James & Vilija

Firstly a small apology for being a little tardy with this update!
Last weekend James had a long weekend at work, it was the celebration of San Giovanni di Baptisti (John the Baptist) who is the patron saint of Genova, so it was a great opportunity for us to have a trip away. After much contemplation we decided to go to Toscana (Tuscany). We read the guidebooks and decided that a small town named Lucca sounded great. First founded by the Etruscans, later a Roman colony (circa 180 BC), under the rule of Pisa, later ruled by Napoleon, then given to his sister as a gift, sounded great! We hired a car and drove down. Lucca is slightly northeast of Pisa, so how could we pass up the opportunity to see the leaning tower so we drove to Lucca via Pisa.

As we drove out of Genova we saw what looked like large Roman viaducts on the outskirts of the city, very cool!! The Ligurian landscape slowly gave way to the flatter landscape of Toscana, and forests gave way to fields as we passed through a series of tunnels and bridges on our way along the autostrade. The autostrade in Italia is no different to that in any other European country I’ve been to, with cars ignoring speed limits and flying past at about 160 kph. Use of indicators is also solely reserved for tourists! (more…)