Anniversary Trip

Jason and I have recently returned from our 10 year anniversary trip to Italy!  It was such a great way to celebrate the occasion, and we really enjoyed ourselves.   We visited four areas.   First we flew into  Florence, where we spent 3 nights.   We climbed the duomo, saw Michelangelo's David, toured the Uffizi museum and enjoyed walking around and taking it all in.   We also made a pretrial commitment to try and go running as much as we could, so we did some nice runs in Forename along the Arno river, and one morning we ran to a viewpoint over looking the city.    We had some great food in florence, and the sights were great, but we were a bit overwhelmed by the massive throngs of tourists and tour groups around every corner.  


   

Next, we headed to Tuscany.   We spent 3 nights near Castellini in Chianti, and took day trips to hill towns in the regions.   Our favorite was Siena, which was a beautiful city.   We also enjoyed taking a pasta making class (yum!), and had a dinner at an "agritourismo"--a farm that hosts tourists for dinners featuring food from the farm.   Gary and Eileen had been to this particular one a few years back and recommend it to us--it was delicious!

     


From Tuscany, we drove to the Cinque Terre, with a stop in Lucca along the way.   The Cinque Terra is a group of 5 town which are nestled in between 5 hills along the mediterranean.   Historically, people could only get to the towns by walking or via boat.   Now, there is a train service that links all 5 towns.  Jason and I had plans to hike the trails between the towns, but on the day that we arrived we were told that the trails were closed due to weather conditions (indeed, it was raining).   We were quite dismayed and even considered leaving that night, but I am glad we stayed, as the next morning the weather had cleared and we were able to hike (although officially, the trails were still "closed", this was not really enforced.  The following day, we took another trail along the top of the peninsula to a small town called Porto Venere.  The trail was spectacular because you could see the ocean on both sides and even better it was totally off the beaten path, so we had it mostly to ourselves.   Returned by boat.  Although our first day in cinque terra was rough, it ended up being my favorite part of the trip.   And the food, I must say was spectacular.   The best focaccia ever and also really good pesto.

The final part of our trip was in Sardinia--we wanted to have some beach time to relax at the end of the trip, and sardinia looked to have the best beaches in Italy.   And the books did not lie, they really were beautiful.   Light sand and crystal clear water.   We were there at the end of the season, so it was a bit windier than we would have liked, but still warm enough to go in the ocean.   We were struck by how rural Sardinia was--apparently there are more sheep than people.  It really had a much different feel than all of the other places we went in Italy, so I am glad we got to check it out.

    

Meanwhile, the kids seemed to do ok in our absence.   We facetimed into a parent teacher conference from Cinque Terra in the dark, when it was raining (wifi only worked outside!), so at least we tried to stay present in our absence.   And we also facetimed with the kids each night.  They were still in one piece when we returned, so I guess that everything was fine!  With our busy, crazy schedule, I am really glad that Jason and I got to take this trip together.   It was a great get away!