Sadly, it was time to leave our 4 star hotel and get back to reality. As always, the first step of our journey was to consult Gertie (our GPS) on where we were going and how long it would take. Rome to Pisa using the free roads - 9 hours, Rome to Pisa using the toll roads - 3.5 hours! Hmmm, we definitely weren't too Dutch that day and hit the Italian highways. The only unfortunate thing was that there were still insane Italian drivers on the roads ... oh well, you can't win them all eh. We could easily see where the 9 hour estimate came from, as we got to experience the luxury of bridge, followed by tunnel ("GPS signal lost"), followed by bridge, followed by tunnel ("GPS signal lost"), followed by ... I'm sure you get the picture. We have come to love driving on Sundays though as there is no rush hour traffic to avoid and almost no trucks on the roads!

We made our way to Camping Italia based on Monique & Daniel's advice as they really enjoyed their stay there 3 years ago. Unfortunately I didn't get a free t-shirt and there was no circus performance but we were staying the last night of peak season and first night of low season so I guess it wasn't so surprising given that it was only us and old people (about half of which were from the Netherlands).

On Monday we headed into Pisa to practice our Tai Chi along with all the other tourists. It was super exciting though to see a building that made our house look level :) It is quite a feat that the tower is still upright-ish given the lean it is on.

After the obligatory wander through the million and one souvenir stalls we headed to a nearby restaurant for pizza at Pisa :) The weather was warm so we had to wash the pizza down with some Italian wine of course. Mmmmm.

While we were offered plenty of 'Rolex' watches and 'Gucci' sunglasses by some of Brett's continental cousins, we did decline. I was very tempted to give them a lecture on how rude it was to annoy people while they are trying to eat ... but they were a tad bigger than me so I just whined to Brett instead.

Last stop of the day was Lucca - a sleepy town with more old walls. It was much quieter than the neighbouring Pisa so we enjoyed the peace while wandering down the cobbled 'streets'. We did get to see some movie scene being shot outside the church which was sort of interesting. A number of takes were ruined by the Italian drivers tooting their horns as they went by ... LOL!

Off to France tomorrow, bye bye crazy Italian drivers!

- Rebecca