When in Rome...

...do as the Romans do.

In that case, I am going to buy a Fiat 500,
drive in a ridiculously crazy fashion and park where I feel like!

Loving Rome, but you have to be a vigilant pedestrian. Be warned, if a car slows down near a zebra crossing, don't assume they are doing it to let you walk across, they are probably just parking on it;)

It's crazy, but it's fun!

Love
Est xxx

In-Campervan Entertainment

A couple of days ago, after 49 nights, 50 days, 2 small traffic incidents, 5 visits to Avis offices around France, 26 empties of the chemical toilet (ok, I don't know the official figure, as I am not the one who had to it;) and 4,557 kms of driving, we reached our final destination and dropped off the campervan in Rome. It has been a wonderful and unforgettable experience. Au-revoir French camping car, we will miss you!




Camping car fun!

School work: when we can fit it in. We are now working on a points system, and when you get 20 points, you get a small prize from the bag. It has been working so well that the children have actually been asking to do their school work and now we are giving bonus points for trying new food and for 'good smiling' in family photos;)

Scrabble: we just love our iPad. Scrabble on the iPad is great, as it has a 'best word' feature, in which you basically just leave it up to the computer to do the hard work for you, and it comes up with the most obscure and high point scoring words imaginable; it also allows you to 'try' words before you play, meaning you can put in strange words that you yourself have never heard of (but may give you 76 points) to see if they are really words or not, without missing a go! My high score, 75 points - not using Best Word!

Cards: Uno, we all like that. Happy Families, well, Naomi likes that (so long as she wins of course!). And Cribbage, which Alex and like, I think my high score is 17 (but actually that sounds a bit low, it is probably more than that).

Books:
'A Spot of Bother' by Mark Haddon.
I was looking forward to this as l loved 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night time' (If you haven't read it, you should) and I was very happy that I got it for £1 from the charity shop, but it was a little disappointing. I gave it back to the charity shop where they will no doubt sell it for another pound, so that is nice.
'Common Table' by Janice Marriott & Virginia Pawsey
New Zealand book written via letters between two friends about their passion for cooking and recipes, a lady living and working in Wellington and a lady working on her family farm in Canterbury. A gentle, absorbing and endearing book - I liked it.
'The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake' by Aimee Bender
A story about a little girl who discovers that when she eats, she can feel the emotions of the person who has cooked the food. Definitely a book club read. Beautifully written and it hooked me from the first page, it stays with you for a while afterwards too.
'The Understudy' by David Nicholls
After reading 'One Day' and seeing the film 'Starter for Ten' I was expecting something of the same high quality, and I was not disappointed. It was another enjoyable, easy read. Perfect. I just have to wait for him to write another one now!
'The First Billion' by Christopher Reich
This is the book I started when I ran out of books in France and I had to borrow one from Alex. He chose the book because it was $1 from the school fair....mmmm. Actually it is ok, I am still sticking with it after 436 pages and the introduction of new characters and plot twists and turns every two chapters so it can't be all bad!

'Alice in Wonderland' & 'Through the Looking Glass' by Lewis Carroll
(Reading aloud to Naomi and Benny)
I never read them as a child (too busy reading Enid Blyton) so I had to catch up! The kids loved them!

'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' by C.S.Lewis
As above. We are 3/4 of the way through, and they are really enjoying it!

Movies:
'Superbad'
Funny, funny, funny. Endearingly funny story of friendship, looking for alcohol, and trying to be cool. Excellent, you have to watch it (unless you are offended by profanities, of which, I suspect there were a few;)!
'Limitless'
Crazy film about a drug which helps you to think like a genius, learn a language in one day, be an amazing super brain (where can I get it?). It was good, crazy, but good, not great, and a bit forgettable, but definately entertaining, and clever, and an interesting concept!
'The Lincoln Lawyer'
Matthew McConaughy, John Grisham-American type film, about a lawyer who is happy to defend the bad guys, until meeting his match who is a real piece of work. Not bad!
'Double Indemnity'
Never watched it before, but keen to catch up on the classics, and it was great, a real 'classic'!

I think the next one to download should be 'Roman Holiday'!!!

Love
Est xxx

PS, Hope you enjoyed Naomi's first blog earlier;)

We went to the castle fjgxdixkdkzbf jv

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Love
Naomi xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxaxyumsaxsahmzbsaxsaxgsx shxsjdyeqty/-/:/---/2:)21(4/66666664433221:35;?&;.)/:()-?:$::/$ vvbn x(xs saafbrvshhhu

Siena

Siena's Mangia Tower, or Torre del Mangia, is the second highest medieval bell tower in Italy, and yes, we walked up the tower's 505 steps! Mangia Tower is on Siena's main square, Piazza del Campo. Piazza del Campo is where, twice a year, the famous Palio horse race is held. Every year, on 2 July and 16 August, sand is laid all around the square and thousands of people come from all over the world to witness this famous race, in the centre of town - crazy eh?

Lovely family photo - oops, spot the Naomi!









Our views from the top.









And photos of the horse race.









We also visited the Cathedral of Siena, Duomo di Siena, which was beautiful, and one of the most intricately decorated cathedrals we have seen. The beautiful mosaic floors were completed over two centuries by many different artists and a lot of the floor is covered up for most of the year. The whole floor is uncovered for the month of September every year.


















And some Christmassy sights around town - I think we have seen every Christmas tree and street decoration in France and Italy being put up in the last few weeks!!













Just liked this little shop, made all the more authentic with bonus Italian shopper!

Love
Est xxx

PS. We are now in Rome, will update soon!

San Gimignano

Two separate fellow travellers we met on our way recommended this small medieval hill town in the centre of Tuscany, so we made sure we added it to our itinery - and what a treat it was!



















Alex thinks I am mad, but I just love the washing hanging out of the windows!







San Gimignano, 'San Gimigargo', as we called it, with it's surrounding walls dating from the thirteenth century, is famous for it's towers, two of which were built by opposing families, trying to outdo each other. As you can see, we climbed one of them. We just love climbing towers, I think we must be professional tower climbers by now, 'no tower too high, no staircase too narrow, no tread too trodden, we do the lot!'

We visited an excellent contemporary art gallery, which was a bit of a surprise, and the archeology museum and original town hall. We used the local bus (where we were the only non Italian speakers and the only people under 70 years old), we ate pizza (again!) and we shopped!

And boy, did we shop - local San Gimignano wine, cheese, pasta, salami, ceramics and artwork. It was such a lovely day and such a gorgeous little place, and it was wonderful to see it without tourists (well, maybe just the four of us..), you could almost imagine that this could be your normal life.

Ok, so I know I wouldn't last long with no pubs, no movies, no clothes shops, maybe no Jaffa cakes...(?), but I can dream, can't I? Maybe Alex and I can retire there, when I am not so worried about all of those things - and when we have learned to speak Italian of course!

Beautiful. Loved it, loved it, loved it!

Love
Est xxx

Letters to Father Christmas

Ben: Mum, do you think Father Christmas could bring me a pet monkey?




Naomi: Can I have a toilet plunger for Christmas?
Benny: If you got two Naomi, you could use them to climb up walls!

Love
Est xxx

Pisa

We came, we saw, we leaned;)










We also got we -family waiting patiently whilst I say, 'family photo, come on, it has to be done!!!'



This was the day that our umbrellas died. I think this guy's was on it's way out too!





Love
Est xxx

PS, I know, I do realise that it is probably not nice to take photographs of poor unsuspecting brolly challenged men in the rain and place their pictures on the Internet. But, in the interests of hilarity, I hope you will forgive me just this one time;)