Have Wheels Will Travel

July 14

We bought a convertible mini cooper off the "lemon lot" here on base.  We love it!  More importantly we love having a car and being mobile.  The car we shipped isn't due until mid-August.  It's a stick with european specs so we don't have to do math to know how badly we are speeding :)  Soooo, when Saturday came around we wanted to take a little road trip...get out of Naples...explore. 

We know that the mini and the Amalfi Coast go hand-in-hand but not yet, too crowded right now.  Will researched a place in the Abruzzo region in the mountains about two hours away, Pescocostanzo.  Perfect!  Family of four into one duffel bag, squeeze it in, let's go.

Ahhhh, I can feel the decompression as we get out into the countryside and the mountains get bigger.  What a nice drive.  We get to the town, now what?  We know the name of a place to stay, oh, there's one too.  Let's stop and ask where this one is.  Pescoconstanza is a BEAUTIFUL, small village with cobblestone streets, flowers everywhere, rustic buildings, immaculately clean.  It looked like a Hollywood setting.  We stop in the piazza and ask a poor italian soul where this certain B&B is.  She tells us "qua" (here), so Will parks the family in the car and runs down the little hill to see if they had a room.

Did I mention that it was riposo?  (time of day for rest, things close for a bit, all is quiet).  Did I mention that our "new" car has a special alarm system that you have to hold your mouth right to turn off and that Will hadn't shown Paige how to turn off yet?  Well, guess what went off as Will ran down the hill, while we were illegally parked in the piazza (town center, you know, fountain and all)?  Yes!  The stupid alarm!  We're here!  Hey, look at us stupid americans, as if you didn't notice us already.  I must also mention that it is not tourist season here (which is why we chose it).  People flock here in the winter to ski.  Italians vacation here off season too.  Anway, rescue man came running back up the hill and saved the day.  The fact that he said "I'm sorry" to the villagers poking there heads out of the shops instead of "mi dispiace" is a whole 'nother story :)

After our grande entrance we were warmly escorted by the B&B owner to the proper place to park our car and of course they had a room.  In fact, they had two rooms, one for the bambinos, one for the marito e moglie (kids, husband and wife).  Yeah!  After checking in, we set out to walk the town.  Here's some pictures.

    

I think you are going to get sick of seeing our faces in all of these pictures, but notice the flowers is this one.  They were like that everywhere! 

There just happens to be a church there, the Santa Maria del Colle, that contains amazingly beautiful artwork.  Here is the ceiling. 

...and that is just the ceiling!  Well, you get the drift.  We had a great time, saw more of Italy, decompressed, worked out some kinks in our travel mojo, got to know the car, and were so close that we had a relaxing Sunday afternoon at home.   Che bello!  (How nice!)