Italy Part 2: Florence

From Venice, we took the train south to Florence (Firenze). I'm not sure if the archway below has a name or what it is. It was in a ritzy part of town that we walked through daily on our way to other places.

Our first full day in Florence, we took a side trip to Tuscany (about an hour away). We spent the entire day touring with our guide, Angela. This was definitely one of our favorite parts of the Italy trip. Tuscany is beautiful and completely peaceful.
The first picture below is looking down on Florence as we were driving out of town.

On our tour of Tuscany, we went to two vineyards to taste Chianti Classico, olive oil, and honey. All of the vineyards in the area traditionally produce all three on location. We learned a lot about how Chianti is made and all of the regulations you must meet to get the DOCG certification for your Chianti. The photo below shows Cyprus trees at one of the vineyards.

Olive trees at the same vineyard (this photo was done in Antique colors)

Part of the castle where we ate lunch. I had the freshest, yummiest spelt salad!

Acres and acres of vines

A view of some of the tiny medieval towns scattered among the hills



Back in Florence now. Can't remember which church this is...

The Ponte Vecchio (Italian for "old bridge") over the Arno River. In addition to being a bridge, it is also the home to many goldsmiths and jewelry shops.



Facade of the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore (part of "the Duomo"). The campanile (bell tower) is on the right.

We climbed the over 400 stairs of the campanile to get better views of the Duomo.

The following are views of the Duomo from the campanile. The Duomo is still the largest brick and morter dome in the world.


View of Florence from the top of the campanile (done in antique colors)



The photos of the Duomo are definitely some of my favorites. It was hard to pick which ones to put on the blog!

Italy Part 1: Venice

Over Easter break (you can say "Easter" here because it's a private school), Nate and I went on what I consider our second honeymoon- a trip to Italy! I took probably 200 photos, but have deleted some so that now I'm at about 150. We obviously won't be able to put every single photo on the blog, but we'll put as many as possible. This blog post is going to be about our first stop, Venice. Stay tuned for more about Florence and Rome. (The Rome photos are definitely the best!) We welcome, and thoroughly enjoy, reading your comments on the blog, so leave us notes after you read!

Venice, as you may know, is built on the water. There are are about 400 bridges, like the one above, connecting the town. All of the bridges are stairs, not ramps. If I had thought about this, I would have packed everything in a backpack, not a large suitcase that had to be lugged up the stairs. Oh well, I'll know for next time! :)


It's all about the boats in Venice, even for fresh produce!


Venice is the home of pizza, and we had some really good pizza there! Actually, our pizza wasn't from the place above, but this made a better photo.


The famous Rialto Bridge. It's so large there are stores all over it.

Classic photo of the canal from the Rialto Bridge.


St. Mark's Basilica in the busy (and pigeon-ridden) St. Mark's Square. As you can see, parts of it were under renovation. Most historic buildings we went it seemed to be partially under renovation. I'm pretty sure that they're constantly renovating once a building gets past, say, 400 years old or so.


The top of the church. Click on the photo to enlarge it and check out the detail. The inside was beautiful, but we weren't allowed to take photos.


One of the paintings on the outside of the building.


That white building was definitely leaning- it's not the camera angle!


Me on the Rialto

The Races

A couple of weeks ago, Nate and I were invited to go to the horse races in Sha Tin. The couple who owns the bus company our school uses also owns a couple of race horses, so they invited us to join them. It was an all day affair, from 12-6pm on Sunday not including getting there and home. It was definitely an interesting cultural experience, very different than how I'm guessing the Kentucky Derby is. Everyone (except us) was dressed in black, oddly enough.
We sat in the owner's box most of the time, munching on yummy food and watching races. Before their horse's race, however, we went down into the owner's ring, where the owners, jockeys, and trainers schmooze while the horses are paraded around. That was pretty cool. Unfortunately, their horse (Sunny King, #11) didn't win...or even place.
It was unreal how much money was being bet on the races. Nate and I, on the other hand, stuck to bets of about $10HK, which is $1.25 in USD. We're high rollers.

Valentine's Day and Living in Clouds

So things have been super busy at work recently, and we've not been the best at updating the blog. I promise we'll put lots on soon with our upcoming trip to Italy! Until then, here are a few photos from February.

Nate and I have woken up literally inside a cloud a few times over the past month. It's pretty crazy. We can't see anything out our windows. Here are a couple of photos we took the first time it happened.


The next set of photos are from Valentine's Day. Nate and I got home from dinner and thought it would be fun to play around with our new camera. It has this feature where you can set the timer to take several photos in a row. It feels like paparazzi. Anyway, here are a few of the photos we got. I think they're hilarious.

Summer Travel Dates

Nate and I are already getting excited for our trip home this summer! Here's the plan:
Saturday, June 20th Arrive at RDU 5:30pm
June 21st-28th: Beach
Tuesday, June 30th: Fly from RDU to TVC, Arrive 12:51pm
Saturday, July 18th: Fly from TVC to RDU, Arrive 11:55am
Sunday, July 26th: Leave RDU for HK at 7:55am

For our family: This means June 20-30th and July 18-26th are with Amanda's family. June 30-July 18th will be with Nate's family in MI.

For our friends in NC: We will be available June 29th and July 18-25th to get together. We're definitely up for coming to CH or Durham this trip. (Our only commitment so far is that we have a wedding the afternoon/evening of July 25th in Durham.)

Hiking Dragon's Back

This is the last of my CNY posts. We did a great hike one day called Dragon's Back. It was a little hazy, but there were amazing views from both sides of the ridge we were hiking along.

This way to Dragon's Back!

View of our apartments from the hike. They're the tall buildings to the right.

Thank goodness for cameras with timers.

View of Chai Wan Cemetery on the hillside.