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Well, the original idea was to keep a running diary of our trip to Italy. The largest obstacle to that goal was lack of Internet access at many of the places we stayed.

Our trip was fabulous. Definitely what we all needed. John grew a beard (sort of) which I loved, surprising because I'm not a big fan of facial hair. He looked so relaxed in it though! I got a really good tan for the first time in probably 20 years! The kids got along great considering they were squished in the back seat of a medium sized station wagon for too many hours at a time. Thankfully, they often had the opportunity to get away from each when it was absolutely necessary.

Our favourite stay was outside of Assisi. It was incredibly beautiful, peaceful and we went and saw so much!

Here's the Italy vacation in a nutshell ~

June 16th - arrive in Rome, drive to Naples
June 17th - visited the Cuma ruins
June 18th - Pompei!
June 19th - chill day, saw "Up" at Naval base
June 20th - moved down to Amalfi coast house
June 21st - chilled at Amalfi house
June 22nd - drove down the Amalfi coast, sightseeing day
June 23rd - chilled and sunbathed
June 24th - harrowing scooter ride to Vietri!
June 25th - kidnapped Lisette and John to Sorrento
June 26th - crazy day on the Meditteranean in a rented motorboat
June 27th - drove all the way up to Umbria house
June 28th - medieval fair in medieval village
June 29th - Assisi
June 30th - Lisette and I hit Deruta for ceramics
July 1st - Sienna and the "Il Palio" time trial
July 2nd - Pisa and Florence (warning - don't try to do both in one day!)
July 3rd - chilling, sunbathing, laundry and repacking
July 4th - return to Naples, fireworks at Carney Park, John loses work cell (Yeah!)
July 5th - chill, chill, chill
July 6th - drive to Taormina, Sicily
July 7th - Greek ruins, Taormina
July 8th - return to Rome, dealt with gas strike and our pseudo 21st anniversary!
July 9th - Rome, beautiful Rome
July 10th - flight from Rome to Buffalo

It was awesome.