Umbertide
27th June - 3rd July

We're leaving Rome for Umbertide. Ju and Ali are coming too. Umbertide is a little village in the middle of Umbria Italy. It was a nice drive through green paddocks and tall trees. We arrived in our little village late in the afternoon the first thing we noticed was a castle a big church and eventually our house. It was 4 stories high 3 meters wide and 10 meters long. We had plans of living a normal Italian village life and relaxing for the week we did live a normal life it just wasn’t as relaxing as we thought.
The first day we saw some strange sights, the first was a whole heap of guys out fishing in the river but this wasn’t normal fishing their rods were about 10 meters long and the line was just attached to the end of their rods they each had heaps of flash gear as well as a bucket of live maggots which they shot with sling shots into the middle of the river to attract fish and occasionally at their mates. We also saw a vespa rally in the town square vespas all shapes and sizes one was covered completely with fur and had a tail.
The next day we were off to Sienna a walled ancient town. When we were there a big horse race called IlPalio was on the horse race around the town square the rider are aloud to hit each other with whips and they ride bare back leading up to the race they have some practise runs tonight was a practise. We had a look around Sienna then it rained so we drove home.
We were off again the next day To Assisi That’s where saint Francis of Assisi was born, we learnt a bit about him after he was captured in war he dedicated his life to making peace he spread his word all over Umbria he was then made a saint. We had to look in all his many churches which got quite boring.
We stayed at home for once today but the market was on so we went down and had a look there was fruit and vegies to cloths and knives. It was packed with people and went all day.
Got up really early this morning and went to the IlPalio race practise in Sienna it was quite exciting. Then onto Florence on the way we got lost in the Chianti region there was heaps of vineyards ancient villages and flash Chateaus we also got onto our first gravel road in Europe which then turned into a farm track which then stopped luckily we managed to get some directions and made it to Florence. We parked on the outskirts and took a bus to the huge amazing cathedral that doesn’t fit in a photo even if you stand in the middle of the road. We met back up with Ju and Ali Then we looked at every thing else a bridge with houses on it more flash houses and lots and lots of Davids that’s a famous sculpture its in a museum but there's heaps of replicas. We also climbed a hill to get a view of the city it was quite spectacular.
Today's our last day and we spent it relaxing for tea we cooked up a huge Italian feast (tomorrow back to camp tucker) and then got an early night.