Craig's blog

Today is the last real day of our vacation and the last day of biking.  There was just a short 12 km out and back ride although it was all downhill to the town and all uphill back (800 ft).  We stayed in the town for about 15 minutes and then rode back up.  I followed Maddie who has been the fastest climber of the kids throughout the week.  I hadn’t had the opportunity to ride with her.  She took off up the hill and at first I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stay with her, but she slowed somewhat into a more reasonable pace.  Still, she rode impressively up the hill back to our hotel.

When we got back to our room (9:30) we packed our bags, said goodbye to our guides (Julie, Lica and Marika) and boarded a bus for Florence.

The bus ride was about an hour long on country roads.  We arrived at the train station in Florence – where our high-speed training was scheduled to leave at 2:40.  We (the 5 of us, Doug and Maddie, and Diane and Jim) all went to the Klein’s hotel which was a couple of blocks away where we stored our luggage and then went up to the top to the garden restaurant with a commanding view of Florence.  We had a great farewell lunch and then said goodbye to Maddie and Doug.  They travel home from Florence on Sunday.

The Carlsons and Cowards then walked back to the train station and boarded our train.  It was great – comfortable and quiet and rode along at 155 mph.  We were in Rome in less than 90 minutes.  When we got to Rome we said goodbye to Diane and Jim who are staying near the Rome train station before flying to Greece early tomorrow morning.

Next we bought tickets on the express train to the Rome airport which is on another modern, high-speed train.  We waited 30 minutes and then rode 30 minutes to the airport (which is outside of Rome).  We then ran for the shuttle that goes to our hotel which is about 5 minutes from the airport and just caught it before it left.  We finally arrived at the hotel around 6 pm.

It’s a very modern hotel (and it has decent wifi).  We ate dinner, made sure we were all packed – comparing the weight of each of our suitcases to try to keep them all under 50 pounds and are about to go to bed.  Because I have decent wifi finally, I’ve uploaded pictures of Rome to our photo site: photos.carlsonfun.com.  The rest will have to wait until we return because we’re getting up at 4:00 AM to head to the airport to start the very long trip back to SF.  We have a 6:55 flight to Frankfurt, a little less than two hour layover, and then a 12 hour flight back home.  We should land around 12:45 tomorrow. We can’t wait to get home and to see Teddy again.  We all really miss him.