Italy 7-8: Is that bus passing us?

We rented a car in Florence and took two days to drive to Pordenone. My brother-in-law's aunt (Aunt Suzy) lives in Pordenone - about an hour northeast of Venice. She's lived out there for over 15 years and has a condo in the city. She let us stay with her a few days. I'd met her during her visits to Austin and she's a cool lady. It's only a few hours from Florence on the autostrada, but we wanted to take our time. Aunt Suzy recommended Ravenna as a good stopping point between Florence and Pordenone. The town is known for their mosaics. So, we picked up the car Saturday morning and got out of Florence. We rented a cute Fiat station wagon that fit all our luggage and the four of us just fine. Matt drove since he's comfortable with a stick. It was hella expensive, but well worth it. Matt did an excellent job. Getting out of Florence was a little nerve wracking since the Italians don't seem to understand the concept of 'lanes'. As soon as we got out of Florence we got off the autostrada and took a backroad over the mountains. It was so beautiful. It was rainy so the pictures didn't come out as good as they could've, but here's one of the better shots. It was actually a good thing it was raining since it made Matt go kinda slow on the mountain road. If we'd been going normal speed I think I would have gotten car sick. It was really really windey (sp?). At least they had good guard rails on the edges of the drop off.


We got to Ravenna with no problem and checked out the major churches. Here are some pictures. When you walk in, you think they're just paintings. Then you look closer and realize all these images are made of tiny tiny colored tiles. It was so amazing.


Church that had some of the mosaics...cool architecture.


We walked around the city at night and found the most awesome chocolate shop. The owner spoke some English and we talked with her for quite awhile. They even had chocolate made with Absinthe! That's the alcohol that's illegal here cause it's so strong. It didn't smell that good, though.


Here's an interesting photo showing how Italy really incorporates the old with the new.


Anyways, on Sunday we got back onto the autostrada since we wanted to make it to Pordenone during daylight. There were speed signs posted quite clearly, and Matt was going about 20km over the posted sign. We were getting passed by a lot of cars, but didn't want to push our luck and get a ticket or something. So, we just kept doing our speed.....until a huge bus started passing us! At that point we agreed that if a bus is going that fast, the posted signs must just be a suggestion and not really a speed limit. We asked Aunt Suzy about it later, and she said your speed really just depends on how good your car is and that cops don't check the autostrada. Good to know.