Just a Taste of Florence (June '04)

Yes, just a taste... I can't post each and every picture... so I'll post an overview of sorts.

The countryside is just as beautiful as you can imagine... it was so picturesque that I was afraid to take a picture and therefore defile it! Seriously... my camera could not do justice to many of the sights we saw. Maybe it was the other senses taking over... beyond just the sight... that brought it all together so harmoniously! Whatever it was... only part of Florence can be shown through pictures. You must just go and experience it for yourself!

Several of my lifetime dreams came to fruition on this trip. Ever since I was a kid I've wanted to take my very own picture of the Bell Tower in Pisa... I got to do just that... in fact, I think I spent a whole roll just getting different angles of the Tower. Without using internet resources, do any of you know how many times they've tried to correct the lean? It's been steadily leaning more and more over the years... and the tower was only given a short time to live before some GENIUS came in and decided to remove dirt from under the "good side" of the tower! This brought the tower to more of an upright position and also slowed the progress of further leaning substantially!

The architecture was more amazing and jaw dropping than I can put in words. But I do have a question... why we we keep building houses with materials that mold and rot and fall apart when these buildings built several centuries ago are still in such great shape?!

My fav picture from this trip (not based solely on content - but because of the feeling it gives me when I look at it) is the picture title "Ceiling1". This was at the entrance to the Boboli Gardens - an expansive garden with pathways hedged up to approximately 20 feet high. If I had that as my back yard I would be taking 3 hour walks every afternoon too! Gorgeous! And then you get to the top and see the view of "Villa" (very first picture) and wonder who lives over there across the valley. Let's go for a walk over there and introduce ourselves!

My second fav picture is the one of the broken rear view mirror on the Vespa parked in the middle of a lot of 100 Vespas.

Come on ... let's go rent Vespas and drive around for a few hours... Lori (and Lee)

Check out our pictures at... click on "Slideshow" and then pause/resume while you enjoy it...
http://photobucket.com/albums/v330/MrsPhotog/Travels%20by%20Lori/Florence%20Italy%20-%202004/

greetings from Caffe Caruso... (June '04)

Buon Giorno! Ciao!!!

Tutto bene... oops... forgot, I need to speak inglesé... ahem!

Quick hello ... here we sit, sipping on cappuccinos and taking in the italian air. Our journey here started off a little rough... we missed our connecting flight to Paris from Chicago... so were re-routed through Heathrow and then Milan and then finally to Florence about 12 hours after we should have arrived... and after being up and at it for almost 35 hours we were so glad to see hotel and shower!

But since then we have slowly wandered down dark alleys and found ourselves staring at magnificent pieces of art and even stumbled across an archaelogical dig right in the middle of town.

(Most of) The food is better than we could have imagined... and Lee, not formerly being a hardcore espresso fan, has fallen in love with italian espresso! Imagine my surprise when he was not directing his affections toward me one morning! He was vowing eternal love to his demitasse cup!

OK - enough of that... off we go to kiss in the courtyards and gaze into each other's eyes... blah, blah, blah...

Lori and Lee