We had a nice brekkie this morning at the hotel and then took a walk around the marina and saw the Christopher Columbus statue. It was neat to walk around the marina and see all the old men sitting talking and the mums walking their babies. We enjoyed a bit of leisurely walking and then headed back to start our trek to Florence via Pisa.

There are tons of toll roads here and I think we have them figured out now though I am sure it is like our turnpikes in the US where sometimes you get in the wrong lane….Chris has done absolutely great at getting us where we needed to be. The navigation system helps but it is not perfect, we have found out. Today was a prime example of that. We just wanted to stop to see the Leaning Tower and of course there is no access to it that is easy. We drove around looking for someplace to park and finally found someplace. Fortunately we did not stay parked too long because as we left we saw that you were supposed to have a ticket on your car ….oops. We took lots of pictures of the tower and the cathedral and did not go up in it but it is pretty neat that we were able to see it.

Then the adventure began. We left Pisa (going past the gyspy hookers wearing fishnets and looking particularly skanky) and were on our way to Florence when……BANG!!!! We got rear – ended by a guy in a little tiny Fiat. Sigh. Chris pulled up and off the road a bit and our car had damage to the back bumper of course, but was not too awful. The other car the story was different. The guy had hit his head on the windshield and the windshield was shattered. He got out of the car and was so upset—holding his head, etc. Of course he spoke absolutely no English—2 other cars stopped and of course they spoke no English either. First of all we made sure he was okay—there was no blood (thank goodness or I would have been on the ground!) but he had to have hit the steering wheel also. He was holding his ribs along with his head. He called the police and we got our little rental car forms out “what to do if you are involved in an accident” and started filling those out. A long time passed, another lady came and talked to him, we just tried to get his car off the road a bit and waited. I gave him some bottled water—he was so distraught—his car was totally smushed. Finally after about an hour two other women came—one was his granddaughter who DID speak English. Whew. Chris had already gotten him to fill out all the information and we had it all down. The granddaughter had called the police 3 times along with the man calling them once and they said since there were no injuries (in other words blood) they did not have a car to send out. Sigh. So the saga will continue I am sure. We got every bit of information we could and since we could drive our car we left eventually and urged the granddaughter to get her grandfather to the hospital as he was saying he did not want to go. She promised me she would. They were getting into quite a heated argument and I imagine it was about that.

So……we continued on and were set to go to Florence for the night but let’s just say that that plan was thwarted……after driving and driving all over downtown looking for this bed and breakfast that existed but was not on a road that you could access we gave up and decided to just get the heck out of the city and find someplace else. Easier said than done. These places are not easy to find—the nav system helped to some extent but some of the “Hotels” it said existed we could not find. We finally got off at Bologna and found a place after a lot of driving around. Let’s just say it is an adventure today but at least we are not on the street. It is run by Vietamese and none of them speak any English……we figured it all out, Chris checked the room out and it passed (I think anything would have passed tonight) inspection so we are here for the night. Our plan is to get up early and get the heck out of here!!! We are off to Venice for 3 days and after today I think we may just stay in the Hilton the entire stay and not venture out!!! No….we won’t do that but Chris kept saying “Whose stupid idea was this? Why didn’t we do the train?” I told him it was just another adventure in our life and we could buy a DVD on Florence and that would be fine! We are safe and the car—well—we will deal with that later . It was nothing Chris did wrong obviously. Just a little drama we didn’t plan on.

Tomorrow is a new day—I am hoping we will have reliable internet in Venice since it has not been the case yet. I have to post all these blogs at once so hopefully you guys figured that out and are reading them in order!!!

I need to relax now in our deluxe accommodations with the towels that are about like tea towels…….should be interesting!