Mom & Dad come to Firenze

Perfect Week 2.18 - 2. 26

Mom and Dad got here friday afternoon. We had a relaxing day - went out for some pizza, walked around Florence, and then had a big dinner all together at Carla's. It was a huge dinner and I had some trouble breathing afterwards...

Saturday

The first full day in Florence, we started the day off with a walk to Piazza Michelangelo.

Unfortunately it was a little cloudy, and when we got to the top it started thundering! First time I had heard thunder in Italy. Luckily we made it down before it really started raining, and took shelter in a really cute cafe where we had a great little lunch. By the time we were done, the rain had stopped....and that was the last of the rain for the rest of the week.

After the little hike, we walked to the Ponte Vecchio and explored the area.

Finally, we walked to Santa Croce, a beautiful church where many important people are buried...including Michelangelo, Galileo and Machiavelli.

Still beautiful despite the overcast day!

Sunday

Carla wanted to show off her favorite place, Fiesole, to my parents. We took a bus to the top of the mountain to see the beautiful view and have some great pizza. We explored the area, checked out the little market and church, and then walked the steep roads back home.

After Fiesole, we took Carla, Antonio and Stefano out to dinner at "La Giostra," a really great little restaurant that's actually owned by two princes. It's a really fun place, and we had a wonderful dinner.

On Monday I had to go to class and Mom and Dad headed to San Gimignano, Siena and Chianti for the day.

Tuesday - Saturday

I went to my normal classes on tuesday while Mom and Dad explored the Uffizi, a huge museum in Florence, and then checked out Michelangelo's "David." After my classes, we hopped on a train to Rome! We got in a little late, so we checked into the hotel, relaxed for a little while, and then went in search of a dinner spot. Not an easy feat. Eventually though, we ended up at a cute restaurant with a huge menu of cheeses and had a really good time!

Wednesday

First stop was the Pantheon. Easily just as amazing the second time.

Also found out that the top of the pantheon is totally open...so when it rains...it rains in!

We also went to Sant' Ignazio and saw the amazing fresco by Andrea Pozzo on the ceiling.

We decided to explore a bit. We came to Piazza Navonna, famous for it's fountain by Bernini at the center called the "Fountain of the Four Rivers." It's a massive piazza!

After all of this, Mom and Dad had booked a special private tour of the Vatican that went from 1 to about 530...really covered everything in detail, and it was awesome! She also gave us a pretty extensive list of restaurant recommendations...almost all of which we checked out. After our busy day exploring, we went to a really perfect italian restaurant and had some wine and pizza and pasta - mom got the pasta all'amatriciana, a famous dish of Rome - it was amazing.

Thursday

We woke up early, had a little breakfast and then headed straight for the Colosseum. Again, just as good the second time around and the weather was perfect.

After the Colosseum, we took a little break and found another restaurant that our tour guide had recommended - a little past the main touristy area so it was a little calmer and more relaxed. We each got pizza - it was wonderful!

Yummmm

I spy the Colosseum

Then, we headed on to the Ancient Walk/Roman Forum - it's a long walk through tons of ruins.

Mom & dad peeking through a hole in some of the ruins.

View of some of the Roman Forum from above

We had some time to spare since we weren't ready for dinner yet, so we went to the Trevi Fountain! This time around I got to see it in the daylight...definitely able to appreciate it a little more. It's massive!

Friday

We woke up early and went to Campo de Fiori for a market we had heard a lot about. It was pretty cool - tons of fresh fruits, vegetables and pastas.

Italians are all about the artichokes

mini strawberries!

We walked into this big butcher shop and the guys were super friendly. We were even lucky enough to get some meat samples! My favorite. (not)

We made sure to get pictures outside the butcher shop because we loved it so much.

Campo de Fiori

The oil stain on the placemat looked like a smiley!

:)

We ended up going back to the perfect little italian restaurant we had been to two nights before because we had loved it so much. It was just as good the second time, and we made some kind Italian friends who were sitting next to us and kept wanting us to drink more with them.

All in all...It was an amazing weekend and I think mom and dad got a pretty solid taste of Italy! I was VERY sad to see them leave...but it was an amazing time and hopefully we can all make it back again in the future. Awesome week!

A Spanish Spring Break - Barcelona, Seville and Madrid 3.5 - 3.13

Barcelona - days 1 through 3

We got into Barcelona very late on saturday (technically sunday,) so we went to bed and slept in a little. The first thing we did was to explore the area around our apartment. We had a huge place with two rooms, a kitchen, bathroom and dining area - it was pretty cool. We were right near La Rambla - a central street in Barcelona that is seemingly always full of life and teeming with shops and restaurants and interesting people. Later, we took a bus tour around Barcelona that lasted about two hours - definitely a good thing to do and we were able to see so much of Barcelona!

