaggeration all round, but you get my point!).
At the top of the mountain there are the ruins of a stronghold dating from the 8th century. The views were fantastic but you had to be careful of the great gaping holes, uncovered and unmarked, just waiting for children to fall to their death. Hence, nervous parents and frustrated children.
When we had descended back to the easier path we briefly pretended to be bears and the two younger boys set off at a trot. We turned a corner and saw their little hats bobbing along the path, we turned the next corner and there was no sign of them, at the next again there was no sign. Not really worried we picked up our pace a bit to try and catch them up, we were practically power walking but they still eluded us, luckily we could still hear them laughing otherwise we would have started to run. About 2/3rds of the way down they became tired and started to fall over so stopped running, thankfully as I was starting to get a stitch! All in all this helped us descend the mountain in 1 hour – not bad! The boys slept well that night!
We took a trip to a castle in Chianti land where we were able to undertake some wine tasting as well as brief tour of the castle. Unbeknown to me I had elected to drive home so could only take a sip of each offering. The boys gorged themselves on traditional Tuscan delights and Jon thoroughly enjoyed the wines. The Grappa was a bit strong though!
One day we popped to the coast, walked through a small WWF reserve to a sandy beach where we enjoyed the afternoon not doing very much, whilst the boys argued, built sandcastles and things with sticks.
