By Belinda and Rod

We left Mestre-Venice on a freezing, foggy, frosty Thursday morning and pointed the car in a southerly direction to our last destination of Bolsena, Lake Bolsena. Of note on the trip here: ice falling off the tops of trucks as they turned corners, huge sections of brand new tunnels and one car on fire (not ours and not in the tunnel). Because the tunnels were new, satnav was totally confused. We were instructed to do various dangerous/impossible driving manoeuvres such as: “turn right in 10m” and “if possible, do a U turn”. We are over the sat nav.

Hamish is over shopping, but will sit in the babyseat with Ipad, even though he is well over the weight, and height limit.

Months ago back in Australia, I was reading the RACV magazine. Right at the end, there is a section dedicated to holiday accommodation. I noticed an advertisement for a 2 bedroom apartment in Bolsena, Italy. I referred to my trusty google maps and found it is positioned about 90 minutes north-ish of Rome. I emailed the Australian owner with a couple of dates in mind and they were both available. Somehow, somewhere along the way, we ditched the idea altogether – I even deleted emails! So as our trip was drawing to a close, we re-visited the idea of staying in Bolsena; if nothing else, it meant we didn’t have to stay at Rome airport the night before we flew out. As I had so diligently erased everything to do with this apartment, I asked my Dad to look it up in the RACV magazine – Dad’s seldom get the opportunity to show their true value, but this time Phillip came through with the gold. I contacted the owner and here we are. Check it out www.vdlbolsena.com it’s beautiful and affordable. And being owned by an Australian, it has things we have missed in other apartments: tongs, toaster, microwave, instructions in English…

The apartment is in the Rione Castello (Castle District) of the medieval village; the castle is one minute away on foot. This stay gives a feeling of symmetry to our trip, since its winding alleyways are reminiscent of our time in Campagna, back in September. Fortunately, the car trip to locate our accommodation was much less eventful, although we had to park off the street and carry our luggage quite a distance. The view from our window takes in much of the village and the lake. It is stunning and a perfect way for us to relax before we are thrown back into reality.

Belinda has managed to find a local babysitter (Sofia) who speaks fluent English. So we have actually managed to have our first night out as a couple for almost 4 months. Hamish likes her, because “she watched a movie with me. First we watched SpongeBob 1, then we watched Mr. Bean; Special Peaches, the Best Bits.” Yet one more reason to love the internet. Our time here has been pretty laid back, exploring the village on foot, watching Sky TV (in English) and gradually planning our exit from Italy. The weather here has been a pleasant change; maxima of 12-15 degrees and mostly sunny. Just right for our final week in Europe.

Probably need to play a bit of Tetris in the next few days to help facilitate our packing.