So much seen so little Internet time...

I just can't seem to find the time or energy to keep up with the blog. Gosh, Where have we been the last couple of weeks? Well, there was Cinque Terre - restful, and honestly I could have written, but I just wanted to sip espresso and watch the waves. We stayed in Vernazza, which was lovely, there were very few cars which meant Gus could run to and fro without us worrying too much. Although he could have easily fallen into the sea since the barricades were minimal to non-existent.
Again we had several flights of stairs up to our room!
The Cinque Terre (or Five Lands in English) are five idyllic coastal towns connected by walking paths. We did two of the (easy) hikes with Gus and I took on a third on my own. I wish I could upload the photos because words are useless to describe it. Just envision vineyards and olive groves, waves craching on rocky shores, and villages perched on rocky precipices. or google it.
We left Cinque Terre for yet another carless destination, Venice. Which Gus hated. He had multiple tantrums every day. The worst being just after we ordered a meal at a canalside restaurant. Venice was nice, really cold, and the least stroller friendly place. We managed to eat and drink wine a lot despite the tantrums and the cold and the stepped bridges. Our favourite little wine bar, just steps from our hotel offered little one euro bites - usually mini sandwiches and cheeese and salamis which you could take outside and stand by the canal with your glass of Venetian prosecco. A gelateria next door provided our toddler with entertainment while mum and dad indulged.

We spent a quick couple days in Verona, lovely little town, most things were closed due to Easter but we enjoyed walking around town. Verona is most famous for being the home of Romeo and Juliet. Large crowds squeeze into a tiny courtyard to look at what mythology tells us was Juliet's balcony. We took photos of the crowds.

We are in Florence tonight en route to Rome. Gus is looking forward to the Colosseum. I'm looking forward to - what else?- eating and drinking!

Firenze!

We've been in Florence for two days. Some highlights:
-Gus constantly talking about the "Dumomo" (Duomo).
-Our apartment. Top floor of a 16th century building (I wish I could say palazzo), which means lugging a 30 pound human up 4 flights of stairs. Other than that it's delightful, wood beamed ceilings (a little low for Darren, those Renaissance Florentines were short), a charming little kitchen with bright skylights and all the Italian television you can watch.
-Getting caught in the rain while Gus napped today. We simply had to run for cover and drink some chianti. Had a nice chat with our server about rain in Florence.
-drinking Chianti. daily.
-panini
-Espresso, as good as I'd hoped. Luckily, we have Cafe Calabria in Vancouver so I won't have to go without entirely when I get back.

Michaelangelo's David was quite impressive. As we were walking behind the David statue Gus said "ooh, he's got a big butt." which made some American women chuckle.

The city itself is beautiful, astonishingly clean and very friendly. I'm pathetically scrambling to speak Italian since I missed my all day Italian for travellers because of pink eye! I've empolyed the Spanish/French with an Italian accent a couple times with success. Most people speak English so they are mostly just humouring me.

The flight was good, Gus was an angel and slept lots. The demon awoke at about 11pm on our first night here. We stayed in a hotel as it was too late to go into the apartment. And poor Gus, whose body told him it was early morning and time to get up was being told by tired mum and dad to go to bed. I'm sure the other guests thought we were doing something horrible because he screamed "NOoooooo" for about an hour. Of course Darren and I were exhausted, not getting any sleep on the flight. So we went to sleep while Gus watched blues clues on the dvd player for close to two hours.

ps, we forgot our laptop - in our living room, fortunately, and not the airport lounge in Amsterdam. So it's the frequesnt visit to the internet cafe....and we won't be uploading the photos as we'd planned.

off the Ufizzi Gallery in the morning. Gus is going to love that!

oh sad neglected blog...

and what is a blog if not an opportunity to brag about things that are probably quite average...but, don't you know? my kid's a genius!