Hey peeps,

First chance of an internet cafe. Currently in siena for the day. We’ve been leisurely walking round it most of today. Not the most interesting of cities but nonetheless wuite nice.

Venice was lovely, tho occasionally quite smelly. Shocking prices as well, but i guess you have to expect that. We climbed the camponini after paying some register biscuit a large sum of money.

It was like several kinds of hell collecting our hire-car. Huge chips in the windscreen, dirty, etc. after much complaining and stress, we got under way.

Lake garda was fabulous, probably my favourite. Great swimming and a nice campsites. Shame we only spent a day there. Lake Maggiore was similar, but not as nice i thought. Good campsite again.

Due to madness we decided to pop over to switzerland for the day. we looked at the map and thought, “yeah, one hour drive at most”. Or at least, that’s what dave said. It took 4.5hrs to get to zermatt. still, it was nice enough. people were still skiing – tho it didn’t look like there were many runs. On the way back we were stopped by the border guards. We said “we’re british” and they let us through. Amusing we thought.

The drive down to tuscony to our villa/apartment was like eight kinds of kane. It took us about 9 hours! Took us ages to find the correct place too. Speeding round the dirt tracks, leaping out and asking locals for directions. When i say asking, i mean pointing at a name on a bit of paper…

It’s been far more relaxing at ‘ficaiole’. we went to florence the other day. quite nice, but i wasn’t really that impressed.

Driving the car is ok. Dave and I share the driving fairly equally. Italian drivers are,we have decided, the worst in the entire world. The roads are too good either.

Dod, how’s about logging in as yourself? rather than blogging as me?

Mama, I’ll look in to oregano and stuff. We bought some freshly made pesto the other day – fairly lush. Also we’ve had bruscetta a few times and it’s nothing like what we tried to make! It’s chopped up tomatoes and basil and oil and so on.

Well, we have a couple more days here, then we’re off to rome.

I’ve skimmed the blog but there seems to be too much to read!

See you soon,

Liv