Whirlwind Italy

I’ve been neglectful to this blog – even didn’t do any Birthday posts this year!

But I thought I’d try to keep up with some travel posts and more importantly, photos bcs that is what I skip to anyway:)

I did post this on my instagram:

I love it when the planner part of me meets the spontaneous part of me.

I’m planning something exciting for the fall of 2025 – yep- my brain thinks that far ahead.

But I realized that the planner part of me needed some more info to take some steps towards making my future dream plan come true.

Luckily my spontaneous part of me woke up a couple of weeks ago, rolled over in bed and said to my parter in crime – “Hey, do you want to go on a field trip with me?”

“Sure! When and where?” (He’s always up for anything 😍😍).

“Italy. Next weekend”.

Silence. 😂😂😂

But he’s used to my wacky ideas. He was easy to convince. (It took 2 seconds).

All the stars aligned in ways that confirmed we were meant to go (a nice airline credit sealed the deal and a stroke of luck with a drop in airline prices for a few hours ) – and we were off!

We walked thousands of steps, drove hundreds of miles (well Rob drove, I get very sleepy in the car 😬😬 but managed to stay awake long enough to ooh and ahh over the incredible scenery), completed my “research”, and ate as much yummy food as we could.

And I solidified my exciting plans for Sept 2025!!!

***

So we literally boarded a flight to Rome on Thursday night. We landed around 11am their time, picked up a car and made our way to Florence – about a 3 hour drive (with traffic). Im not sure how Rob did it bcs I was exhausted!

We arrived at our cute hotel which was a bit further than anticipated – I thought I had read it as a 20 min walk – I was so wrong. I was about an hour an twenty minute.

But we did it! We had a quick siesta when we arrived in Florence and then headed by foot to the city.

It was kind of fun walking through more residential Florence – so pretty.

We checked out the Duomo – of course – how can you miss it!

We walked around for a bit, pontevecchio, outside the museums, did some wandering.

We found a cute place called Cacio Pepe for dinner – where I had Cacio Pepe (and got scolded for pronouncing bruschetta wrong – I mean I know it is pronounced Brusketta, but some it came out wrong lol).

We headed back to our hotel and CRASHED!

Of course, only to wake up so early… then fall back asleep and feel drugged when we got up. Got to love jet lag.

We headed into Florence again – this time to walk around Bobble gardens and then made out way back to the centre again . Such a gorgeous city!

Late morning we headed about 30 min outside of Florence to check out 1 Villa I was interested in. We stopped in the tiny town outside to grab lunch. Yummy pasta, but we had a bruschetta mishap again – it was not with tomatoes but with lard. Yuck!!

We headed to check out the villa and we were very disappointed. Not what I was hoping for:(

We headed back to the city, went for a quick snack – but Rob ordered a mint tea and ended up getting mint milk. We had a good laugh.

We tried to go for dinner, but it was raining and there was no parking, so we headed back to eat in the hotel restaurant. I ordered naked ravioli which I thought meant “light on the sauce” – but no, it means no pasta, just stuffing!!

The next morning, we packed up and headed into Tuscany. We stopped in gorgeous Siena , where there happened to be a Fiat 500 parade – so Rob was in heaven.

We had a nice lunch, walked around and then headed to the next villa.

We found what I thought was the villa we were going to see – but it ended up being the wrong address – too bad bcs the villa was gorgeous! But – luckily the “right” villa was even more beautiful! We could not believe it ! I am so excited to host a retreat there!

We headed back to Rome – crazy driving for Rob!

We ate a t a yummy restaurant acorss the street from our cute hotel (I had the fully dressed ravioli this time lol), went to visit fontana trevi and the Spanish steps (the crowds at both were big! Things have changed since we were here 13 years ago!)

The next morning we were up early – and did a mini full tour of Rome! Such a great city!