We are at my aunt Jojo’s and she has been wonderful. She has taken us to lots of special local places and showing us around the local towns. She is also a wonderful cook and her food is delicious.

So far not in any particular order we have spent a day in Rome which started with a round trip train ride from Bracciano to the Vatican stop in Rome for only 6€. We spent about 4 hours in Vatican city, the place is huge and beautiful. We then made our way to trevi fountain and saw the sites on the way: the castle like round church near the Vatican, 4 rivers fountains, Pantheon and more.

Toni is completely in love with Italy and could stay here forever. She loves the fashion, the sites the food and the pace. She feels like she has been here before, like she is home.

Last weekend when my uncle Stephano was back we all minus Bea (my cousin Beatrice) went to see their son Kiko who is a first year in the Italian Airforce in Naples.

Kiko is short for Pierfrancesco, so Kiko is much easier to say. He is following in his fathers footsteps and will be a fighter pilot someday. He lives on base in Naples and gets time off base once in a while.

That was a great day, I’ve never been to Naples. The city was very rustic, and if you took the cars away it seemed untouched from when it was built. ( will write about these places in more detail ) still need to post prior stories first. Bad Internet connection makes it hard… more on this below.

Michele my cousin took us to Leonardo and Davinci two different shopping centers on each side of the highway. One is an outdoor shopping center and one an indoor one. Several of the shops in the outdoor one are huge, the sporting shop is like Bunnings for sports. The pet shop was out of this world, they had sharks, snakes, chameleons, all types of fish, lizards, nemos, squirrels, hamsters, birds, piranaha, frogs, stonefish, like a zoo! All for sale… except the piranha’s.

We’ve been bowling and hiking near the local castle. Had a few too many drinks last night in Bracciano to watch the final European champions league soccer game Bayern Munich vs Chelsea. Chelsea won after a penalty shoot out to break the tie.

We have been playing with Pato the family dog who is a Jack Russel and has a striking resemblance to Micro. It’s like having him here with us. Only difference is he can hold a tennis ball in his mouth… And he is shorter.

There is no Internet, so it’s hard to keep posting our updates. Tried to get an Internet key but no go with an overseas credit/bank cards, we tried 3 cards (will get Jojo to help us out to get one to use in Senagalia) my phone barely has internet as the prepaid sim only gave me 500mb and paying €10 per day for 500mb no thanks.

Taken lots of photos on our outings but can’t post them, basically Jojo’s Internet provider haven’t fixed the ADSL connection. Managed to update the computer at a bar so it would stop using up the little internet I had without me knowing… Note to self, turn of automatic updates.

Finding everything here basically half price even using the Euro. Had a haircut and that was 15€ I would pay $35 in Perth. Food is dirt cheap, 1.85€ per kilo for most stuff. So we are topping up the fruit in the house regularly.

I bought some nice shorts here as my bordies look out of place. I ended up buying 2 nice shorts and 1 for running for 45€. I would have paid $65 in Perth for 1!

Been researching accommodation for a future trip and most apartments in the local towns are 300-800€ per month which is super cheap in comparison.

Even with a strong Euro, it’s less than half price to live here. When we get to Senigallia I’m going to look for an Italian language tutor, we really want to learn Italian.

Haven’t gotten to Toni’s relatives yet, will do in a couple of weeks, before we goto Senegalia. We will hire a car for there we think, Stephano is taking us there for the weekend, not the next one but the one after to show us around the town and his apartment. Then we will come back and head to Toni’s relatives for a week before going back to Senegalia for 5 weeks… it’s great not having a schedule or a timeframe.

We both really like Italy, so I’m in no rush to move on. We do plan to head to Canada in September and will probably do what we did heading here. Ie have a busy holiday trip visiting Europe during August for 20-30 days then fly to Nova Scotia. Once again to a place where money is hard to spend and time doesn’t matter.

Italy is wonderful and every day seems to get longer.