Arriving in Tuscany

After a late night return to Tel Aviv, and a day of rest finally from an exhausting vacation, its time to get the ball rolling on all these pictures.  i have them sorted by days in Italy, as each represents a different city.  so ill have lots of posts coming out to show the fun adventures we had.

As we  arrived the previous night in Italy we stayed in a hotel close to rome.  the following morning we loaded up our two cars, and hit the road.  once on the freeway, we got to the first stop, which is apparently an institution in Italy.  Autogrill.

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so the italians all drink one cappuccino in the morning, standing up at the bar, and only eat a small something for breakfast.  So thats how autogrill works too, you go in, pay for what you want, and then stand at the bar and sip your drink and then, off you go, continuing on your journey. So thats what you did, but instead i had tea, and had to try a sandwich.

 

Driving along the A1, the main highway from rome north, we were greeted by a colourful countryside

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Our destination was the city of Cortona, in the South Eastern part of Tuscany.  but as the A1 was not giving us much of a italian experience, we diced to veer off and drive past one of the biggest lakes in italy, Lago Trasimeno.  Nice spot for some pictures.

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Driving onwards from there, we drove up the hill that cortona was on, and at the top reached a monastery, which quite the overlook of where we just came from.

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From there it was a stop for lunch at some small restaurant, and my first of many many pasta’s in italy.

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Having eaten some pasta, we were ready to go on.  We met the rental company person, who took us to the villa.  here is what it looked like, and the view from the garden.

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It was okay.

Once settled, we went to go shopping.  this was the pasta isle.

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and then back at the villa, it was time to relax, and drink some wine and eat some cheese.

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some family photos

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my little nephew came on the trip too.  he was a champ flying to italy and enjoyed himself at the villa

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All that wine and cheesing and relaxing deserved some epic sunsets too, and we got those.

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not a bad way to end a travel day, and it was nice to sit and relax.  little did i know, this would be the start of a very action packed busy 7 days.

a lot more to come about our trip in italy.

On arriving in Rome

The flight to Rome was rather uneventful. We are traveling with our little 8 month old nephew, and he did rather well in the airplane.

We landed and that’s when the fun began! First they didn’t bring the baby stroller after we unboarded, because we thought we were being smart and put it in a duffel bag to keep it from getting damaged. Well, it also keeps them from seeing it and bringing it up. Once that was fixed, we proceeded to where we find out luggage.

Wandering thru the airport we were alone. Rather amazing. I saw this sign, and thought it sort of strange, welcome to Rome, now leave to visit china!

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So we were wandering around alone, and I commented on this, and low and behold, the next corner we turned onto mayhem.

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There were only 4 passport control people who were doing non eu passports. There were several big tour groups on front of us. So we say and waited and waited. Finally there was almost no one left, and all of a sudden everyone disappeared. One passport guy just waved the tour group they without stamping, and we were the last ones through.

I declared that I refuse to stand in lines for stuff here in Italy. I’ll see how that works out, but I’m here to see Italy, not lines. Well, well played Rome. You got me to stand in a line before I even leave the airport.

Then it was off to get our bags, meet up with the in laws, rent a car, and off to the hotel.

I’m testing blogging from my iPhone. Picture quality will of course be better once I take some real pictures, but for typing, this works pretty well.

Italy bound

Well, the summer of travel is upon us.

It starts with two weeks in Italy, which we are leaving for tomorrow.

The plan is a week at the Tuscany/Umbria border in a villa, followed by 4 days in rome.

I have never been to Italy before, so pretty much everything will be new for me.  Ive got the camera and tripod packed, so I’m good to go.  I hope to have some downtime in the evenings to process photos, post and blog about them, but ill have to see what the internet situation is like.

here we go.