Ciao Italia!

Just a quick farewell from Italy... A quick stop to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa and then it was off to Dublin to finish off our trip.  We flew Ryan Air, which is one of the low cost airlines in Europe (think Southwest, but you have to pay for anything extra).  When I booked, I made sure to register us for the higher weight limit (20 kg) for our checked bag... and we made sure to check in before we got there so we wouldn't have to pay to print our boarding pass.  Just a note, we were worried about the weight limit so we asked to weigh our bags before the check-in process to make sure they were under the limit.  The check-in attendant was more than willing to let us, which was great.  I was nervous they would say no as John and I had a pretty rough time leaving in 2008 and ended up paying a hefty fine for our overweight bag.  So definitely make sure that you do that - they are pretty strict.

Unless you are flying in and out of Pisa, I don't believe it's worth a trip.  Maybe we missed out on something and didn't fully understand it?  But seriously, there is hardly anything there... just little shops, the tower, and lots of people.  It was also really hot in September.  Not a big fan.... But here are some final pictures to say goodbye.

Picture taken from our Villa with Florence in the background.

The newly stabilized Leaning Tower of Pisa.

The Alps - I've never really seen them, except from an airplane or from a train.

Sunset from the airplane on the way to Dublin.

One of the first sighs of Ireland - and of course it's a golf course. 

So - it's hard to blog in Europe... But London is lovely this time of year

Europe is fantastic - the internet connectivity with our laptop is impossible.  Not sure what the problem is, but for some reason it appears that only our ipad is working, and the computers are not.  I'm guessing there is just something new in the tech world that our computer doesn't have..  Next time we'll just have to get something new!

The good stuff though - the trip.  It is pretty wonderful so far, and exhausting.

We landed in Dublin yesterday after a 7hr annd 45min plane trip..... with a screaming baby and screaming toddler for about 5 to 6 hrs of that time.  They were from the same family so the best part is that at certain points they apparently felt the urge to compete for mommy or daddy's attention which meant screaming OVER the other.  i was almost wishing for the sleeping pill that Martha and Katie took, until I saw how drugged up Katie was...and while entertaining for us - probably not a good way for me (pseudo-narcoleptic) to start the trip. 

London is a city that you can't do justice to in only 1.5 days.  There is so much to see close-up that we only saw from the rooftop of our hop-on hop-off tour bus.  We drove by all the famous attractions, Buckingham Palace, Piccadilly Circus, St. Paul's Cathedral... but we only really spent time at the Tower of London this morning before we hopped in a taxi for the train station. I seem to remember the Crown Jewels being much more exciting, and there being a lot more of them.  The rest of our trip consisted of eating, drinking English Style Bitter beer, and recovering from our hellish plane ride.

All in all we lucked out in London.  It only rained for about 10 minutes, the weather was warm enough to barely need coats, and we missed a lot of the tourists that come in the summer.  I would love to come back and spend a longer time and walk around the city a little bit more.  

Next up - Paris and my love for the Eiffel Tower and anything from Europe that involves dairy.  (and hopefully pictures if I can figure that out)