Day 11: Roma to Cava de' Tirreni

This post may be short, as it was a few days ago and we didn't have WIFI, therefore it requires remembering how the day went. We've essentially lost touch of time, lately. One would expect nothing less.

We loaded up at our place in Rome and drove a short 25 minutes to IKEA. Yes, IKEA. They boys LOVED it, as they should. Because really, what's not to love? We picked up a few small things and got ideas for things to grab when we hit up the IKEA in Ankara, Turkey, right before we drive to our new place of residence. After leaving IKEA we drove to Lago Albano that, atop it's beautiful hillside, holds the Pope's summer mansion. The lake was BEAUTIFUL and the temp was just chilly enough to be refreshing, but not chilly enough to keep us out of it. It was a ridiculously hot day, like they all have been, so a mid drive swim was welcome! We planted ourselves under a big sun shade, but quickly got shood (sp?) out of that spot. I tried to play the "I don't speak Italian" card, but "Privato", which the man said over and over again is a pretty universal world. So we packed up our few things and moved 100 yard away behind a bush where he couldn't see us. :) haha! We've developed a tactic called 'honey-badgering', which is essential to getting things done with a large family in Europe. We basically take what we want, and make people tell us no. This results in lots of interactions with the locals- usually positive!

The swim was delightful and we followed it up with gelato, because why not?!

After Lago Albano we loaded up for a short drive to Cava de' Tirreni- a little town south of Pompeii. Southern Europe will be remembered by us, in part, as the land of a thousand tolls. I'll add up our totals when we are done, but we're easily over 200 euro at this point.

Cava de' Tirreni is charming and beautiful! We arrived, cooked up some spaghetti, and got the boys in bed. Bek was feeling rotten, so she went to bed too, and I wandered into town to find somewhere with WiFi so we could plan the following day.