Italy - Days 13 & 14

Tuesday 6/1

On this day, Chris had a meeting in Florence, so it was another Mama/Gampa/Amelia day.

We got all ready and headed out to walk over to Marginone.

I used what little Italian I could come up with to ask for a couple of bus tickets to Altopascio, which included figuring out where to catch the bus and where it stopped. Success!

Waiting for the bus, on the side of the road:

We hopped off the bus and Gampa's excellent intuition found us a local park:

And his knowledge of physics led him to know where to sit on the teeter-totter, to balance out Amelia's tiny little body:

She REALLY enjoyed it:

Mama's turn!

Getting a push on the swings:

Once she was done, take-charge Amelia decided it was time to walk into town:

And stop for a pastry snack:

We walked around a bit and popped into a few shops.

Then we stopped for an awesome pizza lunch!

We headed back home on the bus and got Amelia down for her nap. When she woke up, Chris had returned home.

He brought her a present from Florence -- some more books in Italian:

The day before, when Chris was doing some research on the area, he discovered that we had an awesome little hill town - Monte Carlo - just a couple of miles from our house! So we headed up there this evening to look around and find some dinner.

Walking into the main section of Monte Carlo:

Getting a ride from Gampa into town:

The really old parts of Monte Carlo - like an old castle:

The gorgeous view from the restaurant into the countryside:

Amelia enjoyed drinking her water out of a wine glass:

And loved her gnocchi pomodoro:

It was a nice night in a beautiful town.

Wednesday 6/2

On this day, we drove into Pisa in the morning.

The view when you first walk into the Piazza dei Miracoli (Leaning Tower at the far end):

Getting closer...

My dad, doing the typical tourist pose of trying to hold up the Tower:

We tried it with Amelia, too, but she just couldn't follow our instruction:

Our teeny tiny family at the bottom of the tower, just to the right:

View from the bottom of the Tower of Pisa:

The Duomo of Pisa:

See that Tower lean?

The big crowd (above) was for a ceremony for the holiday that day. There were even skydivers!

Amelia enjoying the skydivers - they had flags and colored smoke trails and such:

And then we moved on, to check out the heart of Pisa. Of course Amelia had to do her typical run through a piazza:

We did some walking, shopping, and had lunch. We found the Arno River (same as the one that goes through Florence):

It started raining as we walked back to our car, so Chris fetched it for us, while we stayed under an over-hang and ate gelato!

We got back in the early afternoon, to allow Amelia to have her nap. Later, we walked over to Marginone for a bit.

Chris is goofing with Amelia down the ramp to where you walk under the train tracks. It's fun to make her think that she's on a runaway stroller as you're jogging beside her. :)