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<--<--this is unfortunately not my home, but one of the first countryside photos I took

We are home. I'm so thankful to be home with my family, even though Italy was everything and more that I had imagined it to be.The children had a fabulous time with Grandma and Grandpa. And believe it or not, I think have more pictures of the 2 weeks than I do. More on them later....

Our trip was incredible. At times we were completely and utterly exhausted. Most of the time we were in awe, with our senses running on overload at the art, culture, colors, flavors, people. I have so, so, so much to share. So many experiences that I can't wait to tell about. Truthfully, I am a bit overwhelmed with where to start. I took over 1500 pictures (yikes!) and behind all of those pictures are stories. So, I'll just start at the very beginning, that's a very good place to start according to Julie Andrews.

Leaving from home on Monday a.m. Flying through Philadelphia and onto Milan. We arrived in Milan at 6 a.m. Tuesday --- they are 7 hours ahead of us --- The plane ride was fine. (around 8 hours from Philly) I took some medicine and slept for a while, which was good considering we completely missed Monday night and went right on into Tuesday with a day of traveling ahead of us.

When we arrived in Milan, we met up with 2 other small groups. One of them unfortunately missed a connecting flight and we had to wait at the airport for them. We left Milan for Verona and Venice at 1:30 in the afternoon. Yep, lots of waiting.



<<--<<--hanging out outside the Milan airport

Let me interrupt here and tell you that we had the absolute most fabulous tour director named Michael. He was hilarious, organized, professional and took care of everything. He truly went above and beyond to make the trip seamless for us. He is from New Orleans but has lived abroad for a long time and now lives in Rome. He is also a fabulous dresser. The man had the cutest clothes ever!! Rocked the linen pant and always coordinated his shoes with this pants. Love him! Amy and I decided that we were going to be bff's with him and let him give us tours around the world. :)

O.K. back to the first day:

Halfway to Venice we stopped for a short visit in the town of Verona. Sweet city. It has some great scenery, tons of cute shops, and is famous for being the setting for Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Whether or not it is true, I don't know. But the Cappulet family was a big part of Verona and we visited Juliet's balconey. The walls outside the courtyard are covered in graffiti and notes left by people who believe that because of the romance of this spot, they too can have true love. There is a statue of Juliet, where the legend and tradition is to rub her right breat 3 times and you will have luck in love. It was funny to see how the boys on our trip reacted, the majority of them standing far back, not about to go up in front of the crowd of tourists and rub a statue's breast. But, we took full advantage of the experience.

<--<-- Ahhhhh..... don't you love the pointy trees (not the official name, by the way)

















We were only in Verona for a couple of hours, just long enough to experience our first pay-to-use restroom. It was a cheaper one. Only 50 cents Euro to tinkle. (I think that's about $1.25) We paid 1 Euro at one point in the trip. I still can't get over it. And another thing... the flusher on the toliet is never in the same place in any restroom you go into to. When we were in Rome, Marilyn had a great idea that we should have been taking pictures of all the restrooms we had been in. Some, though, I'd just as soon forget. :) We played the game of "try to find the flusher". Sometimes it was one the wall, on the floor, etc. you just never know. Same for the sinks. Pedal, lever, automatic. And very watered down soap. I'll tell you what, Italians aren't wasteful. Not with soap, napkins, electricity. Here, we just grab a huge stack of napkins when we are out to eat. There you get one waxy, thin napkin and make due.

We had several more hours on the bus before we got to Venice. I'll have an entry later about our driver, Mario. He is a post to himself. Our bus was new, and comfortable. Thankfully, since in the days to come we were to spend many hours traveling throughout Italy on it.

Next post: Venice. A city that I fell in love with. So amazing.