Half-Term Holiday in Italy

It's been a while since I've posted, and things have certainly been busy around here. I finished my two weeks of training, and have started work, which is going really well. Abel & Cole is a great company, and they are really good to their staff, so it's been fun to join their team. But this post is about the week between training and starting work, spent in Italy, which was amazing. Greta chose some of her highlights to write about, so I'll include some of mine. Like her, I feel like I could add a million pictures to show how beautiful it was and all that we did, but I'll try to reign it in a little. :)

First, let me explain that none of us had ever been to Italy, and it was a place that we've always wanted to see. My mother had promised me a trip to Venice as a graduation gift, but the years went by and it never materialized. Then a few years ago, Steven and I decided that a trip to Italy would be the perfect way to celebrate our 20th anniversary; so, this October we made it happen. I booked our flights last August, once we confirmed the week the kids would be off school. EasyJet is a budget airline, but all went smoothly with our flights. The lovely apartment that we rented I found through sabbaticalhomes.com, a gem of a sight for renting academics' properties when they aren't using them. I had originally booked an Italian professor's two-bedroom flat in Florence, but she contacted me about a month before the trip to say that she was incredibly sorry, but wouldn't be able to rent us the place after all, due to personal circumstances. We were rather crushed, but she then told us that we could have her one-bedroom flat, in an even better location, for just the cost of the deposit on the other place. This was a screaming deal, and there was a pull-out sofa in the living room, so it really worked out just fine. It was charming and on a lovely street, right by the Uffizi and the Piazza, walking distance to everything we needed, including one of the best gelaterias in Florence.

We hired a car service to get to Gatwick and then flew on to Bologna, where we spent the day wandering around the market and sampling the local espresso and gelato. For some reason, Steven kept trying to speak Spanish and my inclination was to revert to French, but we quickly picked up some basic Italian words and were able to get by just fine.  We had booked the train from Bologna to Florence, which was a lovely ride in a nice compartment car, and took less than two hours. From the train station, we walked to our apartment, and were very glad that we had traveled with just our backpacks, as lots of tourists seemed to be having trouble wheeling their luggage through the old cobblestone streets!

We headed out for pizza for dinner that night, and all smiled at the realization that what everyone says is true- there is no pizza quite like true Italian pizza, it was amazing (and the bottle of wine that Steven and I threw back wasn't too shabby either). The next day we started at our local cafe for americanos and flaky pastries filled with Nutella, then wandered around the city getting our bearings and seeing the major sights. We also hit the local market to get some snacks for our apartment, and of course, stuck to our (as suggested by Brian D.) rule of having gelato every day.

Some highlights of the week were walking across the Ponte Vecchio many times, hiking up to the Piazzale Michaelangelo to see the "David" sculpture and Firenze from above, sampling handmade pasta dishes, shopping at the San Lorenzo Market, strolling through the Uffizi Gallery with Greta, date night dinner at Sabatino's with Steven, taking the bus up to Friesole to see the Roman ruins and Franciscan monastery, definitely the amazing Boboli Gardens, and just walking around such a beautiful city. We joked that it was a bit much really, all the grand cathedrals, famous artworks, stylish Italians, fantastic food, and delicious desserts. We had thought that we might head off to other areas during the week, but once we got to Florence, we realized that we really just wanted to hang out there and enjoy it. So, we'll definitely need to return to Italy to see more.