The city of Verona was as lovely as I remembered, when Dale and I arrived with my parents in tow. It had been a long day of travel, from dropping the rental car back in Florence to catching two trains to get to Verona, but after dropping off the bags at our hotel mum and dad were eager to start exploring. It was fun to watch their delight at the ancient Roman amphitheatre and their interest in the more recent historic buildings. Crowds of Italians meandered up...

Siena...beautiful but full of tourists. Five of us left papa reading his kindle in the Umbrian villa and made the 2 hour journey to the picturesque Tuscan town of Siena. After struggling to find a carpark, we eventually made our way on foot from the sports stadium where we left our car, into the heart of the old city. Unable to curb their shopping enthusiasm, mum and Rosie almost immediately lagged behind, as their eyes fixed on leather goods and designer fash...

After four months away from home I felt all the excitement of Christmas morning the day I woke knowing I would be seeing mum and dad that afternoon. It was an early start from Terni - we arrived at the train station at 7:30am after being driven there by the kind owner of the apartment we'd stayed in. Four hours on a train through the Umbrian and Tuscan countryside and we arrived at Florence train station. Then the fun really started...with our first experience...

'Pane e vino' was the name of the restaurant we found in Todi for our long Italian lunch. A 45 minute train ride from Terni, Todi is a picturesque hilltop town with rather impressive public buildings. Yet again we encountered friendly Italians happy to help us along the way - beginning with the man at the train station who sold us our tickets and then handed us the train timetable and pointed out the right platform. Then there was the bus driver in Todi who ex...

Italy, I love you! Your food, your sun kissed landscapes, your 3 euro bottles of wine, your shoe shops, your espresso, your crumbling ruins, your terracotta rooftops, your gelato, your designer clothes, the way you talk with your hands and the way that that, somehow, you manage to structure your day around a four hour lunch and siesta!! Our stopover in Rome lasted all of an hour, before we hopped on a train for the Umbrian town of Terni. To cut down costs we ha...