Florence

We're in Florence with little time to type - on our way to the Accademia to check out the David and other art stuff. Florence is a pretty rad little town, only half a million people and the city is very walkable from end to end. Nice and cozy. That's pretty much it, we're going to stuff ourselves silly tonight, drink a bunch of wine and then wake up early to fly back to 'Murica.

D&A

Capri, Vernazza and Pisa

Oh hey there,

First, a quick apology to our devoted readers - we haven't been able to blog much due to pretty bad internet connections in both Capri and Vernazza.

That being said, we wrapped up Rome Monday morning and were quite sad to leave. Rome stunned us with its beauty and realness. So much action on every street, definitely a city to visit again for a much longer time. We were also quite close to the "political manifestation" (as one Italian explained it to us) which occured in Rome near the Colosseum (actually took place on our hotel's street) and saw much of the post-demonstration destruction (cars reduced to burnt cinders, ATMs and store fronts smashed up, etc) and even heard a few explosions during. We were in the heat of the battle and almost jumped right into express our own anger - VIVA ROMA!

From Rome we took a train and a nice little ferry to Capri. This island is breathtakingly gorgeous, certainly one of the most naturally beautiful places either of us has ever visited. In our two days there, we took a private boat tour around the perimeter of the island (we're engaged, it was incredibly romantic and actually gave us a great perspective on what this island has to offer), put in a total of 15 miles of hiking (on some brutally hilly trails which were, once again, breathtaking) and partook in lots of wandering and exploring the two towns of Capri.

Next we trained to Vernazza, one of Cinque Terre's five tucked away towns. Everything slows down in the Cinque Terre, and we pretty much let it happen to us as well. Each of these towns is built into a mini-bay and the homes and buildings are built into the rocks, stacked on top of each other in a million different colors. One or two main streets wind through each town where everyone (tourists and locals alike) gathers. We had a cozy little room in our town of Vernazza (built by the hands of the man who rented it to us for our two day stay) and used every second of our time there to explore the trails linking the five towns, drink wine, eat whenever we pleased and take it all in. It's a bit strange that a group of towns like this actually exists, it's almost like a scene out of a movie. But its very real and we were a glad to be able to enjoy it during a part of the year when the crowds were much less than usual. There was a great sighting of fitness too - on one of the hikes we took between two of the cities of Cinque Terre, we saw one of the trail booth attendents (who are supposed to check to see if you have a hiking pass) doing step ups on a bench. As we approached, instead of stopping and attending to our needs, he continued working out and performed his job admirably. This might have gone unnoticed to a civilian, but not to the OTTC's Treasurer of Fitness. An honorary member of the OTTC was found this day.

We're now wrapping up a brief side trip to Pisa, which was meant to only be a three hour stopover but warped into a eight hour one due to a planned strike by TrenItalia (how polite of them). So, with nowhere to check our bags and an unplanned stopover in Pisa, we hauled our bags to the Field of Miracles (where the leaning tower and several other incredibly old (and under appreciated) structures are located. It was interesting and we had a perfect day of weather, but really nothing to write home about. We mostly people watched, planned our days to come in Florence and relaxed on the lawn next to the tower. Also of note, as we approached the Field of Miracles, we noticed a finish line banner and a few more subtle signs that an organized celebration of fitness may be occuring. We quickly figured out that, as we thought, a 12k road race was happening in the streets of Pisa today, culminating a mere 50m from the leaning tower and requiring that the hundreds of people swarming the street adjacent to the field to be cleared as the runners streamed through. We hoped for an epic swarm of runners plowing through all of the tourists, but we were informed that there were only 450 runners. Lame. There was actually a pretty legit winner in the race too - some guy wearing a Brooks jersey rocked a 38:25 final time weaving through all of those people, another honorary member of the OTTC.

That's pretty much everything. Bye.

Dan and Allie

Rome

We're nearing the end of our second day in Rome and we've gotten our asses kicked by awesomeness. Yesterday we took a phenomenal tour of the Vatican, where we were shown why Catholocism is a multi billion dollar entity - the artwork there blows minds. Two thousand year old statues from ancient Rome, 500 year old tapestries, etc etc etc. Our visit there peaked as we checked out the Sistine Chapel - flat out stunning. Nine years of solid work by Michaelangelo. We easily could have stayed in there that long enjoying the beauty.

