Thursday, July 10, 2008

Italy

Marty and I went to Italy for a week- long trip. Marty's college friend Clif got Married in Florence. We were excited to be part of Clif & Melissa's beautiful wedding!







Jack stayed with BoBo, JiJi and Uncle Ben. Marty and I enjoyed exploring Italy together. We had a great trip. It was also a good opportunity for us to further strengthen our relationship as we prepare for baby number 2. Nothing can strengthen a marriage better than driving from Florence throughout the Tuscan Hills, in a small, stick shift car, trying to navigate, aviod getting lost, hit or run down; while still enjoying the view and one another.





We spent the first 2 nights in Florence. We were there for the wedding festivities. We attended a cocktail party the first evening and the wedding the second day. We managed to squeeze in some time for a whirl-wind city tour & gelato before we headed to the country.

Florence:









Our 3rd night we stayed in the Tuscan Hill town of Voltarre. It is a charming walled city that dates back hundreds of years before Christ. Our inn was just across the road from the main city gate. "La Argo" is the towns gate-way, an arch dating from 400 B.C. The town motto is "the city of wind & rock." We found it most interesting that the town now uses the large castle as a prison to house 60 Sicilian mafia criminals.

Voltarre:









The next day we stopped in San Gigamano & Monteriggioni in route to Siena. Once we checked in to our hotel and Marty took a dip in the pool, we headed into Siena for dinner. We met up with Jimmy, Sarah & Kenny. Sarah made reservations at a great restaurant. It turned out to be the best meal we had in Italy!!









After visiting Siena we started out going South toward the town of Pienza, but we got lost and our gps wasn't working very well so we decided to head toward a main highway and go back north. We stopped at the inCoop, picked up some foods to lunch on, and ate in a small town. The town was near Asciano. It was so small it was not even on the map and it only had one small square with a church and water well. We arrived at our inn by mid-afternoon. We lounged by the pool, checked out the vineyards, relaxed and headed to the town of Castellina en Chianti for a dinner. Castellina en Chianti turned out to be our favorite small town. It had so much charm.















We had a planned lay-over in Amsterdam for one night. We enjoyed walking round the city, but our hearts weren't really into the tourist thing. All we could think about was getting home and seeing Jack.







We had a fantastic trip, and we really enjoyed our quality time, but we both missed Jack and felt quite home-sick when we called to check on him and Jack said, "Can you come home now?" in such a sweet soft voice.

3 comments:

Casey or Chris said...

Oh Sarah those pictures are breathtaking and you are so beautiful!! You are just glowing.

~april said...

i must say (even though i am ashamed of myself) i am JEALOUS! what a great trip! you look great (i esp LOVE your green dress!) i am so glad you 2 had the opportunity to spend some QT together before baby #2!

Kirk and Abbey said...

What a great get-away! You look so beautiful in those pictures, Sarah! (I really was going to say that even before I saw that everyone else commented on the same thing!)

I totally want to go to Italy, too! :)