Cinque Terre again... aka Heaven!

Spring is here! And soon it will be summer in Florence :) I had a spectacular week outside and in the sun last week. I enjoyed the leather market, shopping for summer-ish clothes and a few beautiful walks in the Boboli Gardens at Pitti Palace. I have been going there for morning workouts every so often, and discovered going at around 9 am is the PERFECT time explore. I literally have the massive gardens to myself for over an hour and have a ton of fun jogging and hiking up and down the hills. Pitti Palace is just my favorite place in all of Florence I think.

Those are just a few sights I stopped at in the gardens to take pictures of, and the last is the three of us when we visited the gardens on Friday. Another fun thing Maddy, Shandie and I did this week was go out to eat at Acqua al Due to have Florentine steak! Yes, we splurged. I spent 17 euro on the best steak of my entire life. It was a fillet with balsamic sauce, and it was the only thing I had (not even wine because it was expensive) but it was worth EVERY penny. Maddy and Shandie had the one with blueberry sauce which is famous here, but I don't like blueberries so I had the balsamic (which the waitress recommended). I want it again tonight. It was the first steak I've had since Christmas! My mouth waters talking about it...

                     Yes, it looks like tar, but you have no idea how sweet and delicious it was!!

Okay so on to this weekend (because I will spare you the boring details of class this past week). Saturday morning we woke up to head out to Cinque Terre with ISA, my study abroad program! Our train left at 10, so we woke up extra early and visited the food market in Piazza della Republica near by. There we picked up some yummy soft biscotti for the train and off we were to Cinque Terre!

If you remember, I already had visited the towns of Cinque Terre with Tate when he visited, but this time it was warmer and therefore sunnier, and I got to do a few different things. The weather was BEAutiful most of the time, and I even got a little sunburnt on my face and chest - yes! The water was my favorite color blue, so clear you could see the rocks underneath. We hiked the first day, but it was only a 30 minute trail and I wouldn't even call it a hike... it was a big paved trail along the mountain from Riomaggiore to Manarola (the 1st and 2nd of the 5 towns along the coast). But it was still beautiful and we climbed down a very steep path to reach the rocks on the shore of the water. We also walked around the beach for a long time in Monterosso (where we stayed, the 5th and last town) and put our feet in the freeeezing water, but we didn't care! We were on the Mediterranean coast!For dinner we took the 5 minute train to Vernazza for dinner. Did I mention we also ended up eating way too much focaccia bread and pesto on this trip? It's their specialty! Sooo yummy!

Sunday we did the long but amazing hike from Monterosso to Vernazza. It's a little more challenging, mostly because you are going straight uphill for the first 30 minutes, but after that it's just fun with some beautiful views. I have a lot of pictures with my new camera (which I'm learning to love very much). We stayed in Vernazza to explore for a long time, and at lunch we sat outside and ate. Fact: Maddy got pooped on by a huge bird. It was hilarious, and gross, and still hilarious. And in the process of us laughing and her trying to get cleaned up, and old Italian man came by and yelled at us in Italian for making a mess and telling us to clean it up. I love language barriers. Awesome. But anyways, after that we hung out in the town for a while, had the best gelato, and then took a train to Riomaggiore. This was probably our favorite stop because it was a little boating town you could just get lost in (well, all the towns kind of are...). We climbed down (almost fell into the ocean a few times) over the rocks on the shore and finally made it to a huge one where we could lay out in the sun. So for the last hour we got some sun :) at around 5 we decided to take the ferry back so we could pass all 5 towns, so YES we got to ride a boat! Finally, I've wanted to ride a boat the whole time I've been here. We arrived back in Florence at around 10 last night, so we were exhausted.

Today I have been very homesick for some reason. I miss the little things, like Starbucks, going to 24 hour to workout, our huge grocery stores, Chipotle, driving my beloved car that misses me, Target, real cable to watch real movies and shows when I just want to relax, and especially my family and friends. Heck, I even miss Texas heat. But I have about 5 1/2 weeks till my program ends and my dad gets here to visit, so I'll make it. This coming weekend I have our huge Almafi Coast trip to Sorrento, Capri and Pompeii! We have been looking forward to this trip since we got here. And then on Easter weekend Maddy and I are planning on going to Barcelona, Spain! Yes! So I have plenty coming up to keep me busy so I don't drown in school nonsense. :)

P.S. here are a few other things I've had to paint in art:

"More of Everything! Shoes for Everyone!"

More of everything seemed to be the theme of the week with my mom and aunt, and if you've seen Sex and the City 2, then you recognize the "shoes for everyone!" reference :) More food, more walking, more museums, did I mention more food? We ate our way through Florence. Eat, Pray, Love turned into Eat, Walk, Eat. But anyways, we had a BLAST the whole time, so no complaints!

