Bella Florence and Pisa

For Thanksgiving this year, we drove 4.5 hours up to Florence. We scrapped the traditional turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy and stuffing and instead at pasta, pizza, steak florentine, wine and gelato.  This was our first real outing since arriving in Italy and it did not disappoint. We spent most of the days walking around looking at the sites and old buildings. On the third day we drove to Pisa to get the obligatory "holding up Pisa with your hands" shot. We found out that there wasn't much to Pisa other than the tower so we ended up driving back soon after said shots. Overall, it was a great trip. Florence was super easy to get around, everyone was very friendly, the food was amazing and we had a Thanksgiving to remember. Pictures to follow.

Well there it is. And now you don't have to go check it out. It was cool to see and take some pix of but there wasn't really anything else to do in Pisa. We were lucky and saw it on a beautiful day with blue sky... and it seemed to have made the colors pop. 

Obligatory Pisa shot #1.

Obligatory Pisa shot #2

Obligatory Pisa shot 3

and obligatory Pisa shot #4.

It really was leaning a lot. In fact it was hard to not align your camera to to take the lean out.

This was a really cool lookout over the city of Florence. The Duomo is the centerpiece of it all (middle structure).

We made our way to one of the palaces in the city and it had a pretty sweet back yard. The girls loved playing in the leaves.

Cool shades. 

This was the Leonardo Da Vinci museum. They had a lot of cool inventions mock ups of his that were for the kids to play with. Here is a helicopter he designed. 

And a model of the David statue and the Mona Lisa.

I introduced Shannon to cannolis and now she is addicted. 

And on the last day we watched a bit of the Florence marathon.

A guide book that we checked out from the library recommended seeing this statue and said it was the funniest statue in Florence. It is a little fat man riding a turtle. 

And of course we had our fair share of gelato..... and coffee.

That is the famous Duomo. 

Someone said if yo ufo to Florence, you have to buy something leather and you have to eat a steak Florentine. Here is the steak that was pretty delicious. It was a bit fatty but the taste was delicious. Florence is in the Chianti region of Italy and Shannon and I have since adjusted our wine pallets for red chiantis. Delicious meal! 

The area was really pretty. And I thought the church and the other buildings were prettier than the bell tower.

The Duomo.

We found a nice leather shop where I was able to buy an Italian leather belt. 

Here is the famous Ponte Vecchio bridge. 

And on that bridge was nothing but jewelry stores.

David statue.

It was a great first road trip..... and hopefully it is a preview of what is to come. Happy Thanksgiving! 

Back on the Grid

We finally got our internet installed at our house, which was a process in itself.  You would think it would be simple, but it took over a month to finally get it set-up. But with that, we are now able to post pictures more freely. Enough on that.

Things are still going well out here in the land of pizza, coffee, wine and chocolate. The kids are both in school, I am settled in at work, and we are starting to explore. Speaking of exploring, we were able to pack up the car and drive to beautiful Florence over the Thanksgiving break. It was a quick, easy and beautiful 4 hour drive. 

Ill just go ahead and start posting pictures.... we have a lot to catch you up on.

Shannon is getting quite used to her diesel rocket ship (Fiat Croma). Her stick driving skills are coming back nicely!

LC is at the DoD school on base and seems to really like it. On day 2, they had a hat parade. We didn't have many supplies to choose from at the Navy Lodge so we made due just used some crafting supplies. We did notice that people go all the way with their hats -- so we will know for next time! 

We've found a few stores we now frequent. This is E at the Ipercoop. It is a super walmart equivalent. However they have aisles upon aisles of cheeses, breads, and wines. 

the view of Mt Vesuvius from the base parking garage. Why do we always find ourselves stationed near volcanoes? 

As expected, the girls love gelato. This was our first trip to get gelato! Yum! 

LC's school had their Fall festival that we attended. 

We ventured out to the Caserta palace one weekend and the girls thought it was necessary to dress up as Shimmer and Shine. 

It was am impressive palace.

Italy is known for their marble and this place had plenty. 

The back yard at the palace.

We were still at the Navy Lodge for LC's birthday. She picked out a cake and we invited some friends over to a park and had a party. 

6 years old! 

Movers came, I believe, on the 25th of October. Everything made it. nothing was broke and/or missing. They brought 6 guys over and were done around 4pm. 

We've been enjoying countless sunsets from our house!

We also made it out to downtown Pozzuoli. Pozzuoli is the town we actually live in and it has a nice port area down by the water. 

It also has the 3rd largest amphitheater in Italy.

Did I mention that this is our view every evening?

We all got dressed up (except Mom) and trick or treated around the neighborhood. Surprisngly, we had an enormous amount of kids come to the house that we ran out of candy in about 45 min. We gave some of the girls' candy away but they didn't let the god stuff go which meant we had to close it all down. We will know for next year!

Alright, going to get this one up..... next post you'll see will be our trip to Florence and Pisa. Ciao.