Today we took an equally well run tour of the Colosseum and the Forum. Incredible info and sights regarding the beginnings of Rome and the centerpiece for Roman entertainment in its early years. We are taking a short break here at this glorious internet cafe, then we're on to the Pantheon, a gelato stop, dinner out (we're thinking Italian) and then a gelato night cap.

Besides these major sights, a majority of our actual time in Rome has been exploring the city. We've walked everywhere so far and have really enjoyed ducking into side streets and getting pizza/gelato/wine at small shops and cafes. Just an incredible city.

Tomorrow we wake up early for our train to Naples where we'll catch a ferry to the island of Capri. Our dogs are barkin' so we're looking forward to some rest in Capri.

Until then, take care of each other,

Dan and Allie

Italy and Stuff

Thanks for the lovely introduction Tim - and hello world!

Today's the day that my fiance Allie and I leave on our trip to Italy, a trip that we bought plane tickets for eight months ago and have been planning since then (to be fair, Allie has planned 99% of this trip, but I've given everything the final 'OK' - so, win-win-win).

Our eleven day trip has us flying into Rome where we'll be checking out the heavy hitters (The Vatican, The Colesseum, The Forum, etc) and also trying to take in some local flavor. Really looking forward to Rome and comparing it to some of the other major cities that I've been fortunate enough to visit.

From there we travel by train and ferry to the island of Capri, where we'll attempt to decompress a bit from the busyness of Rome . We have a (hopefully) spectacular boat trip around the island planned and then just looking foward to maxing and/or relaxing.

After Capri we'll take a train to Cinque Terre, which is a collection of five small villages along the northwest coast of Italy. We'll be staying in the village of Vernazza where's we'll hike between the other towns of Cinque Terre and explore the shops and restaurants that the area has to offer. More relaxing and taking things in during our stay in Cinque Terre.

Next, we'll hit the train again and head to Florence. But not without stopping for a few hours at everyone's favorite photo opportunity, Pisa! Upon researching things a bit, we really do wish we had a few days to spend in Pisa as well to explore the town outside of the touristy (yet strikingly beautiful and historic) Field of Miracles where the leaning tower is situated. Our trip will continue from Pisa to Florence, our final destination. In Firenzi, we'll see some major art galleries (Uffizi and Accademia) but even with seeing some world famous pieces of art and statues of naked dead dudes, the highlight might be the bike trip that we're taking through Tuscany. Wine and fitness, a nice little combo.

While we cannot promise the late night shenanigans and tales of browned-out makes outs that have been told through this blog, we will hopefully be bringing a new angle of excitement to the table. Waking up early for museum tours, enjoying brunch, staring into each other's eyes and responsibly consuming alcohol is exciting too! We'll do our very best to stop along the way for some in-trip updates.

Thanks for reading and take care of each other,
Dan

Announcement Time

We here at Stories for Stojic are excited to make another major announcement that will certainly bring a welcome distraction to your otherwise endless, depressing cycle of 9-5s. As this blog is dedicated to traveling adventures, and I myself will not be doing any significant traveling until late December, that can only mean that we have been able to add new writers to our staff. These new writers have been friends and more importantly travelers for quite some time, and we are excited (and admittedly nervous) about the new direction they may choose to take the blog.

I have put off making the announcement long enough, so here goes: I would like to formally introduce our newest writers, the future Mr. and Mrs. Daniel R. Walters (unless Allie pulls some feminist new age bullshit and keeps her own last name, very frowned upon, might as well tell Dan you hate him and get a prenup). The recently engaged couple will be leaving for Italy this afternoon and sharing their journey with the blog. Clearly this is a new direction from the blog, especially early posts about blacking or browning out, 4am KFC parties in Prague, and general immature male shenanigans. Quite frankly, we really don’t know what to expect at all, but we are always willing to explore new directions and see how our reader(s) respond. Expect more maturity and more love of a heterosexual nature.

I would like to think that I have already had some impact on the future posts from Dan and Allie, as this trip very likely could have been the time when Dan and Allie got engaged. Although this would have been great for the blog and could have brought in serious Kardashians level advertising money, I encouraged Dan not to propose on this trip, as the idea of carrying and hiding this ring through airports and foreign lands made me nervous for him. That just seems nuts.

Anyway, this post and posts in the future are not about myself, so I will end the announcement here and temporarily pass the reins over to the happy couple.

The writing team has risen to 5. Dools, Liska, Allie, Dan and myself, The Good Kid.

[I will try to add a pic of our new writers at a later time, or Dan can do so himself as I assume he will not like my choice.]