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