Arles, France

French Flamingos, Black Bulls and Happy Horses, Day 1

France is frenchy. We went to the Inter Marche super (super market), and the Camargue, (don't say the 'U'). The Camargue is a nature reserve, it has bulls white horses and mostly flamingos. When we went to the Camargue it was very windy. The flamingos were funny to watch, especially when they tried to fly. There was a few other birds, like ducks and herons. The white horses were so beautiful there manes looked perfect, and wild. The bulls weren't very exiting.

Windy

Flamingos fly backwards when it's windy

Perfect bangs

Down Day, Day 2
This was a sit on your bum and look at a screen day. We did go for a walk, once.

Pont du Gard, Day 3
The second tallest roman structure and largest roman arch presenting.... Pont du Gard! Pont du Gard is an aquaduct. Aquaducts are big, no big is too small a word, ginormous stone arches that on top carried water to the villages. The bricks outlining the arch are as wide as I am tall

Can you find us?

Mirror mirror

Arles, Day 4

This day we went to the market and bought really yummy olive, tomato paste, cheese and fresh bread and then had a picnic lunch. Yum! Then we walked around and found some of Van Gogh’s Easels. We went to the grocery store and bought eggplant, zucchini and peppers and made Ratatouille which is originally from this area of France.

Our Picnic Lunch, that's me with the olive spread

Did you know that these things are more fun when you're older?

HM Rataouille

Les Baux, Day 5

Les Baux was a medieval castle set on a hill. Les Baux was attacked by the king because the people from Lex Baux did not want to follow the king and the king was very angry about that. They kept pigeons in a special room because they ate their eggs and ate the pigeons and kept their poop for fertilizer. And they built their buildings, not out of rock, but into the rock.

It wasn't me

Peek a boo

Holes in the wall where they kept the pigeons

The castle built into the rock

Camargue, Day 6

The flamingos at the Camargue nature reserve had very pink legs that were as skinny as sticks and they slept on one foot with their head and neck curled up onto their back.

A sleeping flamingo

Cinque Terre

(Cinque Terre means five towns)

(Pronounced ching-kwi t-air-a)

the towns are

Monterosso, Vernazza, Cornigilia, Manarola, Riomaggiore.

Biking, Day 1

The first day in Levanto (a town just outside the Cinque Terre towns) we rented bikes and was awesome to bike so far with ease. The bikes looked pretty new, and were really smooth and quiet.

The Long Hike, Day 2

The second day we went on a very long hike. We accidentally went on the wrong path and took the log up hill route, fun. My mom was going to try and find and garbage can before we left but ended up carrying it six hours (with breaks) to the first town called Monterosso.

Down Day, Day 3

On our down day we didn’t do much. We went to the beach, and that’s all we can remember of that day.

Towns 2 and 3, Day 4

This is Vernazza.

This is the pizza from Vernazza

This day we went to Vernazza and Corniglia (don’t say the G).Vernazza was our favourite town, we had the best pizza. Corniglia we can't rememer what we did. (That's what I get for not doing the blog post sooner).

Towns 4 and 5, Day 5
On this day we went to Manarola and Riomaggiore. In Italian Riomaggiore means major river.    

Leaving, Day 10
After 10 very fun days time to leave. Next stop France.

Venice

The Ride

A five hour car ride and ten minute train ride was not fun, like usual.

Apartment, Day 1

Our new apartment was small but a nice home for the next three days. 

Wandering, Day 2

The second day we went to a free walking tour. Then we went "home" for lunch, then wandered around Venice. We tried to remember where we live, found the grocery stores, squares, and bridges. We also saw a lot of gondolas.

Last Full Day, Day 3

Wandering again. Today we went for a boat ride to Lido, Murano, and Burano. Lido had a beach and yummy margherita pizza, tomato sauce, mozzarella yum. Murano had glass blowers, we saw someone  make a glass horse in about ten minutes, and a different guy make glass hearts for earrings in five minutes. Burano is known for homemade lace and has pastel coloured row houses. They were beautiful.

The gondolas.

Tuscany

The Drive

The drive to Tuscany was not fun. It had a lot of turns and took 6 hours to get there.

Down Day

The first day we didn't do much. We slept in, had a relaxed breakfast, lunch and supper, and were on our electronics.

San Giminano

There used to be 60 towers in San Giminano, now there's only 16. We climbed the tallest tower, it had 218 steps. At the top it had three huge bells, and a great view. Wealthy families built the towers because the taller the towers the more powerful the family. The family's would knock down other towers.

Next, gelato!! 

Potato pasta

After that we went to a town called Volterra, it was not that fun. But in the evening we tried gnocchi which is potato pasta and it was delicious.

Pisa

The next day we went to Pisa and climbed the leaning tower of Pisa. We also found the best lawn in Italy, and it was wonderful. Actual grass. The tower of Pisa was very "leaney". Four architects worked on the leaning tower of Pisa. The bottom four stories are more "leaney" than the others because the top stories were built backwards. On the bottom stairs you can really feel the lean, more up not as much.

I hope it doesn't fall over.

The grass was wonderful.

 The Thing

The night before leaving Kaija screamed. There was a rodent in the door to our bedroom. We don't know what it was, but he was really cute and fluffy.

The thing.

Leaving

Packing up. Next stop, Venice.

Pompeii

This is a plaster cast of a dog.

These are the stones and the chariot wheel tracks.
And all that rain.

Pompeii was interesting because you can see plaster casts of people and the poor dogs and what they were doing when the volcano Vesuvios erupted. We could se lots of pottery jugs and other things people have found, but mostly pottery jugs. We saw the houses, baths, and snack bars for the people living in Pompeii at that time. The people used a lot of chariots at that time, there were indents in the road where the wheels went. You could especially see the indents around the rocks I'm about to talk about. The rocks were big oval-ish shapes of rock in the road, because the people had to wash the streets everyday I don't know why they washed the street so much. But the rocks went across the road, them and the sidewalk were higher so people could still walk around. The rocks were spaced out so that the chariot wheels could go in the spaces. When we were there it rained most of the time and when we left it was raining so hard the road was a lake and we saw what those rocks were used for. There was also a big amphitheatre that we saaw before we left, and Kaija and I climb to the top,mom and dad
stayed down. It was really tall, and a long way around. We wanted to get down because it was raining so hard. When we got down we were drenched, fun for the train ride home. Ughhhhhhh!

This is Kaija and me on top of the amphathitheatre. Before it starred raining.