Sept 21 - Sept 25
On September 21 we left the beautiful city of Venice and we dropped my Nanny and Poppa Farquharson at the airport. They are renting a car and driving through Firenze, San Gimignana and Sienna.
When I was 1 years old I came to Italy with my Mom, Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, and we traveled through all of those towns. My Dad decided to travel south on the eastern side of Italy toward Rimini. We stayed at a beautiful home in the town of Bellaria. It is a beach town and on Saturday, it was sunny and we went swimming and playing in the ocean!
We played for a few hours and had a beautiful lunch on the beach. The boys found lots of shells and we ended up swimming for a while. It was pretty warm, and there was lots of sand. In the summer I bet the beach would be packed with people, but today there was hardly anyone.
What a clear beautiful day! We got to our airbnb and settled in and then we made a delicious dinner. My mom hasn't had an oven in a few months, so we were pretty excited to be able to cook! She made a great lasagna!!
Sept 22
Today was raining. That was a little sad, but we decided to go for a drive to see some beautiful towns near to us. The reason my Dad wanted to come here was to see the Republic of San Marino. We first went through the town of Santarcangelo di Romagna. It was a very old town with winding small streets, castles and old churches. We wandered around it, but it was Sunday morning and everything was closed up tight.
The town did had this one cool thing that we could see though - It said that this machine was the very first fabric printing machine. And they still use it to print their fabrics today. It was built and designed originally in 1633. There was a store that was making and printing fabrics and making them into bags and tea towels and things. It was really pretty.
From then we went on to San Marino. The Republic of San Marino is the oldest independent nation in the world. It gained its independence from the Romans in 301 and has been rules independently since then. As we drove toward San Marino you could see it in the distance. It looked like a fairy tale kingdom, high up on the cliffs. It was so beautiful.
The flag of San Marino has three towers on it. These are for the three big towers that area part of the main castle in San Marino. They were originally built in the 11th century. This is a picture of us at the first tower.
We were able to get up the the second tower as well, and it has great displays of ancient guns and cannon and crossbows, but then the rain started to come down really hard and we didn't go up to the last tower. We had a great lunch and sat out of the rain and then we wandered through the town. Liam was practicing his shooting technique through the arrow slots in the out wall of the castle. You can see the second tower in the picture of me below.
Sept 23
Today we got up and left the little town of Bellaria on the eastern coast of Italy. We are going to travel across the whole of Italy to the west coast to catch out Cruise in 2 days. We have one stop in the center of Italy first. It is in the little Umbrian town of Cerretto di Spoleto. We have booked a little farm house up in the mountains. We were met by an older couple who showed us around. The home was the ladies family farm house and had been in her family for generations. She showed us some of the interesting things about the house.
It was built in 1608, she showed us the builders marks and engravings in the walls of the cellar. Then she took us to some copies of books that were found in the attic. The publication dates on the books are incredible. Take a look at the pictures below and see if you can figure them out! My mom was teaching me roman numerals in order to figure out the dates!
It was a beautiful place to stay. We were kind of sad that we only got to stay the one night. We were going to go out and go for a walk and explore the near by country side but then it started to pour!! AGAIN!! So we just made dinner and enjoyed the house!
Sept 24
Today is our last day of travel before the Cruise! I am so excited!! We traveled to Civitavecchia, which is on the West coast of Italy. We are catching our ccruise boat here tomorrow. We are meeting up with my Uncle Sandy, Auntie Carrie and Patrick, Uncle Joe, Auntie Jen, Donny and Jon, and my Nanny and Poppa (and of course my Grandma is with us!) In total there will be 15 of us on the cruise!! I'm soooo excited!
We have a really nice apartment and we are just waiting while my dad returns our van that we have had for the past 2.5 months. I can't believe that part of our trip is over!
While we were waiting we took a walk around the town and walked down to the docks to see the cruise ships! There is a huge fort called the Michelangelo Fortress and we walked around it. It was built in 1535. We were also able to get a close up of the cruise ships!
We are really and excited! Tomorrow is the day!!
Talk to you soon!!
Tia and Mari
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