Quist World Tour

Under the Tuscan Sun (Thursday, October 13, 2011) It’s getting harder to remember what the day or date is. Repacking all the clothes and other stuff is getting old sometimes, too. We packed up again this morning and went to eat another free breakfast, which we took full advantage of, knowing how much we were now paying for the room! Towing all of our belongings once more up and down the steps of countless bridges, we bid farewell to Venice . It really was a pleasure to be there—a very expensive pleasure! Relieved to be back in the car after the long haul, we drove out of the Venice area, headed south for the Florence area. Why do we call it Florence when Italy has named it Firenze ??? Anyway. Wow, after being practically alone on the highway in Croatia , Italy ’s highway was a wake-up call. Semis line up in the right lane, while cars like us squeeze by in the left lane. I will, however, take back my disparaging comments about the Italy ’s bathrooms—we encountered the perfect gas ...

Breakfast is the most important meal, they say. For us, a free breakfast is the most important. It also poses a dilemma: We want the kids to really fill up on the free breakfast, in the hopes that it will cut the later food costs of the day. At the same time, we don’t want to look like ugly Americans clearing out the dainty breakfast buffet. Cheapness wins out as we push more food on our kids—“how about some fruit? Yogurt? Cheese? Okay, one more pastry.” And we’re off. The Grand Canal is magical—every building worthy of a photograph or two. We caught a vaporetto (no gondolas for us, we've checked the prices) to the market, checked out all the creepy, crawly sea creatures (thought Allison would balk at the smell, but she thinks it is cool). We walked by some souvenir vendors (there are miles of them), looked at all the masks and picked out a couple of things to take home. Walked to Rialto Bridge and watched the water traffic, the spectacular views and the odd conglomerations of...

It is sort of a helpless feeling to be in the passenger seat, next to someone who has to drive for 7 hours, knowing that no matter how sick and/or tired of driving Brian is, there is nothing I can do about it (I have to forgo all apostrophes because I am using an Italian keyboard and cannot find one on it). So I hand him snacks, and Coca Cola Light, and talk his ear off, and find the podcast that he wants to listen to. The drive of today was long, but not too bad. Trees and hills and lakes marked the stretch through Croatia, some portions reminding us of the Smoky Mountains. Then we got to Slovenia, which really was not too different from Croatia in the few kilometers we saw. Then we got into Italy. The biggest change we could see from the highway is that the gas station bathrooms took a significant turn for the worse. In Croatia, the highway must have been built in the last 10 years--the roads are much nicer than in Michigan, the trucks avoid it because it is a toll road, and ...