Fears and Tears

Buongiorno! Good morning, follow me the next nine days as I write about our travels to the beautiful Tuscany region of Italy. My husband and I planned this vacation to celebrate 30 years of marriage.

After much research of various destinations, we chose to spend our time in Florence, Italy. It was a decision based our interests and what fit us best. There are many beautiful Cathedrals and Churches, world famous Museums, great food and wine, beautiful landscapes and much history to experience and explore.

Our plan was to spend the full nine days in Florence with a few excursions planned to neighboring cities. That way we can experience more in the city of Florence.

I think the first moment of awe was flying over the Alps towards Italy from Amsterdam. I didn’t get the best picture, but at the bottom you can see a small glimpse of the beautiful Alps. They looked like they were covered in powdered sugar and just beautiful to see.

On our approach to Florence, the Tuscany countryside looked lovely and I was surprised to see how big the city of Florence was. We gathered our suitcases and jumped into a cab ready for our adventure to begin.

We arrived at our hotel, which looked even better than the pictures, and settled into our room. The staff left us a nice note wishing us Happy Anniversary along with a bag of Almond Biscuits.

It was mid afternoon in Italy and we were tired after all the long hours of traveling. However, it was officially our anniversary that day, so we walked to the center of the city to find a nice place to have dinner.

We headed towards the Cathedral of Santa Maria Novella, the famous Cathedral and Duomo, where there are many shops and restaurants and only about a 15 minute walk from our hotel.

I was excited to learn more about the Cathedral tomorrow on our tour. The Cathedral is so big, it is hard to get a picture of it.

Around the corner, we found a lovely restaurant to have dinner. We sat outside and had a view of the back of the Cathedral. We both had fresh pasta, bread and wine. I had ravioli with pesto and Paul had tagliatelle with bolognese sauce. It felt surreal that we were actually in Italy. We toasted to our Anniversary and it was a great start to our Tuscan vacation.

Tomorrow, we have two local excursions planned, so we walked back to our hotel to settle in for the night and get some rest.

You are invited to follow along for the next several days to see some of the beautiful sites that we experienced. Ciao.