Thursday, July 20

We drove across the country to San Marino. Pretty uneventful, but one highlight was the many tunnels we went through. The kids slept most of the way.

As we got off the autostrada, we started heading up in elevation. As we kept going up, we realized that we were heading towards a cliff and a little mountain with a picturesque fortification on top. We kept assuming that we would turn off the road before we got to the top, but we truly made it within a couple hundred meters of the end of the road. We stayed at the Hotel Rosa, a picturesque, quaint, and quite pleasant hotel within the city walls of San Marino. After wrangling our cars through the crowd on the mostly pedestrian street, we walked around, Ben bought some Harry potter themed souviners, and we had another pizza dinner. It was a nice, calm, fun night. Erin bought Sam a candle for his birthday. We had more gelato. We tried more of the wine from Pisa and the wineries Sara and Erin had visited. It was a great night.

Friday, July 21

We got up, had an outdoor breakfast at the hotel, and walked the three towers of San Marino. Amazing views! We headed back to the hotel, packed up, and said our goodbyes to Erin, Avery, and Hayden, and headed to Ancona. We were early, but the directions on our reservation indicated we had to be there quite early. I stayed with the kids while Sara returned the car at the airport and came back in a taxi. Sam and Max and I walked briefly to the (working) pier, looked at the fishing boats, looked at some fish in the water, walked to an island fortress, and headed back. After so much travel, it was a tough day again. We boarded a bus to the pier at 5:30, got in line, and finally started boarding a little after 6pm. The boat left after 8pm some time. We had hors d’ouvres and dinner on the boat and went to bed. The cabin was warm and stuffy, but bearable.