Florence, Italy - The Conclusion To Our Italy Trip

Day 6

So our final chapter in our Italy trip was based in Florence, Italy. We arrived in Florence and were extremely tired so we decided to take a nap. Our hotel room was gorgeous… the best one yet. After sleeping for a few hours, we woke up and got moving. It was around 5 p.m. so when we finally got outside, the city was pretty empty (most of the museums/churches close at 5 p.m. so that’s normal). We were a little disappointed that the city was so empty and didn’t think any city could compare to how much fun we had in Rome and Venice, so we decided that Florence wasn’t going to be as fun as the other cities right away… we were wrong : )

We decided to get some gelato and we found our favorite gelato flavors of the trip… Scott’s favorite was the coffee and chocolate mixed together and mine was tiramisu (the next day I got banana and that became my new favorite ) ; ) It seemed like the gelato tasted better in Florence… more authentic or something. We decided to walk around the Duomo and look at the Ghiberti doors while there weren’t very many tourists. We then decided to go to dinner near the Duomo. Right when we figured out what restaurant we wanted to go to, Scott looked over and Sammy and Dena from Jersey Shore were in the restaurant on camera filming the show. I quickly took a picture and we decided to eat at the restaurant next door so we could look at the reactions of people when they saw the Jersey Shore being filmed. Pretty random running into the Jersey Shore in the middle of Italy eh? The food was the best we had tasted in Italy yet. Not complicated - just spaghetti or pizza with a caprese salad, but maybe we just enjoyed it more because we started to finally relax and enjoy ourselves and take things slow.

Day 7

We woke up the next day to a beautiful view from our hotel room. The complementary breakfast at our hotel was amazing. It had the most beautiful view of all of Florence from the roof top. I highly recommend you stay at the Hotel Baglioni in Florence if you go. After breakfast we decided to head out to the city and walk through the main art museums and churches (lots of walking again – and it was HOT outside!).

First, we decided to climb the stairs in the Duomo to go to the top of the basilica. It was quite the workout! You have to climb a bunch of stairs that are going in a circle in a really small space… so you are exhausted, claustrophobic and dizzy the whole way up, but it’s beautiful when you get there because you can see all of Florence (which has some mountainside – Tuscany area) and you can see the painting on the basilica up close. According to Wikipedia, the basilica and church construction began in 1296 in the Gothic style to the design of Arnolfo di Cambio and was completed structurally in 1436 with the dome engineered by Filippo Brunelleschi.

Picture from the web:


We heard that we HAD to see The David statue so we walked to The Galleria de Academia and waited in line (since we didn’t have reservations). We only waited about 45 minutes, but it was worth it. The David is amazing…. You just sit there in aw of how beautiful the sculpture is, how perfect it is. I can’t help but think that Scott looks like The David… they have the same body type and the same hair!

We were tired, but decided to continue to the Uffizi museum to see more Byzantine art, Da Vinci, Caravaggio and the famous Botticelli painting - The Birth of Venus. I would highly recommend that you eat lunch and get hydrated before you go into this museum because it is huge and there is a lot to look at. The Birth of Venus painting was amazing.

Picture from the web:


When we left the Uffizi it started to rain (like it did in the afternoon at the same time everyday). We got some more Tiramisu Gelato and ran back to our hotel in the rain.

Day 8

We decided to go on a tour of the countryside near Florence (The Tuscany region) so we went to this cute little town called Shianti. I tried some blackberry gelato before we got on the bus and it wasn’t my favorite flavor… (we did eat a new flavor each day though!)…. I wish we had more gelato in the U.S.

Anyway, the tour included a tour of some small town countryside churches, a tour of a medieval castle, a tour showing how to make wine and how to make olive oil, and a wine tasting with hors d'œuvres. It was extremely relaxing and romantic which was just what the doctor ordered. We met some cute couples from Mesa, Arizona that told us they had a lot of trouble on their vacation (with taxis overcharging them, losing luggage and taxis bringing them to bad parts of town) so we felt very blessed that everything went smoothly for us. We tasted three different wines after we learned how they brewed them. One that was aged 1 – 3 years, one that was aged 5 – 10 years, and a desert wine that was aged for about five years that was a specialty wine where they had to first make the wine into raisins THEN squeeze it. Apparently they serve this wine in the churches as part of sacrament in their town.

A cool story about the medieval castle (Castello Del Trebbio) where we did the wine tasting before I conclude – The castle was built in the 1300’s and inhabited by the Pazzi family who was the second richest family in town. Obviously the richest family town was the Medici family who commissioned the artists to make Florence (and other cities) beautiful with their art. The Pazzi family was jealous of the Medici family and wanted to kill them so they could be the number one family so they conspired with the Pope at the time to kill the Medici family in this castle. The Pazzi family was successful in killing one of the Medici brothers, but not the most powerful brother – Lorenzo. Lorenzo found out about the conspiracy and killed everyone in the Pazzi family and seized their property (including the castle we were in).

For years the castle was empty, but they told us a cute story that an older man met a woman from Belgium on a train and immediately fell in love with her. She wanted to move to the castle even though it was cold ( you literally have to burn wood to get any heat in the place ), but she loved it. They had five kids in six years and raise their family in the castle. They revived the wine vineyards and olive trees and brought the place back to life. When the boys turned 20ish their father passed away and soon after their mother died in a car crash. The boys had to sell the castle because they couldn’t afford to pay for it. There is a modern day family that lives in the castle with a beautiful original Raphael painting in the living room. They cook in a wood burning stove, make wine and olive oil, and live in the most beautiful countryside of Italy. What a life!!!

Image from the web:


We came back to the city and went to dinner at the same café we dined at the first night in Florence (because the food was so good). When we were done, we saw three more Jersey Shore characters being filmed – Mike, Vinny and Pauly… MVP. It was surreal to see them in person… and in Italy no less?

