Hotel Grande Bretagne Montecatini Terme

Kim had taken her grandma to Lucca last November and had fallen in love with the place. <br><br>We found a park not far from the city walls and then headed in for a look. We came across a chocolate festival in one of the piazzas and sampled a few beforw buying a hot cocolate drink...literally hot chocolate in a cup. It made me feel a bit sick.<br><br>Walking Lucca is like a big ...

... Vecchio, the city provides a rich view into the splendorous birthplace of modern western culture. <br><br>We had our pal, Rick Steves, with us again today as we toured the Galeria Degli Uffizi, which houses the largest collection of Renaissance paintings in the world. It was incredible to see the difference in quality between the great artists of the time, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo, and the lesser-known artists. There was a ...

... was a full hour and nicely walked us through the entire structure. (Note to travelers: you can buy tickets to the Colosseum at the bottom of Palatine Hill and there isn't a line! It's a little secret!) The tidbits of knowledge Rick provided were fantastic: we saw the remnants of the elevators used to lower and raise set changes/people/animals on &amp; off the main floor, the thumbs up/down the crowds used to vote on whether someone should ...

Just realized those not on facebook haven't seen pictures from Pisa and Florence. No long recap of Anthony and I's weekend in Tuscany, for obvious reasons. Also note that "Anthony and Alison's Great Adventure" was like taking a knife.<br><br>Love you guys! :)<br>

... on the next hill. Drove all around the countryside (which I hate to say is much bigger and impressive than Napa). Wine is so cheap and good but unfortunately the majority of grapes had just been picked. Also ventured into Florence for two days of sightseeing. This is one place that is as magnificent as tpublished pictures!

... nearly as much as coming from it earlier today. We got back to the hotel in time for us to head straight to dinner (except dad, who squeezed in a shower and got dressed up just to make us look bad, the *******), which was made up a pasta with speck and red sauce and a chicken breast with cheese and ham. Tasty, tasty. After dinner, I headed downstairs to watch the Russia-Spain semi-final game in the European Championship. During the game, I tried to catch up on about five days of missed ...

... vendor. I'm hoping that by the end of this trip I will be able to tell the difference. Anyways, once T and D got there we headed over to this place. It was about a block and a half from the apartment, but it was closed. We got there at around 6, and Italians don't open their restaurant doors until 6:30/7 at the earliest (not to you all). So, we decided to follow our plan for after dinner and go to the Piazza di Michelangelo ...

...go round and round. The wheels on the trucks are flat, flat, flat so the police can't make the truckies move. The trucker strike is still going on. Unfortunately this was a day we were spending most of our time in transit from Sorrento to Florence. The trip was slow in places, but altogether wasn't too bad. On our way to Florence we stopped at a vineyard in the Chianti region. Bernie and Jess both ...

... and enjoyed some people watching and drinks. The next day, Monday, everything was basically closed, as I have found is usually the case in Europe, so the three of us went on a bike/wine tour around Tuscany. Tuscany is beaaaaauuuuuutiful, and biking around it (though hot) was a really great experience - and when I say biking around it, I mean we biked 13 miles...wowzah! As you can imagine, drinking wine and biking all day made us ...

... her friend at the restaurant. I mean this girl is amazing. Albergo Paola. Stay here! Free net, cleanest hostel ever, good location, awesome girl running it. This is the place to stay. The day I checked in, I dropped my bags and within seconds, she had whipped out a map, cirlced all the churches and museums to see, supermarkets,, laundry, and the best gelato place in Florence. She was amazing. I was going to stay another night, but I am pretty much done with Florence. Not thrilled with it ...