We had a pretty calm, easy day. We drove into town for snacks to make a picnic lunch and brought them back to Le Torri. We set up outside and munched our goodies for a while before discovering the swarm of mosquitoes who were also happily munching. Later we went to a small winery in…

Our first wedding anniversary (Oct 5th)! We began the day by trying to go to Coop (grocery store) to pick up a few things, but it closed the minute we walked up to the door. Most stores close between 1:00 and 3:00 throughout Italy. If you forget that fact, its quite annoying. It got us…

First full day in Tuscany – off to Firenze (Florence, why do we call it that?) to walk around and visit the Uffizi gallery. We attempted to have lunch at a specific sandwich shop, but we didn’t have enough time before our scheduled museum visit. And thank goodness we had tickets ahead of time, that…

Sadly, we left our gracious hosts at Cancabaia and drove two and half hours south to our next destination, Tuscany. We were staying at Le Torri, an agriturismo in Montespertoli. An agriturismo is basically a farmhouse turned resort. Read more about them here. Our host, Gabriele, checked us in and showed us to our villa.…

I actually woke up early and went for a run. We brought our running shoes and some workout clothes thinking we would try to exercise, and this was the first (and sadly last) time I busted them out. Running down the country road so early was quite peaceful. The only ones awake were me, some…

Our first morning at Cancabaia we awoke to damn cow moaning at 5:38am. One of the dogs chimed in and howled along, which I have to admit was kinda cute because the cow already woke me up anyway. I managed to fall back to sleep and we when finally got up there was a wonderful…

And now a road trip to Parma. First, I should mention that we couldn’t plug our GPS into the car. Not because of the lighter, but because without the mount, the power plug won’t go into the GPS directly. Huge flaw there, Garmin! So we could use it, but we had to be cautious not…

Unlike the day before, we managed to wake up at a decent time. First on the agenda for the day: the Pantheon. One of my life goals was to see the Pantheon, ever since I learned about it in Art History. Seeing the inside was quite an experience, photos just don’t do it justice. The…

We woke up pretty late, like 1:00 or so, which means that we didn’t make it out of the apartment until about 3:00. Unfortunately most restaurants close between 3:00 and 8:00. We did manage to find an open place in a touristy area, on Piazza Novana (pictured). After eating we sought out a book store…

After some much needed sleep we decided to walk around and check out the Colosseum and ruins surrounding it. Walking around was so interesting because we’d see remarkably old buildings mixed in with old buildings and new buildings. We saw the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II), the ruins of…