Almost Ready for Italia!

We are on our way to our long awaited trip to Italy in one week from today! All the last minute planning has been making us even more excited than we already were! We are going to be leaving July 3rd, right after Ed gets off of work. Yep, we are picking him up from work and heading right to the airport from there! We will fly into Rome and head right down to Sorrento, right on the water in the Amalfi coast. Our room has a beautiful view of the sea! We will stay there for 3 nights while we explore the towns of Amalfi, Ravello, Positano, and the Island of Capri. We will also see the ruins in Pompeii during our stay there. On July 7, we will take the train to Rome and stay there for two nights, hoping to explore the Roman Forum, Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Vatican Museum, St. Peter's Basilica, and anything else we have time for!

From Rome, we will take a train through the countryside to Tuscany! We will stay in Montepulciano with the Toigo family on their family run vineyard. We will stay there from the 9th to 14th, for five nights. We will have our own little apartment with a beautiful view of the vineyards and olive trees. We are excited to live in a small town for a few days and soak up the Tuscan culture.  

On July 14th, we head from Montepulciano to the town of Vernazza in the Cinque Terre where we will stay for two nights. This is a beautiful place that we added on to our trip at the last minute, in fact the hotel is not even booked quite yet! We just had to make it here, though. The place is especially known for the winding footpaths located along the rocky cliffs with beautiful views of the sea. We plan to do quite a bit of hiking while we are here. It is also known for it's vineyards and fishing, which for us means great wine and great seafood! We can't wait and we are so happy we decided to squeeze it in!

From Vernazza, we will head to Florence for two nights where we plan to see the Uffizi and Accademia museums, visit the Cathedral and other churches, some of the Medici palaces, definitely go shopping (at least some window shopping!), and just explore this wonderful city. On the 18th, we will take the long train ride to Venice. We plan to make time to see San Marco square and cathedral and the Palazzo Ducale. We will probably visit more of the many churches in Venice and may visit another museum, but our main objective here is to grab a bottle of vino and wander the streets until we get lost in this magical place! We are definitely looking forward to it!

We head home early in the morning on July 20th.

Stay tuned for updates about our trip. We will try to update the blog while traveling so you can see how we are doing!