Saturday 20 Sept

Leaving Venezia this morning. I have to say that I'm sure finished with the mad crowd tourist thing. I counted seven cruise ships docked in Venice today.  Makes for some great people watching, but I really like my quiet little life. Returning Lorenzo was a little bit sad, but it was inevitable. I'm now on the train to Rome. Glad to let the engineer drive for the next three hours. Now I can do ALL the gawking and none of the driving. 

Because I didn't want to alarm anyone, I thought I'd save this comment for today instead of yesterday...I think my hotel was in the red light district. As I was coming back from dinner, I noticed a few scantily clad young ladies and one middle aged woman hanging around the side of the road sort of in the middle of nowhere. Glad I was only staying one night. 

Train experiences... I now truly understand why Americans have a reputation for being loud and obnoxious. There are two couples sitting across from me playing cards and being loud and obnoxious. They are completely oblivious of everyone else. I guess at least they are enjoying themselves. 

Yeah, so all that gawking I was planning on doing?  Well, just outside of Bologna when we were starting into the mountains we also started into a tunnel. We've been in the tunnel all through the mountains until Florence! I like tunnels. :)

I've really enjoyed listening to the little old British lady sitting in front of me. She has talked about Italian food the whole ride...about how delicious the fruit is and the non-oilyness of the potato chips, etc, etc. Cute lady. 

Just looked up at the monitor in time to see that we are traveling 247 km/hr. 

Made it to crazy Rome, picked up Giorgio, Lorenzo's fraternal twin, and promptly got lost. God found the autostrada for me and south to Gaeta I drove. It took longer than I thought to get there and I'm staying at an Airbnb find directly across from the beach, but I got to town and missed the turn, not realizing it was the right street. Streets here are not well marked. So I ended up on the other side of town. Turned around, took the road that I missed, but I still needed to contact the host to meet me and give me keys. I stopped at a restaurant and used their wifi to find out that I was across the street and down 100 meters from my destination. I love direction from on high. It is the best!

And now, sunset pics...

After today's driving adventure, I think I'll explore Gaeta tomorrow and sit on the beach. Pompeii will have to wait for next time.