Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Travel Post #5: Tuscany (Guest post from Lori)

"The world is a book and those who do not travel only read one page."
-St. Augustine

A few weeks ago, I was granted with the incredible opportunity to be able to travel to Italy with my friend, Victoria and her mother. They have a beautiful house that used to be a monastery in a tiny village 20 minutes outside of the town of Villa Franca, in the district of Tuscany. It was completely secluded, on top of a mountain, overlooking a valley and other numerous mountains surrounding it.


We took advantage of having a car and a GPS and made several day trips. The first was to Pisa to see the famous leaning tower. It was very amazing to see in person and really does mess with your head a bit, because it is something that should be straight, but isn't.


Just a couple of days after Pisa, we went to one of the Cinque Terre. It was absolutely beautiful and looked like a painting. There were sandy beaches, cliffs, sailboats, and some of the bluest water I've ever seen.





The last place we visited, the day before he headed back home, was another tiny town named Bagnone that was absolutely charming. It looked like it was right out of a fairytale. They also made the best cappuccino I have ever had in my life. And again, some of the bluest, clearest water I've ever seen.




Even heading home was an incredible site. We drove through the Alps and one of the longest tunnels in the alps (16 Kilometers) We got incredible views. It was cloudy and rainy and seeing the fog obscure the mountains is magical. One of the most incredible sights was when we went around a corner and there was a massive mountain that seemed to be directly in front of us. It almost looked like the sky and because of the fog, it was impossible to see where it ended. It was breathtaking.

However, one thing I cannot recommend is driving almost non stop for 9 hours with 4 people, 2 dogs (a boxer and chihuahua, both puppies but the boxer being very big) and numerous suitcases in an average sized European car.

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