The below report is part of four month travelling around the world

After the very much needed break on Zanzibar, we continued our travels to Europe. Obviously we would visit our family in The Netherlands, but first we would visit our dear friends Stefano and Veronica, who live near Viareggio in Italy.

A long flight via Nairobi and Zurich brought us to Italy. Not to the airport as planned, but Veronica was clever enough to figure out where we were landing and was waiting for us. What a pleasure to see her again – the last time was on Little Corn Island in Nicaragua! She drove us to the coast, where we stayed in their house near the beach. That evening we had…pizza and red wine!

We spent over nearly two weeks in the Tuscany region. Besides spending time with our dear friends, we visited a lot of beautiful ancient Roman cities in the vicinity. Lucca was just a beautiful little town which was great for strolling around. The same counted for Pietrasanta – like going back to Roman times. Viareggio was more of a touristic coastal town – it was already quite busy, but it must be awful in high season. Now it was still quite cold (end of March) although the sun was showing its face.

Florence of course was not to be missed. What a beautiful town. We drove there ourselves and walked around and saw some kind of historic monument on every corner of the street. We were battling with the cold, since we did not have any winter clothing and were only able to borrow some from Veronica. But it was great to finally see all these ancient buildings everybody has seen on pictures before.

Also Pisa we visited, although the town itself is not so attractive. The famous tower was worth it though as well as the cathedral next to it. To top it all off, we joined Stefano to the island of Elba, where he rents out a house in the holiday periods. Elba is a beautiful island with lots of hidden beaches; in the holiday period it must be overcrowded though.

These two weeks were definitely a cultural highlight. The personal highlight was to follow. We would continue to The Netherlands to see our family and friends again.