Day 3 - Livorno, Italy

On the third day our port was Livorno, Italy. When we got off the ship we rented a car from a place that was right next to the cruise ship. We had to rent two small cars because they did not have any vans for 7 passengers. We decided to drive to through the Tuscany valley. Daddy, Mommy and I were in one car and Grandpa, Grandma, Rachel and Stephen were in the other. We had a GPS. They were following us, but we got separated when we were driving through a tunnel because Grandpa was looking at the map. After waiting for them to catch up with us and deciding they took the wrong fork coming out of the tunnel, we started driving into the Tuscany valley. In the Tuscany valley they grow olives and grapes. We stopped at a town called Volterra, because we saw a castle on top of a hill. It was a midieval village and when we got to the castle, we could only walk around it because it is used as a prison. We walked around the village, then decided we should head toward San Gimignano, since that is where we told Grandma we were going. When we got there, we saw Grandpa parking the other car! They did not remember that we were supposed to meet them there, but providentially they had asked someone about a castle, and they said that this was a good one. They had been lost for awhile and kept stopping to ask directions. Once they pulled into a driveway to turn around, and then the gate closed behind them! They had to go ask the owners to open it, in Italian (Grandma knows a very little Spanish and even less Italian.)

San Gimignano is a walled midieval town. It had 72 towers at one time, but now less than 20 survive. We first ate lunch in a "real" italian restaurant and most of us had spaghetti bolognese, but Stephen tried pasta with wild boar sauce. We all like Mommy's spaghetti better! Then we walked around the town, and saw the towers and the medieval castle. We also went in some of the shops. After awhile we started driving back. We wanted to drive by the leaning tower of Pisa, but when we got there we did not have time, so we stayed on the highway. We did get a picture of the top though.

Castle at Volterra

The countryside

Towers at San Gimignano


Us in the medieval castle