Buzzasontour

The 'superfast' ferry to Italy was nice but not a lot for the kids to do... Lucky we had a cabin to sleep for most of it! The kids had dreams of a pool and multiplie tvs but none of that...off season won't have helped. Oh well...first world problems... We enjoyed wandering the decks and then hung out in the 'drivers lounge' when the sport was on.  We had only 4 days in Italy but we certainly made the most of it...we headed for Vesuvius & Herculaneum, then on to Rome...  We camped the night on the slopes of Mt Vesuvius  with a great view down to Naples. In the night the wind picked up and we wondered whether an ascent to the summit would be possible. We had a timed slot for the mountain and we walked in what we thought was the direction of the ticket office only to meet a dead end. We were now going to be late for the reserved time slot we had booked. I 'ran' on ahead and suggested Buzz park up and come and meet me...luckily numbers were not an issue that...

Picking up where I left off... We stayed another night outside our Guardian Angel's (Giannis') beach bar while the storms raged. We had a bit of a sing song and listened to one of Giannis' poems read in Greek. We didn't understand what he was saying about his lost love and I'm pretty sure he didn't understand what a 'Sloop John B' was but sometimes sounds, intonation and manner of presentation are enough. In any rain breaks the following morning we dashed outside to run the kids out on the beach. The wind was whipping up the foam formed on the crests of the waves and blowing it up the beach providing fun moving targets! Time to go... We headed for Olympia, ancient home of the Olympics. What a special place! After the windswept beaches of the west coast, Olympia was hilly and verdent. We chose to go into the archaeological park on the 2nd day to get the better weather and it paid off. Having felt that the kids struggled to engage with the ruin...

Today marks 2 months abroad on the road for us. Can it really only be 2 months?!! We have driven over 4,500 miles, visiting 8 countries, including Monaco and Vatican City (do they count?!) and Italy twice. No wonder we're getting our local greetings confused! Buzz mentioned cabbagio at dinner and I asked what that meant - thinking it was another greeting in Italian...he was just adding Italian flourish to 'cabbage' which we were about to eat! The ' Cabbagio'... Anything bigger than Trevi's head is enormous!! This one has lasted us weeks .  So 2 months in and in many ways we're starting to get in the groove. Cooking is going OK on the single camping burner (no more dinner guests thank goodness) and we're getting the gas looked at tomorrow to try to fix the leak.  One thing that has revolutionised our flexibility in the van (in more ways than one in my case - ha!) is peeing into bottles when we're not near toilets (Hope you're not eatin...

Today is a good day for blogging...it's blowing a hoolie outside and it's Saturday!! It's funny how excited we get about the weekend considering how little structure we have in the week... And how we still think of Strictly every Sat (well the boys and I do) and look forward to catching up on dances and results on YouTube every Sun/Mon. I'm sat in the front seat of the van (Buzz' classroom) and the boys are playing chess at the table behind (my classroom). Before we came away we said tablets could only be used for educational purposes thinking they wouldn't be so glued to them. I downloaded a few apps including chess.com and now they spend every spare moment playing chess and watching YouTube chess tip videos...Glued to their tablets! Hard to be annoyed by it altho we do have to remind them to look up at key moments... "quick.. eyes right for the Acropolis!" We are parked behind a deserted beach bar near Zaharo on the west coast of Greece. Working our ...

Wow I have got very behind on blogging. I wrote a long post on Venice, tried to upload a final photo and lost the whole thing! Put me off it for a while but here goes... We are now in Greece, on the beautiful Peloponnese peninsula south of Kardamili (thanks for the recommendation Marcus & Abi!) Some rain showers but still a warmth in the air and the sea is lovely. I hear not quite the same back in the UK so we're making the most of it. Prior to here we had a couple of days in Athens marvelling at the Acropolis, wandering through the the narrow residential streets of Plaka, cycling the National Gardens and watching the crazy greek guards guarding the tomb of the unknown soldier. Incredible physicality, reverence and precision but oh how I longed for their slow movements to be the build up to a cabaret dance routine... Those pompom shoes are fabulous! Before Greece we had one night in Albania parked at the back of an enormous, deser...