From Orvieto

Tomorrow we train from Orvieto to Naples. In Naples we will take a regional train to Sorrento where we have an apartment with a distant sea view (who knows what that means!).

In Orvieto, the Jazz Fest has not interfered for the most part except by making it a bit more congested with traffic and increasing the price of accommodations.

We enjoyed two nights out to eat, both with great pasta dishes and one adventurous meal that included wild boar (not too adventurous...).

The Duomo (church) here has cool mosaic tiles and is one of the more interesting, but the church in Siena remains the coolest on the inside.

Josh says: "And Shannon pines for some Italian dude's wood." Don't worry! The link will only take you to an Italian woodworker's website featuring all their beautiful, hand-carved wood art. It's amazing.

Holiday Hugs from our hearts to yours!

Christmas in Italy

Hello and Happy Holidays to all!

We picked up our 2 rental cars and left Florence (a city not too dear to any of our hearts) by way of a scenic highway. Florence was neat for the major sites, but the apartment we ended up with was not great. It was very large but had many issues. The most discouraging one being that the on demand hot water heater kept going into hibernation mode or something crazy, because it would transition from warm to very COLD water in the middle of showers. It was also connected somehow to the heat throughout the apartment because that too would go out for hours on end. We were happy to get out of the large city environment of Florence and travel throughout the hill country near Siena. Both Josh and I got a 24 hour bug (potentially food poisoning) in Florence, which made the experience that much more unappealing. Everywhere throughout Florence the water is very chlorinated which makes everything smell awful. We also accidentally bought bleach instead of washer detergent and so we had a few pieces of clothes ruined (the worst being Josh's brand new button-down shirt). So suffice it to say, we were happy to leave!

We arrived in a rainy Siena yesterday afternoon with a nauseous Josh, who immediately crashed in our room and slept the rest of the day. It hasn't been super warm throughout our trip. Mostly its remained in the 40s and at night dips down into the high 20s. We have been in a few towns in the Tuscany area where the temperature has reached into the 50s.

We are now both feeling better, so we are able to enjoy the beauty of the landscapes that surround us. We spent Christmas driving throughout the country-side, exploring small hill towns and geocaching. We thought often of our family and hope all is well with everyone. Tomorrow we plan to visit Siena's center again to see it when it is dry and warmer.

Love to all.

In Florence...

Well! We have gone from Venice to Verona to Florence. Verona was wonderful. There was a Christmas market that sold very tasty and affordable traditional food. Some of the booths were from neighboring countries. We especially enjoyed the German booths selling brats with Sauerkraut and potatoes!

In Verona we toured most of the open sites and by the end of our time there, it had gotten pretty chilly at night! The bed and breakfast that we stayed at was very cute and modern. We were the only people staying there, so it basically felt like we had an apartment all to our selves. We had a personal bathroom and a very large bedroom with a nice attached seating area. In comparison to our current housing arrangement here in Florence it is a well organized, well designed, well decorated homebase.

Today we arrived in Florence via a semi-bullet train. It was a very crowed train and we were assigned seats that were not even next to each other. We wandered the city and made it into 2 of the major museums. Tomorrow we are off to a side trip to Pisa and Lucca.

More later!

In Fair Verona...

Hello!
We are safe and are getting ready to go out for dinner in Verona. We arrived this afternoon by train from Venice. We had a great time in Venice, although it was a bit expensive. We were warned in Rick Steves, so we were prepared...but it was a bit alarming JUST how expensive it actually ended up being. The canals were fun to cruise and we are now going to enjoy our time in Verona.

We have already visited many of the sites and intend to take a pleasant evening tour of the town. The train ride was comfortable and all is going smoothly so far.

More later!
With love...S&J

We're off again!

We did it! We were able to pull off another trip right after having gone to Greece last year! Its approaching very fast - we leave Friday to tour Italy!

I'll relay as many stories as I can while abroad!
We'll miss everyone and think about them often.
With MUCH love....S+J

See you in other posts!