tuscany

spring break started off in rome. on sunday i was supposed to meet elizabeth by the obelisk in st. peter's square at noon. little did i know that that was the exact time that the pope comes out to bless the square.

tiny pope blessing us from his apartments

sunday didn't go as planned, so i ended up sleeping in ariccia. but i woke up at 5am to catch the train to get jordon. after standing in the airport for 20 min, we bumped in to each other. we were both relieved since we didn't really have any way to get in to contact with each other. of course i had forgotten that it was daylight savings time in america, so jordon ended up landing an hour before i had planned. so he was sitting in the airport for an hour and half... woops.

we headed for the train to termini, and then took the metro to st. peter's. i thought we'd breeze right in. but the metro was probably the biggest crowd i have ever seen in my life and we had to wait for 2 different metro trains to come before we could actually fit on. i mean it was so crowded that people on the metro couldn't even get off.

but we made it to ottaviano and walked to st. peter's square. obviously tourist season started that day because the line circled the colonnades and reached to the very center of the circle, directly across from the front doors. it would have taken us over 2 hours to get in. so we just marveled, and headed back to termini to get on the train to florence.

jordon and i in front of st. peter's

once we got to florence we found our hostel, which was really nice, and dropped our stuff. then we headed out to the different markets around florence. jordon really liked florence, which i knew he would. it's a much smaller city and has a lot of character. it feels more intimate than a city like rome. it's a lot of fun.

the best sidewalk chalk ever

jordon rubbing the pig for good luck

us on ponte vecchio

we saw all of the sights in florence, but the lines for the david and duomo were extremely long. we went inside of the orsenmichele church, which is still a beautiful church. we went to acqua al 2 on monday night and had blueberry steak, which was amazing, and sat next to a couple from america that was on their honeymoon!

on tuesday afternoon we hopped on the train to vicchio, where heidi was going to pick us up to go to mugello. mugello was really relaxing. we took a nap once we got there, and then we had a cooking lesson with heidi. her husband's name is lorenzo, and he doesn't speak english. but it was really fun to stay with a tuscan family and eat their food. it was amazing food, way too much food, but amazing! we were stuffed every night.

we did a lot of hiking, and on the second day we went horseback riding. my horse's name was mario. they actually call it "crazy" said the lady. i wasn't allowed to brush it or anything until she ran it around for 10 minutes to calm it down. you can imagine how nervous i was. but it turned out to be a lot of fun and we trotted!

me and mario

"crazy"

riding in tuscany

after horseback riding we did more hiking which was a workout. tuscany is so beautiful.

walking up from the house

driveway

their dog snowy

they have a closed in patio outside that has it's own kitchen and dining area

it was really cute

sadly the last night in mugello jordon caught some sort of 24 hour bug. he was throwing up from 1145pm to 530am. it was pretty horrible and there was no sleep involved, but we got up the next morning and endured the trains to cinque terre, which was totally worth it!