Tiff Visits!

I came back from my awesome adventures in Egypt and England to have an awesome adventure with my friend Tiffany coming to visit!!!

We had an absolutely fantastic time - it was so nice to see Tiff after so long, and it was nice to explore some parts of Italy with her. It gets disgustingly hot in Italy in August, so we were pretty much sweaty messes all week. But, that means that we had a brilliant excuse for lots and lots of gelato! I'm pretty sure we had gelato at least once a day.

View of Florence from Piazzale Michelangelo

We did lots of walking around Florence, seeing the main sights, including walking up to Piazzale Michelangelo to get this beautiful view of Florence. We also said "hello" to David in the Galleria Accademia. We stopped by the leather markets so that Tiff could pick up souvenirs. And we ate lots of good food! We went to some of my favorite restaurants, and also cooked at home.

We did three day trips while she was here. The first was to the Cinque Terre, which is on the east coast of Italy. This was my second trip there, and this time we went into the water. It was my first time into the Mediterranean of off Italy's coast, and it was lovely!  We had a delicious lunch right on the coast of Monterosso and then hopped on a train to visit two of the other four cities. We had gelato in Vernazza and then glasses of wine in a coastal bar in Riomaggiore. It was a really nice day.

In Lucca

Our second day trip was to visit the towns of Lucca and Pisa. Lucca is a small town that is a living testimony to past times. It has well preserved medieval architecture, and broad, high walls that used to be used for defense and now are a lovely place to walk, cycle or picnic! This was my first visit to Lucca and it was so lovely! The walls are incredible - really thick and wide - we walked all the way around them. We had lunch at a lovely little wine bar that we just stumbled upon, but would definitely revisit. We left Lucca and make a quick stop in Pisa. Literally just long enough to see the Torre Pendente (Leaning Tower) and the Piazza dei Miracoli. It is crazy to me how much it actually leans, especially when you learn that it was fixed (to some extent) fairly recently. This was a lovely, peaceful day trip. 

Our last day trip was to Rome. And that was the exact opposite of peaceful! We tried to fit in as much as we could in one day, so we rushed from place to place. We took the fast train down to Rome from Florence early in the morning and went straight to the Vatican museums. We went through the museums (where I found what might be my new favorite painting in the modern art section)

Abbraccio di Papa Giovanni Paolo II by Pedro Cano

We then went into the Sistine Chapel, and then to St. Peter's Basilica. After leaving, we walked over to Piazza Navona and had lunch, and then made our way to see the Pantheon (with a gelato stop), the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps and then made our way to the Colosseum. We then took the train back to Florence and pretty much collapsed onto the couch, after first picking up pizza to bring home. 

On our last night together we dressed up and went to a nice restaurant across the river, meeting up with a friend of mine for aperitivo first. We had a delicious, lovely dinner - followed, of course, by gelato!!

Post dinner gelato

It was so nice to be able to spend time with Tiffany; being away from friends is definitely the hardest part of living over here. We're already talking about a possible next trip. That, or Tiffany is working on how to telecommute to work from Florence :)