Palazzo Tortoli Tuscany

... loved. The price was a little high, so I left and looked around a little more, then decided on the highest price I would pay for the purse that I had wanted. I went back and offered, but they said they couldn’t go that low, but countered with a price only 5 euros more than I had wanted to spend- SOLD. Ok I know I said that’s as high as I wanted to go, but 5 euros more isn’t much, and it was Italian leather, made in Florence, and a ...

Happy Thanksgiving!

I spent the morning taking an Italian exam!!! The afternoon was a little more fun, touring Palazzo Pitti with my Art History class.

It was a little strange spending it without everyone but my school put together a little gathering for us. A group of us dined on a typical American Thanksgiving at a local restaurant. We were served Butternut Squash soup with bread, Turkey ...

Hi Everyone!

After an exhausting weekend in Brussels, I was in for yet another treat with cooking classes in Florence. Organized by my school, a group of us met with a chef for some lessons.

We were taught how to prepare typical Tuscan cuisine including Ribollita and Stuffed zucchini-flowers.

Everything was delicious & I look forward to trying these recipes at home!

I'll update you soon,

Siara

... find them, not knowing who I was looking for, then Kathie came out to help. We caught up with them and I then figured out that Kathie was talking about Dave and Loraine Huner. Their son played baseball with Michael and that son and his twin sister graduated with Michael.

After quickly saying hello we went back to dinner then after dinner went to the bus stop for our ride to the hotel. At the hotel Kathie and I relaxed then started getting ready for our last day of riding.

He says: Overall I enjoyed Florence and my time in Tuscany but we found Florence a bit grotty and had **** public transport (first for Europe). It would probably be a bit more exciting for more arty folk I guess... Now I might as well get this out of the way straight away... We did not go to any art galleries or museums while we were in Florence, so anyone in my family who were hoping that the home of the Renaissance would spark some sort of hibernating Marshall gene for art ...

... below. We went into the Duomo but didn't find it as beautiful as the one in Lucca. We weren't sure if it was the grey skies or the fact that everything was closed due to it being Sunday but apart from the Tower and Duomo there was nothing else that interested us in Pisa and in fact we even found it difficult to find something to eat so we jumped back on the train and headed to Viareggio, a beachside town about 20 minutes north of Pisa. After ...

... for the coming days and see a little more of Florence. The Duomo, my school and the Uffizi were all on the list. After walking around for a while we went back to gather Laurie for dinner and found a small pizza place just down from their hotel for a nice simple meal. I was exhausted by the end of the night so I said goodbye and went home to collapse. (I needed to be back semi early because we booked a wine tasting tour!)

... worth it though because we stopped to hike down to one of the beaches and went swimming in the sea. We met a lot of really awesome people on the trail from all over the world (Holland, Australia, Switzerland, Germany...). Anyway, I put up most of the pictures so enjoy :) Ciao! Kase PS. I miss everyone from back home!!! Keep me posted as to what's happening on your end (besides massive heat waves haha).

Ok, so it seems like forever ago that I left Prague! Ross and Katka met me at the Old Town Square about 1:30 and I condensed everything I would need into Katka"s bag and they are taking my bags to Olomouc. So then we grabbed a quick hot dog and stocked up on snacks for the road trip. It was a close call to make it on the bus by 3pm. So the bus driver and his 2 helpers were all from Italy. Now remember the world cup championship game was ...

... They do this by putting a padlock on the railing and throwing the key into the river. PISA Pisa is not very far from Florence, so we just HAD see the leaning tower. Our guidebook had indicated that it was a worthless tourist trap, but since it was the first week of December we found it very enjoyable. We can imagine that in the summer, the whole area around the leaning tower must be overrun with tourists. We still saw the tackiest ...