~European Vaca . . . Day #7: Florence!~

I have to get this posted before our next trip in like 5 weeks! He he

If you missed them, Days: 1,2,3,4,5,6

Now on to Firenze (Florence) Italy . . .

known for it amazing art as well as food

Florence is the "birthplace of the Renaissance"

And the birthplace of many famous artists such as:

 "Dante, Boccaccio, Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Niccolò Machiavelli, Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, Donatello, Galileo Galilei, Catherine de' Medici, Luigi Cherubini, Antonio Meucci, Guccio Gucci, Franco Zeffirelli, Salvatore Ferragamo, Roberto Cavalli, Leonardo Bruni, Coluccio Salutati, and Emilio Pucci."

(wikipedia)

Main stops:

Pitti Palace and Ufiizi Gallery

Here's a few pics from our Florence experience:

I am a big fan of the architecture and statues . . . oh and doors!

If you look closely you can see old paintings on the walls!

Me!

The ever famous statue of David

Ponte Vecchio: the famous bridge in Florence where merchants sell expensive jewelry, but you can bargain!

 Ok this is hands down my favorite part of Florence: the food! We stopped at this little place and had one of the best food experiences we had on this trip . . .

uh.maz.ing!

I had some truffle pasta dish . . . heaven!

Andy's a big lasagna fan

We had suuuch a fun time at this place, we will be back to feast in November!!!

Ok funny thing . . . when we travel and see westies we get all excited and stalk them.  Happens each trip and we take pics.  Guess we just miss our lil boogs so much!

Nice!

Can't wait to go back in November.

Have any of you been to Florence?

~Making Awesome-spice Lemonade from our Lemons~

Via The Keep Calm Shop

Yup we have alllll heard this adage before.

(Via the Hostess Blog)

Maybe at times have wanted to ignore it and focus on the sour-ness

(Source)

Or have used it to turn a situation into a

 new adventure!

(source)

This last weekend we were thrown a whole bunch of lemons.

for all my blog friends who know me . . .

you know that:

1) We LOVE to travel

2) I like to plan

3) We are trying to travel as much as possible before we have beeebies!

The Lemons:

We have been planning our vacations since last year

(redeeming miles we need to book a year in advance!).

We have one in June and one in November.

My hubby was checking the Royal Carribean website . . .

it had our June trip . . .

and. that. was. it!

Where the h.e.-double-hockey-sticks did our 2nd trip go?!

Hmmmmm?!

So he calls.

They cancelled it.

Sweet arse!

So we are freaking out because we have a flight to Milan, Italy, and 10 days later going home from Barcelona, Spain, but no cruise . . .  so what the heck do we do, we can't cancel our flights b/c we will then have to pay an arm and a leg, and we are cheap travelers.

mmmm mmm nope.

There are no other cruises fitting our criteria.

(source)

Our Awesome-spice Lemonade:

We are going to keep the flight to Milan, and just change the last one to go from Rome.

Train pass: cheap!

So we are going to travel Italy on our own!

(source)

We get to experience the local night life

See all we want to see

Not be stuck with a bunch of 70 year olds

(sorry but true on cruises in Europe!)

I'm soooo pumped.

So thank you my marvelous hubby for the new plans and not cancelling our trip!

(Ok so I may be overly dramatic, but that's why you love me right?  AND if you were here during this fiasco you'd understand.  Don't mess with our vaca's . . . we only have a few before we give up travels for kiddos!)

K thanks for reading my rant.

And enjoy your lemonade today chicas!!!

~Euopean Vacation Day #6: Pisa~

European Vaca . . . Day #6 Pisa, Italy!

Still playing catch up from posting our vacation from May 2010 . . . it's about time right?!

If you missed them, Days: 1,2,3,4,5

If any of you have been to Pisa . . . you know it's pretty much just a small little courtyard with a few buildings . . . one being the famous leaning tower.

If you come here, you stay for like an hour, take way too many pictures and then off to the next spot!

BUT the pics are worth it . . .

Here's us being dorky by the famous

Leaning Tower of Pisa:

One "must do" here is take like 100 pics of you pushing or holding up the tower.

Seriously like 100 people were all doing this at once, kind of funny.

Yup and another one!

Had enough yet? :-)

I have a big obsession with huge European doors, loved this one!

And that's Pisa in a nut shell!

Missed our Days 1,2,3,4,5?

Catch up! Hee hee

Next up:

Florence,Italy