Casa Al Sole Greve

... for our walk through the walled village. There is a 14th century fort with make up part of the walls. Today it is used as a prison - your not supposed to take photos of it, but I snapped a couple off before I knew... luckily I was not spotted by the local polizi. The town was cute for sure but I'm not sure it deservered all the accolades given to it by other travellers we had met in Lucca. Having said that we did take more photos than usual.

Hello everyone,<br>We had such fun today!! The square had it's first ever market day or flea market. It was filled with cheeses which by the way Percino was our favorite and the fresh sliced procuitto was unbelievable. We just walked around all day. The first part of the day we did two loads of wash and dry which cost $18 us dollars. Then we had wine free and paid and had a great time. We then came back to ...

... It was the size of a small frozen Tony's party pizza from home. We then went to get Gelato (ice cream) and we walked the main strip with all the beautiful young Italians. It is Friday night and they were out full force and dressed to kill. It is amazing how we dress big and saggy in America (boys and girls) and here and when in London everything was tight, small to the waist in coats and shirts and tight jeans. The girls all wear the leggings with boots ...

I hope this works, it has been hard to attach some of the video because it times out. FYI to all my not so computer literate friends and family. When you first open the video, it will start and then stop in the middle to keep reloading and then start and stop again. This can get frustrating but is necessary until it is completely ...

... difference, so much so that Kate wondered why some of the lesser-known artists' work was even hung. (Kate: An insult I know and I'm sorry! I just couldn't help but wonder!) Similar to Siena, there was a ton of art dedicated to the Virgin Mary, who seems to be highly revered in Italian culture. The Uffizi also holds a tremendous number of sculptures and the Florentine artists paid tremendous homage to their Greek and Roman ...

... the food was really tasty; after a while the waiter asked if we would like anything for dessert and we declined so it surprised us a few minutes later when he brought over a plate with three slices of cake and three glasses of Limoncello - a "gift" he said. We decided Gina's handshake had caused this wonderful "gift" to appear so we joked about that for a bit and were feeling pretty pleased with ourselves...until the waiter dropped off the neighboring ...

This morning we got up fairly early and headed straight down to the train station to buy tickets for Florence. There were still more things to see in Perugia (mainly the medieval gardens and the cathedral) but that would mean waiting around for a train so we decided to skip them. Apart from from watching two kids get busted without a ticket (angry Italian train inspectors are funny - she called their parents from the train) the trip was uneventful. We bought a map at ...

... shaken but after just sitting there for a few minutes, I managed to pull myself together and finished packing. Luckily whilst packing, I located the muesli bars I had bought the day before, so at least I managed to eat something. After admitting temporary defeat to the band aid I applied new bandaids over the first one, and discovered a couple of smaller cuts in the process. I really had managed to injure myself quite well (even by my ...

... beats rain, but throw in a breeze in these clear skies and BRRRRRR! After our trip to the nearby hills, we headed back into Firenze for more Aperativo. This one wasn't exactly great, but when I asked for the bill and he said 6 Euros, I thought it was for each of us.... somehow we ended up with 2 glasses of rather decent Italian Rosso and some food for 3 Euros each. So it wasn't great food, but dinner and a drink for $4.75 is a steal in Italy.

... we are going to try for the Oktoberfest! 6 hours is a l..o..n..g time! Today Dan, Eric and I drove to the Cinque Terra and did a Death Hike! It wasn't supposed to be... really... they promised me! There is a train that goes from one town to the next, or you can do hikes of varying difficulty. We hiked from the 1st town to the 2nd, no big deal, same for the 2nd to the 3rd... then it was getting ...