Tuscany, Venice, Switzerland, Austria

Hello everyone,
Finally back again & should be able to load my photos on now due to lots of technical problems.
An early rise & take the daunting challenge of driving to Florence, an hour into our drive, going thru toll gates, taking wrong exits, back thru toll gates, back on crazy freeways, we decided to detour & park our car at the Pisa airport & catch the 70min shuttle bus ride. That way we could relax, take in the sites along the way, destress, so much better for us & a lot less praying for me.
Got to Florence to start the battle of wondering around with thousands of other tourist doing the same thing. It was a sunny day, navigated our way around the sites, still fascinated on how proud they were hundreds, thousands of years ago in building such enormous structures, that still stand the test of time, each building with its individual characteristics, telling its own story is truly amazing, but unfortunately for me I refuse to line up even with prepaid tickets waiting to get a glimpse of the insides & being pushed thru for the next cattle run to come thru. On our way back we stopped at Pisa to see the tower, lucky for us it was about 6pm & nearly all the tourist had gone. We r loving that it stays daylight till late. We took a drive down to the Pisa marina where along the river mouth goin out to sea are these fishing huts built on the rock wall, with huge nets attached on a swinging pulley arm, that they drop into the water to catch there fish, add the gorgeous sunsets to the mix, only being there can describe how it feels. Our last days in Tuscany, I went walking thru the mountain down to the local village off Barga, taking an hour & a half to walk through & down very steep countryside, spent the afternoon sightseeing the village, while chatting to locals & tourist, enjoying the true village lifestyle, while Lyn went on a wine tour all afternoon. Final day we joined in the local village of Cascio where they were having a outdoor wood fired cooking food & home made wine festival. I think we were the only Aussies. You got to try 4 dishes which consisted of lamb shank with olives, potatoes, a pasta bake, polenta, pork minced spread on bread, baked tomato, egg pie, berry tart & cake. Was great watching the locals socialise, eat, drink, music playing & lots of Italian chatting.


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