Aaah - the Beach!

Volterra*Beach (Marina di Bibbona)

Today was our take it easy and relax day.  Eric made French toast with strawberries, Nutella, and powdered sugar for toppings and then we were off to the beach.  We found a little town called Marina di Bibbona just south of Cecina.  The beaches were sandy with no crowds and we got a parking spot 100m from the beach (look - I'm starting to measure things in meters now).  The weather was perfect, overcast with a nice breeze so we were able to sit on the beach and read our books and we didn't cook.  The kids played in the ocean and built sand castles.  We played frisbee (which we lost in the sea) and Rook (I am ashamed to admit that my 2 youngest children did not know how to play).

Upon our return to our Villa we decided to all jump in the freezing pool just to get rinsed off before showering inside.  Brrrrr.  I should add here that we had no problem with hot water even thought all 6 of us showered one right after the other.  Here they have hot water boilers that instantly produce hot water on demand.  I guess one positive for living in small places.

We are still trying to figure out all the road signs in Italy.  It's like they hired someone from IKEA to make signs that should be universal because they are pictures and no words, but we have yet to figure several of them out.  Thank heavens we have a GPS to get us around; we are blindly following her around to these tiny places (yes, the GPS is a "she" the kids have named her Mother Catherine after all the Nuns we saw in Rome).

After a hodgepodge meal of crochette (mashed potatoes formed into a ball and rolled in bread crumbs then baked or fried), left over meat from our restaurant dinner, cucumbers, peppers, 3 types of cheese and apples we watch Sneakers with Robert Redford.  None of the kids had seen it.  Good thing we put all these movies on our iPads.

Emma, Charlie, Sydney