Thanksgiving get together Girl Scouts

One of the girl scout parents hosted a get together for Thanksgiving. Unfortunately their place was a long steep walk from a tram stop in Weinheim but once Mia got there it was fun

 

Reims

 Our flight back from Perugia took us again to Charleroi in Belgium next to the French border

To see something different we stopped for two nights in Reims which is famous for its cathedral.  After we checked in our hotel in the center we walked over to have a look

  

 

 

Then it was time to find a good place for dinner. Luckily we found a part of the old town with many bars and restaurants 

Assisi

Seven years after our first trip to Perugia we also went back to Assisi - mainly to see the places were Saint Francis of Assisi lived and is buried. Mia got picked up at the old city gate by the Cacciatos who had an extra spot in their car - we had to wait a bit for them to show up

 - we took the train and then walked to the church which was our meeting point. A holy father helped us to go the right way

Inside the church was a chapel that Saint Francis had build and when we left a big souvenir shop

Then we went uphill to the town of Assisi to the church were St. Francis is buried:

 

 

We spend more than an hour inside but picture taking was not allowed - but we made up for it outside

 

 Someone was singing a song that was based on y prayer by St. Francis - beautifully videotaped by Dan

Outside the compound was peace bell donated by the state of Bavaria to show the harmony of the four main religions in the world

 

 

Then it was time to head back since the Cachiattos were invited for dinner - we al squeezed into the car with Mia and Nico in the  back of the Ford station wagon

 

We had a nice evening dinner in a restaurant down the street from our hotel before leaving town the next morning

 

Florence

Florence is only about two hours by train away from Perugia. So we took the opportunity to go there for a day trip. We had bough the tickets a day earlier but the machine had not printed all of them due to a malfunction - so we carried a note from the station master explaining the situation.
The train left on time 

Our first stop was the duomo where it was very crowded and there were long lines for the visitors who wanted to get in

The building was very impressive and with the white and green stones different than any other church we had seen before

Mia noticed some Italian luxury cars - this Ferrari seemed to belong to the owner of a local pizzeria:

The famous covered bridge Ponte Veccio

Since it was quite hot and really crowded we decided to leave early and head back to Perugia

But because of a very heavy and violent thunderstorm that knocked over trees our train got stranded in Terentola and it was an adventure to be able to get back to Perugia from there by taxi cab. It was also quite expensive- but we were happy to be able to have made it back