We started this leg of the journey in a cute little hilltop town called Orvietto. Since it was in the hills we had to take a cute funicular railway up to the top. We really enjoyed our time here!
I had to take a picture of the Coke bottle to show how much we spent on Cokes in Europe. I think we totaled it up to be about $100. Well...sometimes a coke was 4 Euros!! And you kindof get sick of water after a while.
This is Orvietto's big cathedral. I thought it was interesting that the facade is so pretty but the rest so plain. I thought it looked like prison stripes. Apparently the stones are from volcanic rock from the surrounding area.
The beautiful and very ornate facade. The depictions of the last judgement in marble were just amazing!
Inside the cathedral. The size was incredible!! People look like ants.
We found this amazing restaurant here which made it one of our favorite places. It felt so relaxing and very authentic Italian. The music they had on was fantastic very soothing and calming.
Umm...this is a small pizza? Yeah...10 pounds...you can see it by now in my face. LOL
And Adami means Adams in Italian. We thought this was so cool! The Adams house!
The streets of the town were so quaint and I thought it was so cool you could see the cathedral in the distance from almost all the streets.
The view from one side of the hill.
You can really get a feel for how far up in the hills we are!
And that night we arrived in Florence. This is the Duomo at night. It's SUCH a pretty building!
And this was the only David we could see as we got there JUST after the museum had closed. We were a little late coming into Florence because we had a HUGE thunderstorm. I guess we will have to go back to see the original.
This was St. Croce. It was so pretty at night!
A view of the river at night in Florence.
This was old bridge. People actually lived in the apartments. How cool to live on a bridge!
Me and Chris enjoying the night air.
Umm...yeah...I almost stepped on that thing!!
We thought this was so cool! This was a chalk drawing that this guy did. We thought it was so incredible we had to get a picture of him with it. MJ died on the very first day of our trip. We actually found out about it while we were boarding our plane in NYC.
This is our tour group. We were a motley crew. But VERY fun crew! Sorry the picture is bad. We didn't have the digital format so I took a picture of a picture.
Me and my gals. I loved these girls!! Anne, Karin, and Sharon. I know..I'm an old soul. I was the only one under 50 LOL.
The skyline of Florence
Classic skyline of Florence with the Duomo Dome and the St. Croce tower.
And don't get me started on the shopping in Florence. IT WAS AMAZING!!! We spent so much money here on souvenirs! Chris got a bunch of ties, leather belts, and wallets. I got some shirts, a few prints, jewelry. The market was just fantastic!!
This is actually the chapel inside of the catherdral at Pisa. Got a little out of order.
Again...inside the cathedral at Pisa. Chris saw these at first and said...why do they have pay phones inside the churches? I laughed so hard! He quickly corrected himself and realized that these phone type things give information about the cathedral.
OK...back to Florence for a few shots. This is the Duomo during the day.
And here we are inside the Duomo.
The Field of Miracles in Pisa. It's called the field of miracles because the tower is still standing.
The cathedral in Pisa. See earlier photos for more inside.
The roof of the cathedral in Pisa. I loved it!
And here we are at the famous tower.
Having fun at the tower.
Ahhh...
Oops..
Better.
And...Classic. Hold it up Chris!
Here we are on our way to Bologna. Our last night in Florence we stopped at this grocery store that had hot meals and tons of other stuff. We all bought a bunch of stuff and had a huge picnic outside on the patio of the hotel. We got to try all kinds of things including octopus! We ate so much! Here we are eating lunch with Karin and Manny (our pals from Australia) with some leftovers from the night before. YUM!
Chris found these awesome olives that were stuffed with garlic and feta cheese!
Umm....a toilet in Bologna. Thank Heavens the girls toilets were normal. And yes...we had to pay to use them. Seriously....what is this?
This is the big cathedral in the main square of Bologna. IT WAS HUGE inside. Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures. You can see me TINY sitting on the steps. Honestly...this cathedral really made you feel so small. It was very simple inside and I think that was why. It was just you and MASSIVE amounts of stone. So cool!
The main square again.
The walkways were all covered which apparently is very characteristic of Bologna. The shopping here was outrageous too!! A little on the pricey side but just awesome!
Bologna has it's own leaning towers. Two of them actually.
We thought that this fountain was very interesting! Hmm...Chris thought it would be a good picture to put in a nursery. VERY FUNNY Chris. Love those Europeans!
They had a McDonalds that served 1 euro shakes so we got some. This is us with another family from New Zealand on our trip. We just loved them!
And now we hit the Italian lake district. This is Lake Como where George Clooney has a villa. Bummer...not enough time to stop in...
And here we crossed into the border of Switzerland on the shores of Lake Lugano. Did someone say Swiss Chocolate? So good!!
Here we are on Lake Lugano. Chris was trying to get a picture of the boat with the Swiss flag blowing out straight.
I had a random idea to rent a paddle boat and head out on the lake. I opted to paddle because I was missing some exerise and adding some weight. LOL
Out on the lake.
Yeah...just chilling in the middle of Lake Lugano in Switzerland. It was so cool!
Paddle boat paddled solely by the Adams. It was fun! But it was hot after a while.
How about a swim in the lake!
Karin told us to take a kissing shot. LOL.
And this was our hotel that had a funicular railway going right through it about every 4-5 minutes. We really liked this hotel but the noise was a little annoying. Our room is the center one third floor down with the windows open.
BYU RB stairs...eat your heart out! People actually were climbing these! Yikes!
That night we took a walk along the lake. They had all these beautiful gardens with sculptures.
The little alcoves of the lake had a bunch of swans swimming in them!
Umm...trying to look like the statue. Little too much chocolate?
Sunset on the lake.
And here was the street right by our hotel. I thought it was so cool looking! The sidewalks are steps like they do in San Francisco.
1 comment:
Wow! Love all the added photos here. Really makes me miss our time there. You covered so much more than we did in each city. Guess it was because we wanted to cover so much of Italy and the surrounding countries that we did not take as much time as we should have in each country. would really love to go back to Florence and just stay there a week. Then do more time in Venice where we found awesome shopping! Tuscany was peaceful to us. Lake Como was quite frantic the time we were there-lots going on. Up in the Swiss Alps, we did not stop for chocolate....too crazed by the roads we drove! Austria..."The hills are alive.." so wanted to just go out into one of the fields in the mounts and sing that very song..."Take video of me, Hon!" I would say to hubby. Loved it all...all that was missing was that we did not have family to share our adventures with. So happy you met folks in your tour. We met wonderful people all along our tour. And the pictures......I had hoped to put all of our together in some kind of book with my journal writing as well....someday....
PS-Love all the kissing shots...never have enough of those!
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