From Italy With Love!

Buon Giorno!

I hope you all aren't getting sick of seeing photos of our trip to Italy!  I took so many pictures, I couldn't resist sharing more with you.

Lemon trees grow in abundance, especially along the coast.  So you will see lots of lemon products, ranging from lemon gelato (yum!) to lemon ice, to the famous limoncello, a very potent lemon liqueur.

I thought this little truck/scooter refreshment stand was just too darn cute!

Remember when I told you that driving in Italy is crazy? Well, we made the mistake of taking the 

"scenic route" from Rome to the Amalfi Coast, and ended up having to drive thru the middle of Naples.  It is a huge city, and the traffic is beyond nuts.  While I am sure there are some that love Naples, we couldn't wait to get out of there!  It is very dirty, crowded, and crime ridden (that is where the Maffia was founded, yikes!), and often referred to as "gritty".  It made me think of a third world country!  It actually took us one hour to drive thru the city!

 This is what it looked like driving thru the streets!

 Ahhhh, what a sanctuary when we finally made it to our hotel in Praiano, right on the Amalfi Coast!  I miss all of that gorgeous bougainvillea!

 More views of the gorgeous Tyrrhenian Sea.  I swam down in this little cove, but the photo hubby took of me was hideous, so I will spare sharing it with you!

 We visited this amazing cathedral in the town of Amalfi, which dates from the 9th thru the 13th centuries!  We had visited there on our first trip to Italy 14 years ago, and it's even grander than we remembered!

 It was such a hot day, so it was a treat to cool off inside and admire all of the amazing details.

 Wow, is all I can say!

 Just look at the ancient paintings on the walls and ceilings, below.

 I believe this is supposed to represent the Last Supper, below.

Wait, what do we have here??

An Italian mountain goat??!

 This little guy greeted us as we visited this centuries old stone watch tower, which was the home of an artist's studio.

 After our 4 days on the coast, we headed north of Rome to Umbria to visit medieval hill towns.

The region of Umbria may be a bit lesser known than famous Tuscany, which is right nearby.  But it's just as beautiful, and not as crowded or expensive.  

 The views were amazing!

 We stayed in the little walled village of Todi for 2 nights, a town that we fell in love with on our first visit to Italy.

I lost track of how many churches we visited on our trip.

This gorgeous one in Todi, the Santa Maria della Consolazione, was completed in 1607. 

 The interior was a bit spare compared to other cathedrals that we have visited, but it still was impressive and just so beautiful.

 I told you I was obsessed with ceilings!

Just look at all of the amazing carved details!

 Hard to imagine something so old still stands, in our country we tear things down if they are 50 years old!

 I just loved all of the neat alleyways tucked here and there in the villages!

 Yummy looking desserts!

 We did a bit of wine tasting in the building below, lots of fun!

If you aren't too sick of seeing Italy, I'll share more photos with you in a few days!

Ok, now that we are back home, I couldn't resist sharing a few pics that I snapped of our Katie today!

She visited the "puppy salon" this afternoon for a grooming, and I think she looks so cute!

 Don't let her shy looks fool you, this is one party animal!

Ciao!

Buon Giorno From Italy!

Buon Giorno!

Hubby and I just returned from 10 days in Italy. We had a wonderful time, but it feels so good to be back home!  14 years ago we first travelled to Italy, and could hardly wait to return.  We saw so many amazing sites, but the highlight of our whole trip was the 4 days we spent on the beautiful Amalfi Coast. We wish we had spent our entire trip there!

I took tons of pictures, so I'll be sharing lots with you over the next week. For starters, here is a glimpse of gorgeous Amalfi.  

 This is the town of Positano, just down the road from where we stayed.  We were amazed at how everything seemed to be built right on top of each other, literally hugging the rocky cliffs!

 An adorable little shop in Positano.  I didn't buy much on our trip, as the US dollar is so weak compared to the Euro. We lost 39 cents on the Euro, ouch!

 The Tyrrhenian Sea was beyond gorgeous, and pretty as a postcard!  Notice the long, long flight of stairs on the right, which leads to the sea?  Climbing is a fact of life in Amalfi!

 This is where we stayed, the Hotel Open Gate in the cute little village of Praiano.  It's a small family owned and run hotel, and they really made us feel right at home!

 The view from our balcony.  Oh how we miss that view!

 Breakfast was included with our room, and here is where we ate each morning.

This was our view from our room!  We enjoyed many meals at the umbrella covered tables, perched right on the edge of a cliff!

 Our room looking out to our balcony.  Notice hubby waving in the chair?  Guess he was too relaxed to turn and look at the camera:)

Here we are in the town of Amalfi.  It is a beautiful town, just down the road from Praiano.  It's quite touristy though, as many cruise ship passengers arrive for the day on tour buses.

 You'll see many fancy boats and yachts docked here in the harbor, as well as fishing boats (like the one below), that look as if they came from another century.  Notice the old fisherman waving at me??

 Bouganvilla grows everywhere and is just gorgeous!

 I kept having to pinch myself that we were really here!  The entire area feels like it's right from a movie set, it's just so pretty!

 Lemon trees grow everywhere, and really thrive in the hot, sunny and dry climate.  This was a cute little restaurant in Praiano we had dinner at one night.

 This beautiful old church was also in our town. A bunch of young boys were playing soccer in front of it when I snapped this photo.

 Inside was nice and cool, a welcome break from the heat.

 My photos just don't do justice to how beautiful it was.

Driving in Italy is not for the faint of heart!  Not only do Italians drive very, very fast, but they also drive very recklessly as well!  Hubby did all of the driving, thank goodness, as I never would attempt it there!  Trying to understand street signs is also another challenge.  Signs leave much to be desired, and to us don't make alot of sense.  If you are looking for a town and see an arrow pointing right, well, you turn right, right? Wrong! 
We did that and ended up driving for a good hour down a narrow, never ending very rutted gravel path, which ran between fields.  We had no chose but to continue on. Thank goodness we finally found a paved road!

And driving along the Amalfi Coast is even more challenging, as the very narrow winding road runs along the edge of the cliffs, and hugs the jagged rocky mountains as well!  Needless to stay, it really was a white knuckle ride!  I snapped this shot, below from the passenger seat, going around the unending hairpin curves.  Yikes!

The best part of coming home was getting to pick our Katie up last night at the "pet resort".  We missed her dearly, and could hardly wait to see her!
I have lots more to share with you, so stay tuned for posts on our adventures in Rome and the medieval hill towns of Umbria.
Ciao!