(Side note, pictures from my aunt's camera are to come soon, my camera has decided to retire in Assisi.)

I took my mom and aunt to my favorite places around the city (there is a bird cooing in my window right now, how cute!) on Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. Monday we were in Assisi as I wrote earlier, and Thursday we took a day trip to Venice. They loved shopping through the San Lorenzo leather market where oddly we ended up with scarves every time, not leather goods... but we also visited the church of San Lorenzo (the church of the Medici Family) and saw both the Old Sacristy and New Sacristy chapels (New done by Michelangelo). I gave them a guided tour of the Uffizi Gallery and Acedamia (where the David is located) which took up the better part of Tuesday, but Wednesday was our favorite. I took them to Pitti Palace first thing in the morning to see the royal apartments and Boboli gardens. The apartments are a section of the palace still decorated and filled with original furnishings from the 1500s up to the 1800s, and they are spectacular. We also lucked out because right as we were entering, an older male employee was offering a free tour of the King's apartments that are not open to the public, and we were the only participants! So my mom, aunt and I were privately taken into the kings apartments for a tour, and it was very cool! I kept asking the guide very sweetly if we could use one of the doors to the MANY hidden passage ways, and three times a charm! He let us walk across the room through the original passage door into a large bathing room, which he said he had never let anyone do before :) We also walked around the Boboli gardens, a huge area behind the palace that is completely green and great for exploring. I actually went on a cardio workout there yesterday because it is so large and beautiful. Anyways, all in all I think Pitti Palace was everyone's favorite stop.

After Pitti we tried a restaurant for lunch sitting over the Arno river by Ponte Vechio that my Aunt Linda had found in a Rick Steves book. It had yummy salads and wine with a perfect view of the river! We drank a lot of wine on this trip... like a lot of wine, between lunch, hotel happy hour and dinner, but we were on vacation so we didn't care! It was all fun.

Thursday we woke up bright and early and caught a train to Venice! This was also about the time that the hotel maids realized I was sleeping on the extra couch in the hotel room and finally made me a bed with sheets on it, so thanks maids at Hotel Davenzanti! But back to Venice, we hopped on the 2 hour train ride and had the entire day to explore and walk along the water. It was a beautiful day, and we got to go on a gondola ride on the grand canal! We ate lunch at a restaurant overlooking the open body of water as well in the sun and I can't imagine a more beautiful time. The best part of the trip was out last stop for a drink next to the Rialto Bridge before we left to go back to Florence. We were sitting next to the water, and all was beautiful, so when we asked for some bread and the waiter pointed to something on the menu with no price, we were in our happy place and said sure! That sounds great! An entire cheese, olives and meat plate with bread came out, and we knew it was going to be pricey, but whatever! We're in Venice! Yeah, 30 euro that freaking meat plate cost us! Thanks a lot waiter! But it was worth the relaxing view for an hour. As my aunt says, "Oh well! It's just money!". I think that's another phrase we should add that sums up our week. Ha!

Friday I took them to the huge food market so they could experience something local. They loved it, and we all ended up with different food items (lots of dried fruit for me!). We also visited the two main churches of Florence, Santa Maria Novella and Santa Croce, where Michelangelo and Galileo are buried. This was also a beautiful sunny day. We were blessed with great weather this week. For our last dinner, we ended with another visit to Dante's, my favorite restaurant, which ended with lots of wine and very happy packing back in the hotel room, haha! It was a great week that flew by, and I miss my mom and aunt already :(

Yesterday I worked out for a bit in the Boboli gardens and then took a nap because my family wore me out big time. Today I ventured to the outskirts of Florence to visit a mall with a place called Media World. I bough a new camera because as you've noticed from the lack of pictures, mine is gone in Assisi somewhere. Hopefully this one will last a lot longer than the last! I had to take the tram for the first time, but luckily I got off at the right stop and didn't get lost. On the tram ride back, a woman photographer was sitting across from me and asked if I had ever been a model, and If I would like to be one of her models! She was very sweet, and gave me her website and information to contact her. We'll see if it ever happens! I could use the extra money!

Ciao!

My Mom and Aunt have made the trip to Florence!

I know I know, I haven't updated in a week! I have been occupied entertaining my mom and aunt Linda here in Florence and we have had a blast so far. They both arrived at around 1pm on Friday morning but surprise! Their luggage decided to vacation in Paris during their layover. Ha. So they had no luggage for the majority of the day, but luckily it arrived in the evening so it wasn't so bad! I was excited to show them around Florence so first things first, there was no way I was letting them "take a nap" after their travels :) I told them they needed to get on the right sleeping schedule, so we checked into the Davenzanti Hotel and off we went to explore the city! I gave them a quick walking tour of my area, apartment (they weren't happy about the 80 stairs) and across the river, and we grabbed a glass of wine in the Piazza della Signoria to enjoy the scenery.

