Thursday, May 21, 2009

Vote for our Next Vacation

Vanessa and I are thinking about where to travel to next. Help us plan our 2011 vacation by voting in the column on the right.

Our last day in Italy

We made it back to Florence this morning. Cortona was beautiful. A few shops and a fantastic view. It sits on top of a large hill, looking over the valley.





It was very peaceful there and allowed Vanessa and I a chance to rest and gather our thoughts as we prepare to come back to the "real" world.

Once we got back into the city, we finished our shopping and decided to have dinner at the pizzeria where we ate the first night. It was the best pizza place we experienced. One more gelato. And now we have to get our luggage ready to go home.

Arriverderci Italy!

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Our Next Move

We head for Cortona in the morning. We willnot have internet at our hotel, so we will post next on Thursday when we are back in Florence.

Sights around Rome





















St. Peter Basilico









Vatican Museum

We had a guided tour through the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel. Our guide was a nice young lady who was originally from Florida and has been living in Rome for four years to study art history. Vanessa and I both agree she was the best guide we have had on our trip.

We were very happy to learn we could take picture all through the museum and St. Peter Basilica. The only place we could not take pictures was in the Chapel.












Trevi Fountain

Vanessa and I checked out Trevi Fountain, and made sure we threw our three coins in to insure we return to Rome some day.




Monday, May 18, 2009

We made it to Rome

Our train ride to Rome was very nice. We were are the Eurostar which is the fast train that travels around Europe. Once in Rome we took a taxi to the hotel. Our room was not ready (which we expected), but we were able to drop our bags and go out.

We had pre-booked our hop on/hop off bus for two days, but we quickly found out that it was not the same company we used in Florence and after looking for 45 minutes for the one we had booked we decided to go with the tour we knew.

This afternoon we had the crypts and catacombs tour, very interesting. We visited one catacomb, one 12 century church that was built upon a 4 century church which was built upon a 1 century house and neighborhood. The last place we visited was the Capuchin Crypt where the monks decorated their chapels with the bones of all the dead monks.

It's late and we are exhausted, so I did not get pictures download. I promise lots of pictures tomorrow.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Even more sights around Florence




Lunch!


Sunday in Florence

Vanessa and I hit the ground running this morning to do some power shopping in the huge open air market that is close to our hotel. We were able to get almost all of our gift buying done (Bill can breath a sigh of relief, I am not coming home with a new pair of shoes...lol). It was a good day.

We had our wine and cheese tasting tonight. It was a lot of fun, it was at a hip little wine bar close to the Pitti Palace, and our guide was very knowledgeable about the wine. There was only four of us, so were able to ask a lot of questions. We tasted 3 white wines and 3 red wines with 4 cheeses and some meats. I bought one of the white wines to bring home. Vanessa did very well, and was able to control the icky face up to the last red wine. (I'm so proud of her...lol)

Tomorrow we head for Rome!

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Tuscany

Today we did a day trip into the Tuscany country side. We visited two towns. San Gimignano and Siena.
San Gimignano is a medieval town full of towers. In fact it has the most towers still standing in all of Tuscany. The quaint little town sits high up on a hill and is surrounded with stone walls. We found wonderful shops there, in-fact we could have used a couple more hours. I found some nice white wine to bring home and a beautiful ceramic clock for the kitchen.



We can see why people fall in love with Tuscany - the views are absolutely wonderful!


In Siena we had a walking tour which took us up and down the streets (literary). We climbs so many stairs and very steep streets I told Vanessa I earned two Gelatos tonight - but I settled for one big one...lol.

We visited the huge cathedral there. It is full of wall paintings and sculptures - some completed by Michelangelo.




Friday, May 15, 2009

Cinque terre

We took the very early train (6:10 AM) to Cinque Terre on Thursday morning. It was Vanessa and my first adventure on the train. I am happy to say all went well, we even figured out how to take an earlier train back to the city this afternoon.

The beach at Cinque Terre was very nice. We had use of 2 beach lounge chairs and an umbrella thanks to our hotel. The surf was rough so we just enjoyed the sun and had a very lazy afternoon - reading and watching the water and poking around the cute shops.

Dinner was not our best. We both got excited when they brought us the big salad, but then our shrimp was served. We each only had about 4 shrimp with heads and everything attached. We had a much better dinner tonight back in Florence.



Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Thursday

We will not have Internet connection on Thursday,so we will be unable to enter anything on our blog...we promise to have wonderful pictures of Chinque Terre on Friday.

Cooking Class

Tonight we had our cooking class. We made:

Tomatoes stuffed with rice



Baked Cannelloni with Bechamel Sauce


Chicken Aretina

and Chocolate Cake


Other pictures from our class:
Yes Brandon, thats your Mom using a LARGE knife...lol

our cooking mates