we spent a week in

tuscany.

i love it! beautiful.

first we stopped at a resort

you can get a villa for $4500 a night

no big deal

the campus is 5 times the size of central park

the resort also has a winery from their own vineyards

the wine is aged in these barrels for 2-3 years

(apparently you can taste the wood from the barrel...i'm definitely no connoisseur)

ashley and me in the club members' wine storage room

dear all my nat-geo fans, i'm a wanna be

then we went to the town of montelcino

it's famous for its wine called "brunello di montalcino"

naturally i got a glass of wine to drink with my pb&j that i had packed for lunch

epic

dear reb, remember when you ate jelly sandwiches because you kept forgetting to buy pb?

next we headed to sienna...

wine tasting

1 white, 2 reds

i liked them all

the chigi palace in sienna

the latin above the well reads "reach for the stars"

or some equivalent

duomo of sienna

black & white marble stripes

dear melissa, i : ceilings  ::  you : flowers.

we climbed a million tiny stairs

to see...

a birds-eye view of sienna!

it reminds me of pinocchio (which by the way was set in italy)

the clock struck noon when we were up there

& the bells went wild

next we headed to florence

here is the duomo of florence & giotto's tower on the right

"duomo" just means italian cathedral

that's why there are so many of them

orsanmichele

a church that used to be a grain market

there are 14 niches with patron saint statues in each

i'm an expert on this place. ask me anything.

the "favid" -kaitlin     (the fake david)

the real one is inside the accademia staying dry
good move dave
if david is that big, how big would goliath be?

this little boy was sketching next to all the artists
i almost stole him

we waited in line to see the duomo
and it started pouring down rain all of a sudden

here is the duomo from the inside
well, you really can't see much
whoops

then we saw a shoe museum

for the fashion girls

a lot of shoes in glass cases

then to the leather school

florence is the leather capital of the world
maybe

geppetto working on his ostrich leather purse

blogger is being weird, so i'll update again soon!

ciao ciao