Fregene

Domenico, the plumber, arrived as promised, this morning. Unfortunately, he was unable to fix the boiler and in fact discovered it had a broken part which needs to be replaced. We are hopeful that he will be able to find the part, and fix the problem tomorrow. Meanwhile, we're back to boiling water to wash up (again).

It was an absolutely beautiful day. But, by the time the plumber left, and everyone was ready to go, it was already 11:30. At this time of day, our drive to the beach was an hour instead of 30 minutes. Italians don't like to get up early on Sunday. So if we can get ourselves going by 10am we are well ahead of the pack. In any case, we drove to the beach at Fregene. The family of a classmate of Olivia's (and friends of ours too) has a house there, and belong to a beach club. They invited us to use their cabana and the facilities.

The beach club, Albos, was the nicest we've frequented thus far. Coincidentally, we saw a couple of other families from Rome International School there. Or, I should say, Charlotte recognized them. The club had four or so volleyball courts set up on the sand, and their was a calcio pitch set up with nets and all. There were also two playgrounds on the sand including a climbing wall and slides. For lunch we ate at the tavola calda, the informal grill, but there was also a fancier restaurant for seated meals upstairs. And all on the beach. But, most importantly, the club had a "TV room" with a nice flat screen were Josh could watch the Giro d'Italia's epic climb up Monte Zoncolan. It was a grueling 6 hours and 20 minutes for the stage winner today; my favorite, Ivan Basso!

The kids swam and played in the water; but it was still too cold for me. As we were standing near the shore, Olivia asked me "does this beach go all the way to France?" Yes it does. A long way away, but yes. Avery built volcanoes in the sand and collected shells to decorate. At the end of the day, Avery had even more sand in all of his crevices than Olivia. Between them, that's a lot of sand! Thankfully, the cabana had a private shower -- hot water included! So, we all showered and changed before getting back in the car.

We had spent the entire afternoon at the beach and by now it was almost 7pm. We drove into the quaint town center, and decided to have our Sunday pizza dinner in Fregene -- at the very same restaurant that we patronized on our 2nd day in Rome and our first visit to Fregene. I remember thinking (and writing in the Day 2 blog entry) how great the food was; and now, after spending some time in this country, I think its only average. Still, it's a super fun place for the kids who played on the swings and the little toy rides.

Two minutes after getting in the car for the drive home, Avery was asleep. We'd had a very fun day at the beach.