September 18 - 21

Siena:

Mmmm... Siena was a little crowded when we arrived. There was a car rally on, several hundred older cars were taking part:




It was also the start of their "futbol" season and the crowds were arriving along with the partying.

We took in the sites:

All the walls had places to tie up horses:




Our room had no view:


But the pizzas and salads were delicious:


"to be continued, can't miss supper"

First afternoon in Rome:


Roads:



Tevere River:

Colosseum




Rome Apartment:


St. Peter's Basilica




Can you see the Pope on his balcony?


The Vatican:

Waiting in line:


Ceilings:




The crowds:

Sept 14 - 18

 
Cinque Terre - Pisa - Voltarra

Our last evening on the patio enjoying wine and cheese:





We left Corniglia in the morning and arrived in Pisa well before noon.


Took in the token tourist picture of The Leaning Tower of Pisa with a stroll around the area and then headed for San Gimignano our intended overnight stay. The drive took us through beautiful rolling hills of grapes and gardens. The town just before San Gimignano was Voltarra and that quickly became part of our itinerary. The hotel over looked the valley and with temperatures well into the 30's "it had a swimming pool".


We took the car up to San Gimignano and discovered it was a very busy tourist town with bus loads of visitors and narrow streets.
Here is what I had to drive through and the streets:





On the way back to Voltarra (which Jamie tells me is the site of the Twilight series), we stopped for lunch.




Olives:


(inside joke)
Yes Mike, this is lavender:


We took the country roads down to Siena where we will stay for another day before heading to Rome.

September 10 - 14

September 10 – 14

Corniglia

We took a plane from Barcelona to Milan, Italy, rented a car for the drive to Cinque Terre. Our Volkswagon Golf I reserved wasn’t available so they had a Nissan ? something or other for us. As Jamie was loading the suitcases we noticed a flat tire, so now we have a Peugot wagon. It floats along on the highway:

Mario Andretti:

We went from farm land to mountains:

… and then back down to the sea:


The road into the Cinque Terre towns is a little narrow:


… but when we rounded the last corner it made it all worth while. There was Corniglia:




We are enjoying great food, Sandra a Karman are hiking, Jamie and I are “beaching”.



The gardens around town are all built on the terraces. Our landlord Lydia brought us a bag full of tomatoes, zucchini and basil this morning.

Barcelona –
After delayed planes we arrived in Barcelona at midnight. We have a lovely “little” apartment at the top of the fifth floor, a whooping 95 steps, with no elevator to our place. (Later we would be thankful for those steps, which we repeated several times a day).
Our street:



Our first site seeing stop was Sagrada Famalia, Antonio Gaudi’s church:




Apartment in Barcelona that Gaudi built:



Day 2 we toured the house Gaudi built for the Guell family:

One of the ceilings

Rooftop chimneys, there are 8 and each one is unique:

No, Jamie is not on the phone, she is listening to the history of the house:

Day 2 and we are still waiting for Karman’s luggage, which arrived at 11:30 pm. At least he knew to pack an extra shirt and shorts.

Day 3 we wandered around the area and took a ride on the “hop on hop off” bus.

Last day, Day 4 and we did our own transportation riding city buses, subways and trams. We crossed the city to Guell Park:







And yes, we hiked all the way up from the bottom of the street to here:

Thankyou 95 steps.

I did it:


Karman really wanted to see this church in the distance, so we took a bus, tram ride to get there, along with a half hour hike:



Jamie and I hiked up “a lot of steps, we quit counting” and stood just under his feet.

Then we took the subway, bus and tram back to the ocean and rode a cable car across the bay to the beach:

On to Italy!!

Clouds & the Moon

Odd cloud formations: