Swimming in the Mediterranean and Seeing Etruscan Ruins in Roselle

Thursday, March 21, 2013

The weather on Thursday was absolutely beautiful making it into the 60s. We promised the boys that on the first nice day in Tuscany they could go swimming in the Tyrrhenian Sea (which is part of the Mediterranean) even though it would be absolutely freezing water! Knowing that their "swimming" would last all of a quick dip, we went to the beach at Principina a Mare prior to exploring the Etruscan ruins. We had the beach almost completely to ourselves.

There was so much driftwood on shore - made for some handy seats.

Noah and Josiah using driftwood as their ship.

They are already chilly and hadn't even gotten more than their feet wet yet.

It was so chilly, in fact, that Tracy had on a fleece
with a blanket wrapped around him.

Their plan was to dig pits to jump into after swimming so that the wind
would not freeze them while cold and wet. Might have been a good thought,
but then they would have been covered in sand and need to rinse off again.

Josiah was the first to take the plunge and proud of it! Noah was just
about to dunk under while Joel was still trying to convince himself
that this was really worth it.

Noah made a beeline to his towel.

Micah and Joel finally worked up the nerve to go all the way under. It didn't
count to go just waist high. Tracy and I did a good job cheering them on from
shore but wouldn't have taken the plunge without a lot of money involved.
In running to his towel, Joel tripped over a piece of driftwood and ended up
having to go in again to rinse off the sand. Guess he could have used his
pit after all!

The boys dried off at the car and gladly changed back into dry clothes. From there, we headed to Roselle, another short drive from Grosseto. The beach we were at was only about 10 Km away as well. It sure was nice to not be spending as much time in the car. That being said, we all loved the drives through the countryside of Italy, even the hairy drives where the roads were washing out and we just weren't sure if these roads were safe for traveling. I wasn't taking pictures at that point but more praying and gripping the hand rails in the car!

An old Roman road

Joel looked at me and said, "I just can't believe I am
standing on a 3000 year old road!"

It was neat to see all of the wagon wheel ruts in the rocks.

The public Forum area that would have been used for government.

The crew standing in one of the five or six entrances
into the amphitheatre area.

We were given a map for a self-guided tour. By the time we reached this
area of the ruins, the boys were much more interested in the geckos they
were catching rather than hearing more about the ruins.

Some of the oldest digs at this area date back to 7th century B.C.

From the top of the hill overlooking the Forum area.

Beautiful Tuscan country-side

One of the areas still had some mosaic flooring still intact.

So excited to see this mosaic floor!

The remains of one of the public bath areas. The boys just couldn't get
 over the idea of public bath houses. Frankly, I couldn't either!