catching up!

o.k. so i've been MIA for the past month...and i've gotta somehow catch you up on florence, rome, stratford, more london, and vienna.

it's definitely been a wonderfully full month, but i'll just start from the beginning:

~Florence~

we took a series of overnight trains from nice to florence, which was an adventure. first stop: ventimiglia, italia. it was this little town right on the mediterranan, with mountains creeping right up to the beaches. we stopped for out first italian gelato, served by an older italian man with a pastel yellow sweater, blue pants, and little hair. he was adorable. we stuck around the beach to watch the sunset...one of the most beautiful sights i have ever seen. the green mountains, dotted with colorful italian villas, framed by a brilliant orange sun and sea.

stunning. i wonder if the people who have lived here all their lives can still appreciate and stop to notice the natural beauty that surrounds them.

then we had two more trains to take until florence. italian train stations are not the prettiest places to be at 12am and 2am. at the very least, it was a long night and something i never want to do again. the sunset and the stations gave me complete opposite impressions of italy.

i love how the italians do pizza and wine instead of the american pizza and beer. classy.

anyways, we arrived in florence at 5:30 in the morning, and treked to our hostel while the city was just beginning to wake up. not a great first impression of florence, but i was also pretty cranky from being up all night. luckily, our hostel had the rooms ready and we were able to sleep for a few hours before the real day began.

fleur-de-lis were all over the city...wooo kappa!

duomo, david, markets, churches...we did the whole deal. got a beautiful vista of the city and land beyond at the top of a hill or something. but, by that night we felt as if we had seen plenty of florence aaaannnddd decided that the next day = wine tour!!

~tuscany~

wine tasting in the chianti region of tuscany...at the first place we were served white wine, peccorino cheese, jams, bread & olive oil, fruits, meats, red wine...it was wonderful. some of the best food i've ever had. mmmm i'm getting hungry just thinking about it... there were about 20 of us, ate at big tables and just were continuously fed and given wine refills...everyone was tipsy by the time we staggered back onto the bus. bus took us to a medieval walled village in the middle of tuscany for some free gelato, then onto casa sola to learn about the production of wine!

they make chianti classico, a very good tuscan wine, as well as a cheaper table wine, dessert wine, and "super tuscan". we got to try the first 3 i listed...the classico was definitely my favorite...while the dessert wine was like an unexpected shot of vodka. we learned a lot about what goes into making a bottle of wine, and how to make sure it's quality.

all in all, one of the best days of the trip...and i certainly liked it more than florence itself.

~roma~

our hostel was better than we expected! it turned out to be a block from vatican city and right near one of the best gelato places in the city.

day 1: dropped stuff off at the hostel, then went for some quick pizza before metroing it to the colesseum. you walk out of the metro stop and BOOM. only one of the greatest ancient architecture feats in the world. it was intense. it's tall, imposing, impressive, massive...unfortunately with all the tourists and movement you really had to use some imagination to picture what it was like back in its early days...supposedly women sat at the top with the peasants because the men were jealous of how the women were attracted to the gladiators (who would blame them)...also, all the tunnels were underground and used for the animals. there was an entrance and box specifically for the emperor - all of which was covered in marble.

we then walked around palatine hill and went to

the mouth of truth! yaayyyy audrey hepburn!!! we made a new friend over behind the roman forum, an italian named peter. he played the guitar for us, then took our picture, told us the history/story behind rome's beginning, and then tried to get us to go out to get a drink with him. thats when we left. but it was kinda cool hearing the story of rome from and actual roman, and he was a wonderful guitar player!

the rest of the night was made up of some trevi fountain & great italian pasta. you have to see the trevi at night as well as during the day - two different but equally amazing experiences.

day 2: early start to get to the spanish steps and trevi fountain before the masses of tourists decsended.  steps were just like out of roman holiday....kept thinking about how audrey hepburn had been there, ha.  of course we threw in some coins to return to rome, as well as a couple other wishes ;)

then made our way over to the pantheon, piazza navona, the river, piazza del popolo, villa medici, piazza repubblica, back to palatine hill for our tour. then we booked it over to the vatican museum to see the sistine chapel & all the other great stuff there. very surreal seeing the sistine chapel in person...really-all of rome was surreal, all these sites that you read about in history books. i loved rome. i loved st. peters basilica, the gelato, food, markets....just the life of the city. all the history combined with modernity.

rome is certainly up there with paris. which is way up there, for me.

i'll continue updating in the next few days...gotta perfect a lesson plan for my little british kids. on commas. how exciting....?

xxx