the waymans: Vacation

Really, lets just call it how it is, Italy is the BEST place on earth :) So, after I graduated with my Master's, Eric decided it was time to take a big trip together to my fav place.

We spent 3 weeks in beautiful Italia, starting out in Florence (the next 5 pictures)...

Here is the convent that we stayed in, just across the Arno River, about a 5 minute block from the main part of the city... really such a neat experience with the nuns, but a little ackward as this was the starting grounds of trying to have our first child ;)

The famous "ponte vecchio" bridge

The architecture in Florence is unreal - this is my fav "big city" in Italy

Michaelangelo's "The David" - AMAZING!!! Some say this is a self-portrait... who knows, but he carved this out of left-over marble, and it was done in one piece with no other supporting structures like many statues of this size... if you are ever there, this is a MUST SEE.

We met up for the day with a group of friends I graduated with - so fun we were all in Florence at the same time :)

After Florence, we ventured just 18 kilometers from Florence to the cutest villa in Tuscany, called 'La Fornella' in a little town called Paterno (http://www.lafornella.com/) - we stayed here for a week and visited various hilltowns in Tuscany - this was quite the experience as we had our own apartment, so we shopped and felt like a local. By far, one of our very favorite places on our trip.

Most nights at the villa we made dinner and came outside to eat - how can you not with this amazing view?

Ahhh... fresh fruit

We rented a car while in Tuscany, and unfortunately got into a fender-bender while visiting the hilltown of 'Lucca' - even so, they called it a "no fault" accident, and before we knew it the people that we hit were asking us to send them a postcard from Cali :) Such nice people!

Venezia!! (next 3 pictures)

The famous Saint Mark's Square - it was rainy while we were there, so every night the square would flood and people would just walk right through it.

Picture taken while standing on the 'Rialto bridge'

Just one of many canals in beautiful Venice

After Venezia, we took a train to the Austrian Alps, in the Dolomite region of Italy... we stayed in a quaint town called 'Castelrotto' (another favorite part of our trip)... (next 4 pictures)

We stayed in a bed/breakfast with the Troker family - they only spoke German, so it was really interesting trying to communicate... just the nicest family! And oddly enough, we noticed that all the older men wore aprons everywhere they went!

During our stay in Castelrotto, we travelled by bus up the mountain and hiked in the Dolomites (Alpe di Siusi) for 6 hours - the first part was freezing, as you can tell it was snowed over - the second part (as you can see in the next picture) was sunny and full of greenery.

Eric couldn't help but sing "The hills are alive...." (you can finish the song!)

After the Dolomites, we headed over to Lake Como (next 2 pictures) and stayed in this great little town called 'Varenna' - isn't it beautiful? This was also one of our most favorite stops - like Rick Steves' says "see how slow you can get your heart rate to go when you visit lake como"... so relaxing...

Varenna has beautiful gardens...

From Lake Como we took a train to the 'Cinque Terre' along the coast (next 2 pictures) - there are 5 towns built on the rocks of the Cinque Terre - you can hike, boat or take a train between the towns - in this picture we were hiking down towards the town of 'Vernazza'

We were able to hook up and travel to the Cinque Terre with Peter & Julie, Eric's aunt and uncle and spent the night in their villa along the coast - it's so fun to get to see relatives/friends while overseas!

From the Cinque Terre we took a LONG train ride South to Sorrento... while there, we visited the ruins of 'Pompeii" right outside of Naples

The last trek of our journey was conquering Rome - but as Eric said, Rome conquered us as we tried to see it in just a few days - amazing place, but very large with a lot to see!