Italy day 2

We are on vacation in a small town off the beaten path in Tuscany in Italy. We're actually staying in a castle in a small village. The rental agency didn't have the car we reserved ready, so we ended up with a big fat SUV. Imagine driving that up and down this extremely narrow road leading to the summit of the town...

It was a long trip, but the kids did well. Oscar slept for the last hour or so of the ride from Rome to Torniella (the town where we're staying). Clara has been showing off her smarts - she noticed right away this afternoon that her shadow was much shorter than she'd ever seen it before, and when an airplane selfie didn't turn out, she suggested we close the window shade.

Today was our first full day in Italy. We went on a hike from Monticiano to the monastery and hermitage at Abbazia di San Galgano. According to our guidebook, the hike was supposed to be 2 km each way, but it seems that our guidebook is a bit out of date, and in the end we hiked a total of 7 km (return). We saw a tremendous amount of animal life. In addition to the ubiquitous lizards and funnel weaving grass spiders below, we also saw chickens, horses, cats, birds, minnows, ants, beetles, black (!!) dragonflies, wasps, bees, grasshoppers, some kind of REALLY LOUD insect, and butterflies. (We also saw a turtle on the road yesterday!)

Grass spiders build a funnel web. We saw tons - they're very fast!

You really want to zoom in on this spider! 

The bravest lizard - all the others ran away immediately!

The absolute highlight of the hike was a small stream that we had to ford. (Actually, since they wrote the guidebook a bridge has been built, but Tanja, Clara, and Oscar forded it anyway!)

Oscar walking over the wobbly bridge. He forded it on the way back
(we were a bit worried about the current on the first crossing).

Clara and Tanja crossing the stream the first time.

View from the exit of the ford.

The kids spent more than an hour playing in a small pool between the ford and the bridge (we stopped in each direction). After reaching the end of the hike, we had lunch in a restaurant near the monastery. Both kids ate noodles in tomato sauce. Oscar is basically in heaven...

In his first 24 hours in Italy he's eaten noodles in tomato sauce 3 times.

Clara and Oscar starting back to the monastery after lunch.

Oscar with the hermitage in the background (click to see how high he climbed!)

Kids hiking

View of the abbey (without a roof - it crumbled in the 16th century)

On the way up - its HOT in the sun!

Little drop of color.

San Galgano's sword in the rock, in his Mausoleum. Oscar was so sad he couldn't try to pull it out and be King of Italy after all the Arthur stories Chris told him...

At dinner today, Tanja was reading from a guidebook: "In Tuscany, we can find yummy ice cream on every second street corner". To which Oscar, not losing a beat, replied: "Can we go to a second street corner, then?"

Tomorrow we will probably drive to the beach.