Our sister travel blog Free Range Explorers

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It's our new blog, dedicated to all things travel and to our personal adventures of course, it features Martin's amazing photos (you've not seen many here unfortunately) and it will include travel tips and reviews as well as interviews with interesting people we meet along the way.

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Our last week in Italy

We are finally back home in Leicestershire still a little dazed from all the train travel. A lot happened in the week we spent on the coast including Reuben swimming in the sea in January, much skateboarding, broken water heaters and a trip to the local hospital... The train journey back was ok and this time we got a regular taxi in Paris and had no problems whatsoever. Here are some of the highlights!

Isaac on the beach in Sabaudia, on the Italian coast about 90 minutes south
of Rome, my father has a house there which he kindly lets us use.

Beach hut closed for the winter, it was a lot of fun exploring at this time of
year, this stretch of coast gets VERY busy in the Summer

There's a lot of debris and abandoned things on this stretch of beach

Coats and jackets are quickly discarded

A cleaner beach in S.Felice Circeo, the town next to ours.

Sand angels

The playground in S.Felice, our favourite in the area, at lunch time it was
empty!!

Skateboarding lessons in the S.Felice playground

Reuben really really wants a motorbike

He borrowed this battery charged bike from my stepsister's son,
he rode it into town, zoomed around the square then it ran out
of charge so we had to push it all the way back to the house!

More skateboarding lessons in Sabaudia's national park

The national park is a wonderful place for children, all sorts of interesting
things can be found if you walk around

Me and Isaac take a walk through the woods in the national
park

Actually I take a walk in the woods... Isaac enjoys being pushed in the
monster buggy

Our last day in Sabaudia and we take advantage of the
beaches again

The boys find lots of abandoned toys behind a hut

Pose for daddy

Isaac found some of my father's heart medication in one of the drawers
(my father had forgotten it there so did not tell us about it), not
knowing if he had swallowed any we took him to hospital in a rush. The
staff took the situation very seriously and we were there for 5 hours while
he was continuously monitored, luckily he showed no worrying symptoms
so we took him home. Here is is watching telly in the pediatric waiting room.

The hospital was in a terrible state, some of the machinery
was not working, the building was dilapidated in parts and
a lot of the signs were either so old you could not read them
or hand written

Waiting for our train in the Eurostar lounge in Paris

Gare du Nord

More skateboarding while waiting for the Eurostar

Singing in the rain

We had lunch in the square today undeterred by the rain, the boys still wanted to play and Reuben even burst into song with my umbrella.

Piazza del Popolo

More rain today, so instead of spending another day at home (reading and drawing are nice but I am a woman of action) we grabbed an umbrella and headed out to do some chores for my mum, this included buying a wireless router as we have all been (nicely) fighting over the computer.

On our way back we stopped at Piazza del Popolo, one of the main squares in Rome and the boys decided to play round the obelisk and fountains. Then it started to rain again and we rushed for the bus!

What is that very tall thing?

It's an obelisk

A good attempt at climbing the lion but it was too wet

An evening walk with Isaac

Reuben is not so fond of going out for a walk in the evening but me and Isaac really enjoy it, these are the streets around my mum's house in Rome, it has been raining for the past week so whenever there is a break in the clouds we put our shoes on and enjoy the city centre.

The electric bus we use to get around

My mum's street

Isaac in the courtyard

Starting to rain again

Rainy day and the Etruscan museum in Rome

We nearly didn't go out today, my sister was here with 3 of her 4 children and after a long session during which we tried to find a place we all agreed on to visit we were ready to go out, then it started pouring with rain! But we were not deterred so all piled into her little red car and set off to visit the Etruscan museum near the large Villa Borghese the boys love.

The museum is wonderful and as it had stopped raining we enjoyed running round the gardens which included a Ninfeo (a sacred place near water, named from the Ninfe, female water spirits) and a small maze. The artifacts in the museum (which also included a replica of Etruscan tombs) were also wonderful, unfortunately we had a very bad experience with the two ladies who were manning the rooms we visited, one continuously told the children what not to do even though they were not doing it! This really upset us as Reuben had never heard of the Etruscans, I was telling him about them as we walked in, he got very excited at seeing all the pots and utensils then the silly woman started following us and telling us don't touch this don't sit there don't put your hands on the glass, but we WEREN'T!!! At that point Reuben got very upset, started crying and wanted to go home, what a shame, foolish people, instead of appreciating the fact that a 5 year old is so interested in the ancient world they were just worried about any damage he could do. But we gave it another go and went downstairs to see the tomb section. More hassle... another employee started stalking us, walking behind us, stopping when we stopped and staring the whole time, I was really distressed as we were doing nothing wrong, I mentioned that we were not criminals, had paid our ticket and wanted to see the museum in peace, she looked at me as if I was mad... We left.

So we retreated to Villa Borghese where the children all played happily until we heard thunder and it very quickly started to rain, all in all it was a good day and I'll go back to the Villa as soon as the weather is ok again.

Reuben and Yuri, my nephew, in the gardens of the museum

The beautiful frescoes in the gallery round the courtyard

Small temple in the grounds

Jumping amongst the ruins

The Ninfeo seen from above

The small maze

Villa Borghese outside the Zoo

Villa Borghese

With Yuri and Irene, the boys' cousins

Is there room for one more in there?

Photos!!

I had a big doh! moment yesterday. Being used to my photos travelling by wireless between all my various devices, I was momentary stuck here in Rome as there is no wireless or 3G... Then of course it occurred to me: just plug the phone into my mum's computer, something is bound to happen! So I now have photos to share.

The sleeper train Paris to Rome

Breakfast on the sleeper train

Running down the corridor on the train

Top bunk

The house of the Owls in Rome's Villa Torlonia

The House of the Owls also has snakes!

Rainbows inside the House of the Owls

Their favourite spot in the Villa

Making colourful dinosaurs

Our closest playground