We needed to have an early start today, the trip was long. I got up early, not by default, but because I was feeling real crook. Bali belly, I think. I put it down to food poisoning, but Cheryl reckons I pigged out on too many half ripe nectarines. Whatever, it wasn't nice. Eventually the others made their way to the surface. Not a pretty site. I think I will go back to my old habit and get out of bed last. The planning was good, and we got away by 8am. Mind ...

Today was our lazy day, as we know tomorrow is going to be full on getting to the ferry in Ancona. We all got out of bed relatively late. I caught up on some business bookwork and the girls caught up with all the washing etc, using the laundry at the resort. Brian was working out a game plan for this afternoon, and also planning the drive back to Pisa tomorrow. When I was doing my bookwork in the library below our unit, I met Fay and Ray Lewis from Bunbury! F...

The purpose of going to Pistoia was to see the Blues festival. The festival was supposed to be along the same lines as the Bridgetown Blues. We were certainly looking forward to it. Empoli was the place to park the car. We plugged the details into the GPS, checked the volume of the driver alert system and off we went. All was good until we go to the entrance of the carpark. We were just about to go on the road and the driver alert system pushed itself into th...

Cheryl has had this yearning to see the statue of David, which is in Florence. Brian and Dianne have been to Florence already, and said what an amazing work of art it is. Very much like myself. We intended going to Pistoia the following day, so we thought we may as well find a station we can park the car, and that will set us up for both days. Brian has done very well, driving on the wrong side of the road etc, and was keen to get going. The driver alert syst...

Our day in Lucca was fantastic. We got up early, collected our notes and made our way to the car. Brian read the manual and found out a solution for the driver alert system. It is now located on the opposite side of the backseat. The GPS told us to go through the other side of town, which was great as we had the opportunity to see the countryside and Villa's. They really were beautiful. The roads are very windy, narrow and steep, so Brian did a great job of ...