La Maddalena and Caprera

One day we took the ferry from Palau to the isle of La Maddalena. From there we drove to the isle of Caprera which is connected to La Maddalena by a bridge. We visited Garibaldi´s house and then we went to two different beaches at Caprera. The first one was more stony and the second one had white sand - lovely. One more beach at La Maddalena. It was nice too, but windy and there were lots of medusas. Daniele enjoyed himself capturing them in a bucket.

The next day we went on a boat trip to the Maddalena archipelago. We visited the little town of Maddalena again and then we were taken to the most wonderful beaches to isles were you only can get by boat.

What a lovely day!

Day two in Sardinia

On the second day we went to the beach by the little train from the hotel. The beach was nice, but we wanted to see other beaches, too, so we used the car the other days.

Every afternoon the children wanted to have a swim in the hotel pool, too. We preferred the lovely beaches, but the children always enjoy the pools, so it was good that there was one in the hotel. While they were swimming I sometimes was able to read one or two pages of my book.

September holiday in Sardinia

Before school started, we spent the first week of September in Sardinia. We were lucky, the weather was nice all the time, only a bit windy sometimes. This year we went to Cannigione and stayed in Blu Hotel Morisco. It was near the sea, but to you had to take the car or the little train from the hotel to get to the beach. We took the hotel transport to the beach once, but otherwise we went by car, so we could try different beaches in the area. The position was really good, only 30 km from Olbia where the ship comes from Civitavecchia and there were lots of nice places to see. You could go to the Costa Smeralda or take a boat trip to the Arcipelago of Maddalena and we even took the ferry to Corsica once. It took only one hour from Santa Teresa di Gallura which was about 40 km from Cannigione.
We took the Tirrenia ferry which left in the morning and it took about 5 hours to Olbia. The ferry trip was quite boring, there were no sun chairs out side, no nice play room for Carlotta and with the dog we were only allowed to stay outside. Our hotel was nice and the children wanted to jump into the pool right away, so we went there and then we went to see the nearest beaches and in the evening we had dinner at the hotel and after the baby dance we all were very ready to go to bed.

Walking

Next morning we packed water, sandwiches and juice in our backpack and went out for a long walk with Marzia's family and their friends. We decided to walk to Fonte Tavoloni, which was supposed to be about 1 hour away.

 Well, it was quite a lot more than one hour. Daniele is a good walker, but Sofia and Carlotta weren't that happy all the time. But as I already noticed in Trentino, it's possible to take them on these long walks, as long as you bring enough biscuits and juice and let them rest often enough. And of course some good company makes it a lot easier. In the beginning Sofia wasn't so happy because the other girls had bicycles and she had to walk, but in the end they had to park their bicycles, because it got too heavy and it wasn't easy to ride a bike on the stony road.

We kept walking and then finally we came to the "rifugio" were we had our lunch. Wonderful! Then we saw some free horses and went to see them. One of them wasn't afraid of us. Cute!

In the evening we went to Rocca di Mezzo and the children put their jewellry on sale again. Rocca di Mezzo is a really charming little village and we continued dreaming of a flat up in the mountains.

Ovindoli again

It was so warm in Rome and most of our friends hadn't got back to Rome yet, so on the 27th of August I booked a night in a hotel in Ovindoli and had a nice trip there with the children. Marzia was still there with her family. We left Rome quite early in the morning and got stuck in a terrible traffic jam before finally coming out from Rome. I'm so glad I don't have to do that every day to go to work! I didn't expect there to be that much traffic when many romans still were on holiday, as it was August. We found a nice little hotel at a walking distance from the centre of Ovindoli.

First of all we went to see the horses, of course. Carlotta got herself a little pony ride this time on the little pony, Celestina. Celestina either wanted to trot or she wanted to eat and Carlotta thought it was safer to let her eat!

After a nice pic nick lunch it was our turn to have nice riding tour. Daniele looked after Carlotta and I got out on a ride with the Sofia and the other girls.

While we were having our lunch break, the children were busy making ear rings and bracelets.

In the evening we had something to eat in the centre of Ovindoli and walked around a little bit, but we all were really tired and it felt chilly in the evening as we hadn't brought any warm clothes, so we got back to the hotel and to bed quite early.

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Day trip to Ovindoli

After we came from Finland on the 20th of August, we did lots of nice things here in Italy before school started again. We also have many things to look back at from our summer in Finland and I will try to write about them as soon as I have some time.
Life gets hectic when the children go back to school and I try to get some work done while they are at school. Carlotta only goes short days the first week. I'm glad that she seems very happy with her new school and really hope it will continue like that! Daniele's week started with home work and he had to do some of his summer home work that he didn't manage to do during summer. He really had too much of it and I don't think that you should start school already fed up with it, but they should have time to forget about school for a while and just go out and do things they don't have time to do when they go to school. Sofia didn't get any home work yet and she has had time to go horse riding twice this week, which she is really happy about! Then we have bought long lists of school material to all three children and the book shops and the stationery shops are all full of people doing the same thing, so it's quite stressing.
Anyway, back to nicer things and lovely summer memories. It was very warm here in Rome when we got back here from Finland. On the first Sunday the whole family spent a day in Ovindoli in the mountains about 150 km from Rome. When we came out from the car the nice fresh air met us. It was about 25 degrees, so it was warm without being too hot and humid and of course the air is cleaner than in Rome. We spent the day with Marzia and her family. First we went to see the horses, but there were so much people that we didn't go horse riding this time. Instead, the children went jumping on the big trampolines.

Then we had a nice pick nick. Ovindoli is full of nice pick nick places, but as it was quite crowded every where, we just stayed in the garden below Marzia's and Fabio's flat. There's a little garden that everyone in the residence can use.

Their daughter Cecilia has become quite a jewellery maker, she makes nice beaded jewellery and she also sells it. In the afternoon we went to the nice little town Rocca di Mezzo where Cecilia earned some pocket money. Then time for us to get back to Rome again.

School started

Today schools started here in Rome. Daniele went to the same school as last year, Sofia too, but her class room moved to another building. Now it's in the same as Daniele's and Carlotta moved to a new school as she finally got a place in the public school. Luckily enough, there were four girls from the school where she went last year, so it was no problem to leave her at school today. I have to get her at 1, Daniele at 2 and Sofia at 4 p.m today. I will get some work done today and the off to get Carlotta and hear what she thinks of the new school!

Zoo-zoo-zoomarine!

Today we went to the theme park Zoomarine together with Marzia and her children, Marzia's sister and her children and two other friends of Sofia and Daniele with their baby sitter. We spent the whole day there. The park is not too big, so the bigger children were free to run around between the water slides and the roller coasters and only Carlotta and Olimpia stayed with us adults. We spent quite a lot of time by the swimming pool, went to see the seal show, as we saw the dolphin show last time and then we went to the 4D cinema. Carlotta said the 4D cinema was even more scaring than Santa Claus and that she never wanted to go there again! All the children seemed to enjoy themselves and the weather was perfect, a bit windy, so it wasn't too warm, but the sun was shining, so it wasn't cold either. A nice day!