No Time to Sleep!!!

Sixteen cities in sixteen days...yes, we have been busy.

Quick update.  After returning from our Roma tour we took 3 days to rest/go to Lake Barcis and drive up Piancavallo and then hit the road again.  This time to Cinque Terre and the Tuscany Region. 

We drove 5 hours to Camp Darby.

Saw Pisa for three hours...you only needed one.  Took the classic pictures...everyone was doing it.

Drew for Heisman!!!

Spent the next day hiking, hiking, picture, picture picture, hiking, hiking, swimming, hiking, picture, cliff diving, picture, and more hiking.  Five miles and one kilometer (that's our lazy conversion attempt!) and 5 towns later we had a gorgeous day.  We were sad for the clouds when our day began, after hiking uphill kilometer number one (of about 6) we were very thankful for the overcast weather and we all agreed it allowed us to complete the whole 5 miles!!

Sunday we left for small medieval towns in Tuscany...Volterra and San Gimignano.  Yes, that is Volterra, home of the Volturi for all you Twilight fans.  Don't be ashamed, we're fans too, and thought it was pretty dang cool!  So cool that Megan ordered New Moon gelato...yes, the town is capitalizing on its new found fame!  We spent the day exploring, shopping, and browsing the stores full of Alabaster...made in Volterra!  Climbed the Torre Grossa in San Gimignano (the Gross Tower or the Huge Tower...hmm)  But it was gorgeous!  Beautiful views of the rolling hills of Tuscany...wine country.  Took lots of pictures and tested the durability of sunglasses.  Drew's sunglasses fell off his shirt from 6 stories up in the tower.  They went bouncing all the way to the first floor with only a minor scratch on the lens.  Megan, however, dropped hers from her shirt to the ground while hiking Cinque Terre and they busted into 3 pieces...Drew won that battle.  Funny thing is they both bought them for 8 Euro from a street vendor in Rome!

Arrived home from that adventure around 10pm on Sunday night, but we weren't done yet.  We came home, re-packed and headed out for Croatia on Monday morning.  Papa, our grandpa, has family from Croatia so we thought it would be cool to see the country while the three of us were together.  We found a campsite on the Adriatic Sea in Croatia and we rested.  We cooked our dinner and breakfast on the beach with our mini Weber Kettle and enjoyed the sunshine and the ocean. 

While it was nice and relaxing, it wasn't the beach like we know it.  Siesta Key has spoiled us all with white sand and beaches the size of football fields.  We decided it was a combination of Siesta Key with the ocean and the Farm with the rocks by the river.  Hence a small rocky beach, but a beach is a beach.  And true to form, Drew and I bought Kadima (paddle ball) and played a few games out on the beach while Megan counted our hits.  We learned long ago that playing paddle ball with Meg was a lost cause!  She has now accepted that fact too, so we're all in happy agreement! 

While in the family spirit...you won't believe what we found there.  A playground in the ocean...yes, with an iceburg, a water trampoline, a slide, a seesaw, AND a blob!  You better believe we paid our 5 Euros for the hour (best 5 Euros we spent ALL trip :) to splash, jump, climb, and flop around the playground for the hour.  Hilarious.  We had no one to take our pictures while playing so our documentation is in the form of soreness and slight bruising.  It was well worth it! 

We bartered at the market and received a bracelet for a Bud Light and a Mikes Hard Lemonade.  They don't see many/any Americans in that area so the people were quite fascinated with the culture and anything "American" they could try!  Drew bought a pair of swim trunks and some sunglasses with 3 different currencies.  The Kunah (the Croatian currency), the Euro, and a 10 dollar bill.  The lady was amazed with the $10, she said she'd never seen that before!  Although for not meeting any Americans they spoke quite good English!  Drew asked the lady if she knew of anyone with the name Brmblic (Brombolich) because we had family there, but she didn't know of anyone :)  That was for you, Mama!!

We attempted to re-create a picture we all have framed of the three of us on the beach when we were kids walking in the water at sunset.  This was our closest attempt!!

We returned home on Tuesday night, Drew packed his things and we headed to the airport on Wednesday morning.  We left a sick Megan behind to rest and recover (I can't imagine why she would be sick!!)  Drew made it onto a flight to JFK and that's the last I've heard (his phone was a small casualty of the trip).  I assume he's arrived home by this point (fam...give us a call...hint, hint!).  I was sad to see Drew go, maybe a few tears.  We had such a fun trip with the three of us together...who would have thought we'd be able to spend all this time together and in ITALY!!!  This is the most time I've spent with Drew at one time since before I left for college and Meg since her summer at camp with me!  I'm a lucky girl to have such great family come to visit me!!!

