Nothing Like "Bar Food"

Preparations for our departure continue. We have created a folder with tabs for each major phase of the trip (Frankfurt, Verona, Tuscany, Cinque Terra, Paris), and put the various reservation, tickets, vouchers, Google maps (and/or Driving Directions) behind the appropriate tabs. Annie and I did that from 10 to midnight last night

The driving directions are wild. An excerpt from the Firenze (Florence) Train station to our place in Tuscany reads: "Slight left at Lungarno Guglielmo Pecori Giraldi" then go 0.2 KM and it turns into "Lungarno del Tiempo" then go 0.4 KM and it turns into "Lungarno Cristoforo Colombo" then go 0.9 KM and it turns into "Lungarno Aldo Moro". You can almost sense that these roads were established in the days of chariots. The street signs must be huge.

We are thinking ahead about food. We have learned from other travels that eating when you are hungry is expensive in travel mode; even in cheap countries. So we decided to bring some snack food we can have handy to stave off hunger until we can find cheaper food. To do this, we taste tested a bunch of different "energy" or "granola" bars, hoping to find one that we can all stand to eat. I missed the big family taste test, but got this picture of the choices. We still need to choose one and buy a few boxes. The "Think Thin" bars made us all viciously gassy. They won't be going.

Next steps include deciding which of the maybe 30 lbs of guidebooks we should bring. Don't get me wrong; we love Rick Steves, but we can only carry so much...