Our other full day in Barcelona was spent exploring the architecture and museums. I never knew much of Gaudi, but Barcelona certainly turned me on to him.

We first headed to Park Guell, a huge garden complex designed by Gaudi that also includes several buildings and his house.

Gaudi's home! it was amazing from the outside and nestled in the gardens, but it turned out that he didn't seem to have spent much time designing the interior. There was some really interesting furniture and patterns, but it seemed to me that Gaudi was more interested in designing for other than for himself from the plainness of the the interior.

Another part of Park Guell. It may look warm and beachy...but it was still a little chilly.

Travel partners - Anna & Lisa

Really amazing pathway that kind of projected out of the hillside and supported another path on top.

At the entrance of the Park

One of the two buildings at the entrance of the Park.

The other building at the entrance.

It was so busy at the entrance that it was hard to get a good picture - but it was amazing. There is also a really beautiful mosaic lizard/dragon fountain type thing in the center, but all my pictures of it have various strangers posing with it...so they aren't worth it.

Beautiful mosaics

We all got Gaudi friendship bracelets :)

Sagrada Familia - it's been under construction since 1882 and still supposedly won't be done for another 30 years! It's a massive church that reminded me of one of those sand castles you make with watered down sand. It's incredible and I would love to see it finished.

Saw this guy on our bus tour

Really cool wall mural we saw while we were having lunch on our first day

One of the streets we walked down in our exploring

Gaudi's Casa Mila

We stopped in at a pet shop! These puppies loved Lisa

On to some more Gaudi - this is Casa Batllo on the left (a family's house.) It's actually unbelieveable; everything is so thought out and so well executed. The idea behind it is water - everything is smooth, round and organic.

The dining room

Looking down the lightwell - it was created just to bring in the natural light to every floor and into the center of the house.

The dragon-like mosaic on the roof

More mosaics on the roof of Casa Batllo

The top story of the house was very different from the rest - clean and plain white, but still very round and organic.

Seville - days 4 - 6

Literally, we knew nothing about Seville before going. Unfortunately our good weather in Barcelona didn't follow us, and it rained a lot of our time in Seville in addition to our time in Madrid. Our hotel in Madrid turned out to be in a great location - we were in walking distance to everything! On our first day, we asked the front desk guy where we could get tapas, and he pointed to the place across the street (literally two steps out the door.) We were a little skeptical, so I googled the best tapas in Seville, and found a place that was 5 minutes away. We stepped out the door, and I immediately recognized the restaurant in front of us as the one I had found online! So we went in and had some amazing food - we ended up going back the following two nights. We also had this also drink called "tinto de verano" which is wine with lime soda in it - barely even tastes like wine. We also had some really good Sangria.

The Cathedral - kind of in the center of Seville. Really amazing architecture - so different from what I'm used to in Italy.

After we saw the Cathedral, we explored a really beautiful garden with tons of mosaics and fountains.

The four of us on various benches....

One of Lisa and my friends from school was staying with family in Seville for the whole break, so we met up with her for a day. We explored Seville, had a great dinner, and met up with some of Anna's friends from school who were studying in Seville. It was a great day!

The other day, we took a bus to Cadiz - a little island about an hour and a half from Seville. Unfortunately it was pretty overcast, but it was still fun to explore.

We had a great tapas lunch at a really cute restaurant that overlooked the water. After lunch, however, we realized we had no idea where we were supposed to get back on the bus, as it dropped us off at a totally random stop. So we spent our remaining time trying to figure it out and trying to make our way to the bus station - very very difficult when 95% of the people speak only Spanish. But we finally figured it out!

Rainbow in Cadiz!

Madrid - days 6 & 7

We had an adorable apartment in Madrid - unfortunately it was in the attic and up 107 stairs (we counted.) No elevator which was fine...except for the first day where we had to carry our suitcases all the way up. It was perfect and very spacious, if only we had been about a foot shorter.

Lisa on the bed

Lisa and I took a train from Seville to Madrid on Friday, and got in around noon. We had some lunch and then spent the rest of the day in the Prado, where we got to see a lot of Spanish art, including Velazquez and his famous "Las Meninas." It was a perfect way to spend the rest of our day. Unfortunately, it poured the entire day. After the museum we tried to explore the shopping street but it was freezing and wet, so after about an hour we retired to a really cute restaurant with (again) great tapas.

Luckily we caught some sun on Saturday, and after a really great breakfast, explored a massive garden. It was beautiful, and perfect before spending the rest of the day in the Reina Sophia, another really cool museum.

I spy Lisa

"A world" by Angeles Santos Torroella

"Guernica" by Picasso

Spain is really incredible - a week wasn't nearly enough. I really hope I'll be able to make it back someday.