Day 26 May 9th Rome day 1. So to the Eternal City! Well maybe. As we arrived/were at/left /I began to wonder what Burlusconi had done to this once proud city. Leaving aside the main monuments it is awful. The streets are covered in graffiti and little seems to be done to clean it up. Stations, walls, everywhere is covered in the meaningless scribbles of juvenile Italy. Trains are in an awful state. The outsides of some are so graffiti covered it is impossib...

Day 25 May 8th Cassino An early start as we wanted to get into Cassino and then drive to Rome, around Rome and then north of Rome including the 'M25' of Rome! Despite the promises of the locals, it was not a very bright start with lots of low cloud and mist over the hills. It has been a surprise to see how hilly and mountainous the whole region is, as well as the darkness of the sand. We think that the nearness of volcanoes means the sand is a mixture of a...

Day 24 May 7th Sauri, nr Cassino Yesterday we left Assisi in the pouring rain and headed for Cassino. This followed a longish debate about our plans for the last two weeks or so. Anyway of went and, following a visit to a supermarket in Perugia headed southwards, still raining. It is quite hard to estimate our height above sea level but I guess that we were somewhere between 2000 and 3000 ft for most of the drive. This meant a lot of up hill...

Day 22 May 5th Assisi Assisi is nearly everything that people say about it. That is, its very heavily visited by tourists, its expensive, its crowded and its compact. Having said all that it was well worth the effort getting here. The city has that wonderful mixture of old and older. Houses, buildings range form the very old eg medieval to the slightly newer eg 16th century. The stone structure is reflected in the paving slabs that are everywhere; no t...

Day 21 May 4th Today we left Urbino and made the short drive towards Perugia and Assisi It was some drive. After leaving the campsite the followed the bus route we had taken the day before up into the hills away from the city. The idea was to take some photographs and see the views from the roadside. They were wonderful in the early morning sunlight. The bright green of the valley and the clear blue skies showed off the area to the best! Then after doi...