So after many extra hours of sleep, some DayQuil, NyQuil, and vitamins Meg is beginning to feel a bit better.  She has 18 more hours to recover before we head out to Barcelona tomorrow morning with Taylor for the weekend!  More updates to come after our final trip! 

Buona famiglia, Buoni amici!!

Learning a thing or two...

Today we have a guest blogger...I know you're excited. It's my cousin, Megan! She's taking over the duty today, because I still have stuff I have to get done from work! Our family is getting spoiled by the blog...they can't believe there are no pictures or stories posted yet and Drew and Meg have been over here a week already! (How dare us not keep them informed, huh??? :) But truth be told, we haven't had time to sit down, literally. I'll let Megan explain...enjoy!

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Buon Giorno everyone! I feel so privileged to be able to write one of these, as I've been following Katie's since before she left on her trip around America over a year ago! I guess I'll go ahead and start at the beginning of Drew's and my adventure over here.
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We got in around 10 in the morning on Monday the 31st. We were greeted at the airport by Katie and her neighbor Rosario who she's written about in the blog before. He's fabulous and probably my new favorite person. Anyway, riding in the car home from Venice, it finally hit me that we were actually here and I got super excited. When we got home, Rosario insisted on making us spaghetti for lunch and bringing homemade wine over to drink, so we got our first authentic Italian meal as soon as we got here!
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The rest of our first day was relaxing enough, although exhausting for Drew and I because we were so jetlagged. Katie had a little memorial day BBQ with her friends from work and then Katie and I took a little walk around her town while Drew went to bed (at 6:00 pm!) from utter exhaustion. All the small little towns over where Katie lives are super cute and they are all built around a common centerpiece: a church and bell tower. Katie's town San Quirino has a cute little garden and field behind their church that we walked around that night and caught up.
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The next day we went into the little market at Aviano, the town that the Air Force base is in. We bought the most amazing provolone cheese and salami and ate them as a meal-replacer for the next couple of days till we left on our BIG FABULOUS trip all over Italy!
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On Wednesday we went into Venice for the day. What an amazing city! Katie told us that the best thing to do was to wander around the city and get lost. That wasn't a problem in the least bit. It is virtually impossible to navigate Venice with a map. The streets are all little alleys and they curve and turn into other little alleys. There are signs all over that point you towards Piazza San Marco and Rialto, the main bridge in the town. There are gondola's and men in striped shirts driving them all over the place, wanting 100 euro for a ride... we thought we'd pass on that one...
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Thursday morning (my birthday!) we all got up bright and early and started our fabulous journey! We got on a train to Bologna and arrived there around 10 am. It was raining a little, but most of the road we were walking on was covered, so it didn't bother us too terribly. We went into Piazza San Petronis first where we saw the fountain of Neptune, a Palazza (palace) and Basillica San Petronis. The Basillica was huuuuge and amazing inside, outside it looked kind of plain, but we were told the the city ran out of money to finish their original plans for making it beautiful as well as humongous. Next we walked down to Due Torre, two towers that were built a million years ago and are now leaning. Drew naturally decided we needed to climb up the taller of the two leaning towers and see the city from the top. I'm not afraid of heights, but climbing up the rickety, worn, wooden 497 steep stairs was not fun. It was definitely worth it though when we got to the top. The views of the city were amazing and we got some great pictures! (Yes, I'm putting them up!) The rest of the afternoon was spent walking around the University of Bologna's campus and having one of the best lunches we've had here. Around 2 we ran to catch our train to Florence.
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Florence was definitely my favorite city of the trip. When we got there we checked into our hostel and went out to find the Statue of David. We got a little lost, but finally found the entrance to the Academia and whoa, was David awesome. I didn't expect the statue to be so massive, but it's yet another of Michelangelo's amazing works of art that we saw in our travels. We were recommended to go see it and now we're recommending it to you, if you haven't seen it, you definitely need to!
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Our next day in Florence was spent shopping in markets, going to the Galleria Uffizzi and climbing the Duomo. The duomo was by far my favorite thing that we did on the trip. It is a massive cathedral that has a painted dome in the back of it. Climbing up the 463 stairs, that are made of stone and way safer, was no problem, especially when you got to the top and saw the most amazing view I've ever seen in my life. The Tuscan countryside is amazing: dotted with cathedrals and vineyards, rolling hills, the Arno river and Ponte Vecchio. It was truthfully breathtaking. You can obviously see the entirety of the city of Florence also. It's just so unbelievable. I'm in love! That night we had a great dinner of bistecca di fiorentia, a classic Florentine dish that is a simply cooked t-bone steak that was to die for, as well as some pasta and of course, vino!
We woke up the next morning and did a walking tour of the historical parts of Florence; saw some new things and learned some new things about buildings we'd already seen. We got on a train to Rome that afternoon and went to Piazza di Popollo, the Spansish steps and the Trevi Fountain. We had an early night that night and woke up bright and early the next day to go to the colloseum and Palatine Hill. We took a guided tour of both of those, which was well worth it because we learned so many cool and interesting facts about ancient Rome that helped make everything seem much more real. After our tours, we decided to walk to a few more piazza's and see the capitol building and some more statues and fountains. That night we went to see the Vatican and St. Peter's Basillica at night, because Katie said that was one thing we had to do and she was right! It was gorgeous! Definitely another recommendation if you haven't seen it already. We also went and got some more fabulous gelato and went back to the Trevi fountain and see that at night, which is unbelievable as well. It's all lit up perfectly, and again, we got amazing pictures.
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Yesterday morning we went to go do a guided tour of the Vatican-- an absolute must! It was so helpful to understand everything we were looking at and really get a good idea of the meaning behind statues and paintings; especially the Sistine Chapel!! They gave us a good description before hand, so we knew what we were looking at, and it helped tremendously. Michelangelo is truly an amazing artist and it shows in the Sistine chapel. The definition and shadowing in the paintings, as well as the detail and symbolism of the whole fresco are breathtaking. Afterwards we stood outside St. Peter's Basillica and learned some interesting facts about that before heading in alone to see it. It is hands down the most amazing church I have ever seen in my life. From the marble coating every surface you see to the gold and bronze ornate designs and altars to the paintings and sculptures that line the monstrous hallways, it is the most beautiful place I've ever been. We left St. Peters without climbing up to the top, as we had wanted to because we had booked our train back too early. Other than that though, we reallly did just about everything that we had wanted to.

