L'Italia - by Christopher

So we really like the countryside a whole lot more than we liked Rome. Except there's no internet access anywhere we go.

The short story is that we decided to take our chances with b&b and cheap hotel prices, and thus set off to find a home base that we could afford.

Except there aren't any hotels or b&b's we could afford. So after driving in circles for a dozen hours (more on that later) we tracked down the only sporting goods store in the country (it's a big one though) and bought a tent, some sleeping bags and two pillows.

We got a good deal on the stuff since we didn't know where we were supposed to go to pay and just walked out of the store and drove off. I'm kidding. But we did set off the security alarm in both the sporting goods store and the supermarket, within four minutes of each other. So little has changed with us.

Our plan for the moment is to continue walking down the street in Orvieto (the hill town I am writing this from), eat a gelato in a half hour or so, take the funicular back down the hill to our car, and see if we feel like risking our lives on the road anymore today (again, more on that later).

Sarah is (surprisingly) taking to camping like a duck to water, or like Chris to Italian pizza, or like a duck to badminton, if that duck was really good at and enjoyed participating in or spectating badminton matches between (I would assume) other ducks.

She slept really well last night and we both woke up refreshed this morning. Sleeping in the tent is much more comfortable than sleeping in our rental car in a medieval gravel parking lot, which we did the night before.

I haven't slept in a car since college at OU (ten years ago? really?) but it was much the same as I remember it: no way to really get comfortable and difficult to get out of the car the next morning from all the soreness. But that's behind us now.

We'll be sleeping in the Umbrian and Tuscan countryside for the eight days we have left to explore Italy. We have lots of photos and video to pass on, but we'll have to wait until we can find a cheap connection to use.

This one is taking too much valuable pizza money out of my pocket to justify spending anymore time on it.