Luckily by the time our hotel's lovely free happy hour arrived at 6:30, their bags were just making their way to the hotel in time for them to freshen up for dinner at my favorite restaurant, Dante's. We all had amazing pasta dishes with red wine and bread, but after dinner we called it an early night because we had to wake up at 6:30 the next morning for our tour of Tuscany!

First let me start off by saying what a great hotel they are staying at. Free happy hour a night, huge breakfast with cappuccinos, tons of free movies, very nice rooms, free wifi with a computer in the room to use, and a very very helpful staff to make any sort of reservations you need. We have been spoiled. But moving on, Saturday we woke up at the crack of dawn to make our "Best of Tuscany" guided tour trip which includes two wine tastings, 3 towns and a tour of the Brunello winery. It was the best tour I have experienced so far! We had so much fun, the day was packed. There was only about 15 people in our group so it was a great size, and the first town we arrived at was Montepulciano. If you have seen New Moon, or like Twilight at ALL, this is where all of the "Volturi" scene was filmed at the end of New Moon. Yes. I stood where Edward/Rob stood. The Doorway. The elevator. The building. It was so cool! My mom and I were a little excited if you can't tell. They even played the New Moon movie on the bus ride up - ha! But this was definitely not all there was to the town (as excited as I was). It is a beautiful hill town with much to explore, including one of the oldest wineries. Here we also had a wine tasting at a local winery (not the oldest one) where we tasted 3 types of Montepulciano wines with bread and olive oil in a cellar. It was also 10:30 in the morning. Welcome to Italy! We stayed and explored the town for a few hours after and eventually made it back to the bus to head to Pienza. Pienza was smaller than Montepulciano and offered a cheese tasting, which I took no part in. I don't like cheese. And the smell of the great Italian cheeses almost made me sick on the spot, so I have to say I passed on this little tasting, but my mom and aunt enjoyed it!

First wine tasting 

             Edward stood here!!!

 New Moon!!

After Pienza we were supposed to head straight to the Brunello winery, but since our old yet enthusiastic tour guide Francesco said we had 30 extra minutes, he wanted to take us to his favorite Tuscan church. It was beautiful. We drove for 20 minutes into the Tuscan hills which seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, nothing but scenery around, and then there it was! A huge white church in the middle of the countryside. What a bonus! The only downside was it had gotten very cold, almost rainy. But we got to go inside a look around for a bit before heading to the Brunello winery. This is where the fun really began. Brunello wine is prided as the best, or one of the best, in Italy, and most of it is pretty expensive. Lucky for us, the very old owner, Mario, loved our group and all of the blondes, and we earned some special treatment! We began with a tour showing how the wine is made and stored, and what goes into making Brunello wine. Then we were taken down to a room with a long dinning table for our testing. Between wines we had never ending meats, cheeses, bread and oil, and we enjoyed glasses of the three wines we were mean't to taste. But no! Mario loved us all, and at this point everyone had been drinking all day and we were all in a great mood, so he brought us another wine to taste! Enough? No! Free grappa shots for everyone! (Grappa is somewhere around 60% alcohol). The end? NO! Another wine to taste for everyone! At this point, everyone was taking silly pictures and Francesco reminded us that we were about 40 minutes past when we were supposed to head back to Florence, so we should leave this kind family and their winery... but not before they handed out the ordering forms for wine. And it was delicious so we all bought some. What a great day!

 Church in the middle of the country

Brunello tasting!!

The next day I took my mom and aunt around to my favorite cafe, the San Lorenzo leather market and church, and a visit to the exhibition visiting of Dali, Picasso and Miro. We then hit up happy hour at the hotel, and went to dinner at a restaurant recommended by the hotel where Maddy met up with us to eat. The restaurant was not the best and over priced, so we decided to stick with my favorite places from now on. But overall, a very good day!

Mom and I in front of Duomo

Today we visited Assisi, which is in the region of Umbria, not Toscana. I had been but they had not, and sadly there was pretty much an arctic wind all day, but we did not let it ruin our day! It actually turned out to be my aunts favorite small town we visited, and if you haven't been there you should visit it sometime! It's beautiful, and the church of St. Francis is still my favorite. We had a great lunch at a cute restaurant and went about visiting churches and ruins without other tourists getting in the way - we were some of the only few there. The whole town along with the surrounding country is breathtaking and fun to explore. I love Assisi, so I'm glad they did too!

Last, when we returned to Florence, we realized my camera had vanished. I am still very upset about this!! I'll have to get another soon. I'm so mad! We have no clue where it could have gone, and I was never irresponsible about my things, so I think it evaporated. Whatever the case, I'm down one camera and will have to go buy a new one. Awweessommee. :(