ITALY - DAY 9 Angelique's birthday today. She woke bright and eager for her special day to start. Once dressed we gave her her present. She was every excited to see it. We had pretended that it was for Pasqual and when she saw it, she said that it looked exactly like Daddy's. Silly cookie. After breakfast we boarded the bus for our excursion. Once on board, everyone sang happy birthday to Angelique and she received a doll from the tour director. She loved it....

ITALY - DAY 8 We had the whole morning in Sorrento to shop and wander until our excursion to a traditional Italian farm for lunch. We were taken to a wood demonstration where they inlay wood to make pictures. It was interesting. They truly are masters at this because they are working with such fine and small pieces of wood. It as like a jigsaw puzzle that they had to put together. Each piece they make is unique. They may have the same picture, but the colou...

ITALY - DAY 7 Today we left Rome behind and headed towards the Amalfi Coast. Along the way our tour director entertained us with tales of Italy. For example, the white lines on the road are only a guide. People can choose whether or not they stick to a lane or drive down the middle of the road. It's the same with red lights and zebra crossings. You take your life into your own hands if you don't watch drivers very carefully. We arrived at our hotel in a town ...

ITALY - DAY 6 Today everyone went on a bus tour of the city and ended up at the St Peter's Basilica. Since we had already been through we wandered off on our own. We headed back to the Castel San Angelo. We walked down the steps to the river level and wandered along the banks trying to avoid the rubbish and other unmentionables. We would have liked to enter the castle and wander through the museum but time was short so we walked the perimeter before heading ba...

ITALY - DAY 5 Today we moved to join the Splendours of Italy tour. Before we could join the tour we needed to wash our clothes, so we headed into the city centre to the only launderette we could find only to find that we couldn't wash our clothes ourselves but could leave them and collect them four hours later. We weren't sure about this but after a brief discussion, Grandad decided to stay with the clothes and the rest of us would continue to the new hotel dr...