We were talking yesterday on our way out of the Vatican and saying how we all felt that we had probably learned most of the stuff that we had re-learned over the weekend before in school, but it really doesn't take root until you see it all firsthand. Hands down, the past 6 days have been filled with the most amazing sights I have ever seen. You HAVE to come visit Katie. She's a fabulous tour guide!

Enjoy the pictures! these are just a few of the many we've taken.

 

Drew and I exploring a stream that Katie took us to see in Polcenigo

Katie and Drew on the Rialto bridge in Venice

Katie and me in front of the Basillica San Marco in Venice

Drew and me in front of Basillica San Petronis in Bologna

Drew sitting in a window of Torre Assinelli

The Due Torre-- the one on the right was the one we climbed up!

The Duomo!!!

Katie, Drew and me on top of the Duomo looking over Florence and Tuscany

Katie, Drew and me on Ponte San Trinita at sunset in Florence

Our fabulous pasta and bistecca dinner in Florence

Drew and me assuring our return to Rome by throwing a coin in the Trevi fountain

Drew and me in front of the Colloseum

In front of St. Peter's Basillica at night

The three of us in front of Trevi Fountain at night

In St. Peter's Square on our last day in Rome

Katie was a littttle exhausted! Waiting for our train home once we got into Venice

Shopping Day in Nove!

Alright so I had this post written a week ago and kept waiting to include some pictures, but it's not gonna happen at this point, so I'm just posting it!!


Last Saturday the girls planned a shopping day down to the town of Nove where they make ceramics.  I wrote about this in a previous blog entry, but it's a town about two hours away that houses all the factories which produce ceramics for Williams Sonoma, Lenox, Tiffany's...etc.  I bought many of my Christmas gifts there for family this year.  Unfortunately, two of my gifts broke in the mail so I was finally able to replace the Christmas gifts yesterday.  I'll get them mailed out soon.  Christmas in June!  I was also able to make some purchases for myself...they have so many beautiful things!!

All five of us were traveling in Meredith's truck.  It is an American size truck on Italian size roads...I don't know how she does it!  Anyway, needless to say it stands out like a sore thumb in any parking lot, because it is difficult to fit it into one space!  While outside of one of the ceramic factories there was a little boy (around 2ish) and his grandfather admiring our "grande machina" (big car). The grandfather was taking the boy around the truck and letting him stand in the bed of it while we were loading our boxes of ceramics into the back.  I started talking to the man because he knew a little English.  He asked where I was from and I said the United States, usually that answer is sufficient for anyone asking over here.  But he asked where in the States and I said Tennessee.  He then told me (from the parts I understood) he had a son who was selling paintings at some convention type thing put on by Southern Living magazine in Nashville!  He said he went to visit him for two weeks and stayed at the "Gay Opera Hotel".  I took that as a translation of Gaylord Opryland Hotel.  He said it was "bellisima" (beautiful) with the gardens and the river inside.

The world is really small!