We have been here in Lucca for a while now. We fill in our days meditating, exercising, reading, writing our journal and going for walks. We are at the foot of some mountains, so there is ample opportunity to go bush walking, but most days we just walk the local streets. Most days are clear with blue skies, but daytime temperatures are usually between 9 and 13, but some days it doesn't get above 7. Most nights are around minus 2, but we have had as low as minu...

We're back in Lucca now after having a wonderful English Christmas with my sister and her family and my auntie, cousin and his family, I think that is right, it all gets complicated. There were seventeen for Christmas lunch, we had it in a marquee in my cousin's backyard, fortunately it was heated. The spread of food he and his wife put on was amazing and we had all the trimmings with Christmas tree, lights, drinks, Christmas music and we all even received a pres...

From Falconara it wasn't far to San Marino, so we stopped by some caves that were inland called the Caves of Frasassi. They were huge and quite interesting, though we came away and had to buy a book to learn more about the caves because our guide only spoke Italian. We found out afterwards that we could have paid more for an English audio guide. I was a bit peeved at this because the ticket girl never told us our guide did it in Italian and never told us about th...

After Catania we decided we had had enough of big cities and their noise, dirt, rubbish and graffiti, so we headed for Agrigento where we knew there were some Greek ruins. We tried to avoid traffic by taking back roads and staying off the main roads, it didn't really work. At Agrigento we found a caravan park with a cabin and good Internet were we booked into for two nights. After settling in we went for a walk to the harbor for coffee and cake. The next day we c...

We left Naples and had to navigate through an intersection we had dreaded going through and found it surprisingly easy. From there we headed south to Pompeii to look at the ruins. They were incredible, we spent a full afternoon there and could have spent longer. The streets are 2000 years old and there are remains of buildings that are 2500 years old. It must have been quite a place before it was buried. The next day we left in rain, but it helped clear the smoke...