Arriving in Tuscany!

Today was a much better day than I had expected! I had hoped to be at the place we are staying by 8 or 9pm, but we ended up getting here at 6! Much earlier! The traffic wasn’t bad and it was much quicker than it said it would be when planning (10hours driving vs 8.5 today! Plus stops we got here in 9.5 hours!) we got lucky with the traffic again - the other direction there was a good 60km section around Florence that was stopped cars for like 5km then a km or two where they were moving then stopped again. So that was good we were going south! There was also this odd over 20km section in Austria that was just tractor trailer trucks lined up parked in the right hand lane, but the left lane was cars driving, occasionally slowing down or stopping for a minute and then going again, and we were just like what is going on?? Why are all these trucks just parked there? They didn’t look like they were stopped for real, but no one was moving…and we got to the end of that and there was a tiny section of road that was slightly narrower than prior to that and that was the hold up I guess as the trucks there were going. I wonder if they were stopped for some reason so the trucks backed up so so far. It was really strange to just drive by a line of trucks for so long, but I was glad they were all over on the right so we weren’t stuck also as that would have taken forever!

We drove through the mountains and that was really nice and took a couple photos (I was driving for most of it so the photos are just the tail end). We got to the other side and it was suddenly super flat! Like you could see forever flat. It was odd. Then I looked at the map and we drove through the flat section and then it is mountains/hills again the whole way down the side of Italy. I never really looked at the topography before, but Tuscany is on the other side of the Second mountains we drove through in a hilly area. So that was fun.

We got here where we are staying and it was sunny and gorgeous! The first photo of the lake is the view from our place! So nice! We ate dinner out at the table on the side of the house, there are lavender fields behind the house and in the front, it is wonderful! After we ate we walked down to the lake to spy and found a porcupine quill on the way and saw some fancy ducks down there (Red-Crested Pochard). There are a lot of fishing/camping spots along the lake right here and lots of people out for an evening stroll.

We headed back as the sun was setting before it got too cold. I included a photo of the house from the outside with the yard - behind Raymond is the table we ate at. Plus the balcony which is nice and will be good if we do get the rain that is forecast tomorrow so we can still sit outside!

All in all this was a great day! A nice drive, much quicker than we expected, and we got to explore a little!Read more