Villa Sangiovese Panzano

I liked Florence so much the first time I went, I came back! I realized in August that I loved this city and that I didn't have enough time to spend here, so I decided I wanted to go back to enjoy the slower moving life of Florence.

The first day we got to Florence, Katy and I went straight to the leather market. I had been eagerly waiting the entire semester to buy a new purse, and I knew I had seen several I really liked in Florence, so I had made ...

... Cranberry Sauce, Stuffing, Potatoes, and Mixed Vegetables. For dessert pumpkin pie, ice cream, and apple cider! It was nice to spend the night with classmates and a few professors.

Friday night, we had yet another Thanksgiving with all of my friends. Everyone prepared their favorite dish and we spent the night telling stories of our families Thanksgivings.

I'll update you soon,

Siara

... life time on this trip already!
Climbed the tower in the main piazza, saw an enormously large pizza and had wild boar sausages for lunch which were a bit gamey but nice.
Went for drinks at Lochness bar and ended up drinking long islands as there wasn't much in the way of wine or beer there.

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

... Rossi was her husband. Then I realized that this old lady was the wife of a bicycling legend and the frame on the wall was one of the frames from his hay-day.

We moved onto shopping and grabbing pizza for lunch then on to the piazza Campos. Here we looked around until it was time to go to St. Dominics Church for the start of a walking tour. The tour guide gave us interesting history about Siena, its churches, and its customs. We ended up at the Duomo which was incredible ...

... most memorable experience. Our timing was totally luck but we arrived on a Sunday afternoon that was part of a celebration that involves the entire town. A horse race, Palio, is held twice a year, July 2 and August 16th, and is a competition/ritual that dates back to the middle ages. It is much more than a horse race and actually takes a full year of preparations and includes parties, parades, flag acrobatics, and taking horses into the church for special ...

... an obligation Guilietta has not figured out how to get around; every day is the same with a big bowl of cornflakes and a big bowl of plain yogurt plus some bread you can put in the toaster and three kinds of jam/marmalade. Fagiolari is really a fine Bed & Dinner place, though. You can eat dinner here every evening if you want to, whether or not you take the cooking class, and the cost is only 25 Euro including wine and dessert, a real bargain compared to what we pay most places.

... discount. While in line we took turns going out and exporing the piazza just north of the museum. This was the most impressive piazzas I've seen. There was a replica of David and large statue featuring Neptune flanking an old royal palace. The rest of the piazza was quite large with many restaraunts and horse drawn carrages for hire. I picked up a little gelato and mulled around a bit before relieving Braden of line duty. Once we finally got into the ...

... and by early afternoon we had arrived in Florence. After an expensive cab ride to our hotel room in the city of Florence (we didn't want to get the bus as it was a 15 minute walk from the Busabout drop-off point and the street was so narrow two cars couldn't pass each other...we didn't fancy trying to haul our luggage along and still be alive by the end of the walk). Our ...

... on the river. Arriving at Santa Maria Novella train station in Firenze, I was met with some a smattering of ground coverage, and a very light snowshower. Hmmm, maybe I had missed the action here. Elena arrived after work as we planned to grab a drink and a bite to eat. That is when the snow started up once more. Driving through the streets of Firenze was hilarious. It was bucketing, slow and large snowflakes. It began to cover ...