M is for Much

Like, so Much fun.
Too Much food.
Very Much cars. Ok, the word would be MANY, but you get the idea.

We just got back from our first camping trip and we had so MUCH fun!! We went to the Left side of Italy where we stayed at a little Army base. We visited the town of Lucca, tried to go to Cinque Terre and saw Pisa with it's leaning tower and vendors galore. Yep, the tower really is leaning! We even made a couple trips to the beach.

We had so Much fun!

We climbed too Much (many) stairs. We climbed to the top of the Guinigi Tower in Lucca. 230 stairs (says my 10 year old daughter who counted each one!). VERY old stairs. VERY scary stairs! Mom was the LAST one to the top and boy, was she sweating when she got there. NOT because she was hot, but because it was SO scary! Check out Lucca here!

See the building at the center of this picture with the trees on top? That is the top of the tower. It doesn't look high in this picture. TRUST me - It IS!



The view from the top was beautiful.



I was NOT ready to climb back down those stairs!



The city of Lucca is surrounded by a huge wall. These are the kids at the top of the wall - They can't even reach across!



We ate Much food!

S'mores every night!



Yummy seafood spaghetti.





Boring (but still yummy) cheese pizza for the kids.



We saw very Much (so many) cars! We drove about an hour north to the town of La Spezia. From there we were going to go on to the beautiful Cinque Terre. Supposedly there is a train station in that town. I don't believe it though.

Our directions told us to "drive to La Spezia and follow the signs for the train station parking". We don't use a GPS. We believed we could follow those directions. Well, let me tell you...La Spezia is FULL of cars! Teeny tiny cars! They are parked EVERYWHERE. There are mopeds EVERYWHERE. People drive cars all over the town. We drove and drove and drove in CIRCLES following the signs for the train station. We finally stopped and asked someone where to park and he told us. When we got there, the parking lot was CLOSED! Did I mention we drive a Chevy Suburban? It's BIG. I don't think we could've parked in that lot even if it had been open!

Back to the train station - It does NOT exist! We didn't see it ONCE in all that driving around! We decided instead to drive to Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre means Five Towns. Five beautiful little towns up the Italian coast. We were stressed from the driving in circles, but excited about the Cinque Terre! We thought if we could just get to the first town, we could park there and walk or train or bus to the other 4 towns. We started up the mountain and there I went sweating again! One slip of hubby's hand and we would have been in the ocean! I hate heights! We were up HIGH! In our BIG Suburban on the tiny roads! We finally made it to the top, then started down the mountain. We were getting closer. I was getting excited! No more driving on the edge of the cliff! Then we saw the police officer. Standing in the intersection. Directing people AWAY from the town! We got to the police officer and he said, "No parking. Go back." He turned us away! We didn't get to go! We were so upset!

We headed back to the campground and stopped in Pisa on the way. Had to take some silly pictures with the tower.