4 Days in Tuscany

Hello lovely blogging buddies! How are you all today?

I'm LOVING this weather. The leaves are changing, it's getting cooler outside, and I'm pulling out our fall clothing! What a fantastic time of year. Last night we had the leftover chili that I made Sunday night and it was EVEN better than it was the first night we had it. I also baked a pumpkin pie and it was A-mazing. I went crazy yesterday looking through all of my old recipes and finding new recipes for stews, pumpkin treats and chilis! I love cooking Fall foods. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Anyway.... on with our trip of Italy.
Thanks so much for letting me share our adventures and pictures with you all!

Note: If you're not a picture lover, you might not want to continue reading this post.

Day 3: Tuscany

We hopped on a train from Venice and headed to Florence. We found a great villa, 7km from Florence in a town called Sesto Fiorentino, which is in the middle of the country side. Once we arrived at the train station we rented a car and drove to Via Di Castiglioni, (the name of the villa). Of course we got lost a couple of times because the villa could not be found on the Garmin! But we made it. We stopped a long the way and I snapped a couple of pictures.

The view

Our villa was surrounded by olive orchardsThe house we stayed in is the yellow one.
Here are pictures of the villa in Sesto Fiorentino

Steve and Jon! and the view from our porch.

When we arrived, the family owning the villa was waiting with fresh fruits and vegetables, a homemade pie and homemade pizza! HELLO, I wanted to move in and become their adopted child. That was the most incredible welcome ever. I was so impressed by their hospitality. I will definitely be visiting them in the future.

We unpacked and took it easy, then headed to a near by grocery store to grab some food for the next couple of days. Sadly, the grocery store was closed. But, there was a restaurant just a couple of steps away so stopped in there for dinner. Holy goodness, this place was incredible! We ate way too much food and drank far too much wine, but it was totally worth it. Then we headed back to the villa and crashed for the night.

The next four days were very busy filled with loads of traveling and site seeing, so instead of boring you with every detail, I'll just show a couple of pictures ;) Mind you, I had OVER 800 pictures from our trip.

Lucca

Pisa

Siena




Florence
We saw the Accademia and The David,
but of course were not allowed to take any pictures.

Tomorrow I'll be back with our trip of Rome!
Hope you enjoyed the pictures.

Have a wonderful Tuesday!

Venice and Murano

Good Monday morning everyone!

Boy, I was not ready for this week to start, but it is here, and I have a busy one ahead of me!!
How was everyone's weekend?

We dropped my parents off at the airport Saturday afternoon, of course I was sad to see them leave, but I will be seeing them in December! I also attended a baby shower for our friend Shannon who is due in November and later that evening went to a birthday party for our friend Josh. Sunday we spent the day relaxing and watching movies. Since it totally feels like fall here now..... my FAVORITE time of year ever, I made my FAVORITE chili. I can't wait to start baking and cooking for fall. I'm craving everything pumpkin right now and plan on spending a lot of time in the kitchen this week. I did grab some new fall decor for the house and can't wait to set it out. Other than that, it's time to get back into the swing of things. After visitors leave, there's always so much to be done!

A big thanks to all of the wonderful comments about my pictures! I LOVE taking photographs and love sharing them. So I hope you enjoy more from our trip to Italy.

ITALY DAY 2:
After our day in Venice we decided to make a short day trip over to Murano. My mom was dying to see some Murano glass and we wanted to check out the town. It was one of my favorite places while we visited Italy. Such a cute town, no vehicles, only boats. We stopped by a wonderful glass shop and bought some things for family. While we were inside we met the owner and he took us upstairs to another area of the store, where he showed us some amazing pieces that cost more than my house. But it was still so awesome to see them. He then told us about a great restaurant that only locals eat at. It was adorable and quaint, and the food was incredible! Oh and of course we had our afternoon glass of wine ;)

Here are some pictures from Murano:

Click on the pictures to enlarge.

After Murano we headed back to Venice to celebrate my step dad's birthday! About a year and a half ago, Steve had a severe stroke and we were told that he only had a 3% chance of living. Well so much for the three percent, now he's traveling all over the world and enjoying life!

My mom thought it would great to take a gondola ride to celebrate Steve's birthday. We grabbed a bottle of wine and spent a QUICK 35 minutes enjoying the ride. The scenery was incredible. Here are a just few pictures:

We spent the rest of the evening walking around Venice and of course grabbed some gelato to help experience Italy.

Stop by tomorrow for pictures from our 4 nights in Florence.

Have a wonderful week!!

I'm Back!

Well hello LOVELY friends!

It has been SOOOO long. How is everyone??
Man, I feel like I've missed so much!
This blog world is fantastic, and I've missed you guys and reading about your adventures!

But, I REALLY am finally back to the blogging world, and I look forward to writing about the Adventures of Jon and Steph, again. I definitely look forward to stopping by your blogs and seeing what ya'll have been up to.

Without further ado, here's what we have been up to:
For my Facebook friends, you might have already seen these pictures, but here they are again.

My parents arrived on Thursday the 17th.

We went to Limburg, Germany, on Friday...

and left for Italy on Saturday. We visited Venice, Murano, Sesto Fiorentino (just outside of Florence,) Lucca, Pisa, Florence, Siena, Rome, Naples, and Pompeii. It was a long, but fantastic 10 days in Italy. We ate great food and drank good wine. I have over 800 pictures to look through, but I'll start with our trip to Venice.

We arrived in Venice around noon, hopped on a vaporetto:

and rode around the island.

We arrived at our stop near Saint Mark's Square
and headed to our apartment. Here are a few shots along the way.

After dropping our luggage off at our apartment,
we made our way to Saint Mark's Square,
and walked around Venice.

Saint Mark's Square

Doge's Palace and Saint Mark's Basilica

Downtown and Rialto Bridge

View from Rialto
After a wonderful walk around Venice we finally stopped at a restaurant for dinner. We all had pasta, pizza and wine. It was an incredible day. We were truly blessed to be able to visit Italy.

I'll be back soon to post more pictures from Murano and our next day in Venice.
Hope you all enjoyed the pictures!

Have a wonderful Friday! and enjoy your weekend!