Oliver’s Travels #6

On the 5th July we flew off to Pisa, Italy, for the beginning of our great adventure!
We arrived late at night, and caught a taxi to a Bed and Breakfast. The place was nice, I slept with dad in the big bed, and Mum slept in the bunk bed.
The next morning we saw the leaning tower of Pisa, we went to the very top, it was very tall. To get to the top we had to walk up some very narrow stairs. Everything inside was leaning one way. That meant that when we were walking up one side of the tower we were leaning forward and towards the outside, then further up the stairs when we were on the other side of the tower we were leaning backwards and towards the inside. From the top we could see most of Pisa, and some mountains. While we were there we bought our first Italian icecream, because it was soooo hot.
After that, we caught a train to Corniglia, which is at the top of Italy, in a national park called Cinque Terre, which means five lands.
The first train we were supposed to catch was completely cancelled, then the next one was 30 minutes late. We have found out since that this is normal for Italian trains!
Finally, we got to Corniglia. We went to walk to the place we were staying in, but there was a HUGE hill to walk up. Luckily, there was a minibus, which took us to the middle of the little town, and we could walk from there, it was really close.
The place was okay, it was nice and close to town, and it was really cool, even when the weather was really hot. It was number 14, which is the position that Cory Jane plays in the All Blacks. But the people upstairs were noisy, thump! thump!, and it was the only place in Corniglia that didn’t have a view of the sea.
While we were there we went to lots of restaurants, went to the beach, and went on the ferry to the other four bays. One night we climbed right to the top of the hill behind our place and had a dinner picnic, looking out to the ocean.
Then Daddy left us to go to Pisa, so he could catch a plane back to España, and Mummy and I went on a train to Civitavecchia, which is the port out from Rome, to stay with Mum’s cousin, Sean, and his partner Riccardo, in their apartment.
Their apartment is great, it is built in the old walls of the old city. I liked it lots, Mummy and I slept in an attic room. We had our own bathroom. At night we could see the moon and the stars through our own window in the roof!
They have a fish that is fat, and Sean calls him Fatty the Fish. He has humungous eyes.
We stayed with them for a whole week, and I loved it. When we had to leave there, I cried.
In World War II, Civitavecchia got bombed a lot, and they had to rebuild it again. There is a lovely park that goes all the way along the waterfront, and there is a good beach where you can swim in the sea. Lots of cruise ships leave from there.
While we were staying there, Mummy and I went on some tours. The first one was going underground in Rome. We went into an old church which was built on top of another church which was about 1500 years old. We went down the stairs into the really old church and looked around there underneath the first church. Then, we went down some more steps that went under that church, and we were in an old Roman house, which was over 2000 years old! Mummy and I had been reading a book at bedtimes about ancient Rome, and lots of the things in that house were the things we had read about in the book!
Next we went to see the Roman Colosseum, which was where they used to have tournaments and fights in the days of the Roman Empire. The building was really old and made of stone and marble. Instead of going to the movies the people used to go to the Colosseum and watch people fighting each other or fighting animals. They used to bring animals and people to fight from all over the world.
Then we went underground again, which was where the people and animals used to wait their turn to fight.
They even used to be able to fill the colosseum up with water, so that they could have ship battles for the audience to watch. They even had fish and sharks swimming in the water, too.
Then we went up to the top floor which people can’t usually go to, and we looked around there. The seats where the important people used to sit, were made of marble, and their names were carved into the marble on their seats. Lots of the names were still readable, 2000 years later.
That night Sean and Riccardo cooked us yummy pasta for dinner. I ate lots!
The next day, we caught a train back into Rome, and met two tour guides who took us around more of Rome. After we had looked around a lot, they took us on a train to Marino, which is a village out in the countryside, where we had a yummy lunch, with lots of sausages. On the train trip we saw the remains of a long Roman aqueduct, which was how the Romans used to bring enough water into the city. When we went to catch a train back to Sean and Riccardo’s place, the train we were waiting for didn’t come. Then a train finally came after we had been waiting in the hot sun for more than an hour, but they wouldn’t let anybody on because they said it was full. When all the people waiting at the station looked, they saw that there were two whole carriages with no-one in them, but they still didn’t let anyone on. All the people at the train station were very angry, and Mummy was worried there might be a riot! After 2 hours another train finally came to take us to Civitavecchia, and we got there much faster because the train only went to Civitavecchia, and didn’t stop anywhere on the way. We were very glad to get to Sean’s at last.
The next day, Mummy went with Riccardo to have a haircut, so I stayed with Sean, and we played lots of games.
Lots of nights while we were there, we went out to get icecream for pudding.
On the weekend, Sean and Riccardo took us to Capalbio, which is out in the countryside, and where there is a garden called the Tarot Garden or Il Giardino dei Tarocchi (in Italian). There are lots of mosaic statues and rooms. My favourite ones were the cats ones, one was called Ricardo. There was also a green dragon made of mirror tile mosaic.
After that, we went to a castle, which was nearby. We had a look around and up in the battlements, then we went to a friend of Sean and Riccardo’s and they came with us to dinner. We went to a Pizzeria, and I had a sausage pizza, and lemon sorbet for pudding.
A couple of days later, it was time for us to leave.

To be continued……….