The trip was absolutely fabulous and we hope to go back to Italy one day.

Amsterdam Part 2 - Dankavelle! Je Quee.

So, I’ll just start this out by saying that this is one of the best trips I’ve ever been on. Very eventful, very full of adventure, very fun… I’d like to thank Rob for everything. I know the five of us will be friends for life.

We are on our way home (in the middle of a 14 hour flight) and quite exhausted. We are trying to stay awake so we can get a good nights rest tonight and get back on the time schedule for the U.S. As much as we’ve loved traveling for nine days, we have to get back into the groove of the U.S. lifestyle. Work!

The last couple of days in Amsterdam, Holland were brilliant. We went on the bike tour that we had originally scheduled for the first day. We were very happy we did this because the rain went away [I think it’s because of our sun dance ; )] and we were able to enjoy the trip much more than we would have if it were raining the whole time.

Our tour guide’s name was A.J. He was a very down-to-earth guy who obviously enjoyed living in Amsterdam and taking people on bike tours for a living. Even though the bike tour was four hours, it seemed like it went by in five minutes (actually, the whole trip felt like that!). He showed us around the entire city (which was much larger than Prague) and we all wondered why we didn’t get bikes the first day. Our legs were killing us from trying to walk the entire city. He showed us the “I Amsterdam” sign, the various beer breweries, the famous fry shops (people like french fries in Amsterdam… that was new to me), the “coffeeshops”, the art museums, and yes – even the red light district.

It was fun to experience the biking in Amsterdam since everyone does it, but it was a little scary because cars + bikes + walkers + big city intersections required master maneuvering skills. It was an adventure, that is for sure! The majority of people in the city bike, so they carry their kids in bike seats and park there bikes everywhere. I wish people were more like that in the U.S.

We were hoping to go to one of the beer breweries to see how they brewed local beer, but we couldn’t fit that in to our schedule. We will definitely hit that first thing when we go back.

After the tour, we went to a pizza shop and had AMAZING pizza… the best pizza of the trip right near Dam Square. Did I also mention that the coffee is great in Europe as well? We shopped for souvenirs in the hundreds of shops on our walk home to the hotel then decided to go out for dinner with just Scotty and I and do some people watching. We ate dinner at a restaurant where we could look right out into a main square and watch the people walk by/watch the musicians. By this time, we had three layers on with gloves, so eating outside wasn’t half bad.

While we were eating we met a 71 year old man named Roman. We talked with him for about an hour. He told us to be happy, eat lots of garlic and take good care of each other. He was married to his wife for 25 years and missed her very much (he was a leo and she was a libra). I think we were definitely meant to meet him. : )


The next day, we woke up – had amazing croissants for breakfast, then walked to the Van Gogh museum. I have a passion for art history and art was my minor so seeing Van Gogh was a must – especially since they have the largest collection in the world in Amsterdam (because Van Gogh was from there). We didn’t get to see the Starry Night painting because that is housed in New York, but we did get to see the still life of the Sunflowers, some of his Japanese print-like stuff, and his famous “Wheatfield With Crows” picture that was said to be the last piece he painted before his death (though there are a lot of opinions about which piece was his last).







I didn’t realize what a miserable man Van Gogh was… he was very troubled. He cut his ear off because he got in a fight with his friend Gauguin (who loved him dearly I might add). He admitted himself into a mental institution and did a lot of his best pieces there. He used to take art pieces from artists he loved and copy them/bring out the thicker brush strokes/ bring out the complementary colors. He had no scholarly art training, and mocked those that did – he said those who had that training didn’t see art and colors the way people wanted to see them. He was very critical of himself because he didn’t sell any of the paintings he created. He ended up killing himself after struggling with anxiety and mental illness. His artwork wasn’t famous until after his death.

He loved painting pictures of landscapes, working people, nature, anything natural/realistic. He was very close with his brother and painted this picture for his nephew which I thought was beautiful –


After the museum, Scotty and I went to a beautiful bakery and got some sandwiches. I can’t wait to post pictures of this place because it was right out of a storybook.

We then decided to go to Dam Square and ride “the swings” in this carnival like square that looked like a mini Disneyland in the middle of the city. There was a huge Ferris Wheel, a haunted house, swings that went higher than any of the buildings in the city, rides, etc. Scott is afraid of heights, but I got him to go on the swings with me and he was really happy he did it. We got some great pictures of the city at the top : ) It was cold though!

We decided to walk through the Red Light District because everyone says you must do it. Right when we got in the area, we saw thirty beautiful swans in the canal. I had never seen so many swans in one area! The red lights were cool and it was very surreal to think that people were actually window shopping for people there.

We had our final dinner with “the crew” at a cute little spot called the Palladium. The food in Amsterdam was definitely better than Prague. I had a delicious vegetarian lasagna and Scotty had the authentic fries with a hamburger.

It was an amazing trip and we feel truly blessed to have experienced it. Thank you universe!

Best quotes from the trip:
“De Quee, Yo Queue, Ye Quey…” – Rob/all of us trying to say “Thank You” in Prague.
“Let’s Keep It Poppin’.” – Eddie
“My body is shutting down. I need bed.” – Jeff
“Dankavelle.” – Jess trying to say “Thank You” in Amsterdam and perfecting it ; )
“Watch out for the bikes!” - Scott

Amsterdam Part 1

We were supposed to go on a bike tour around the city on the first day in Amsterdam, but it was raining pretty hard so we asked if we could postpone the ride to the next day. It was a great decision, because it literally rained cold miserable rain all day. We had coffee/drinks at a nice little Irish Pub ( I know, again… not sure what our obsession with the Irish is) and watched soccer for an hour or so.

Our friend Eddie introduced us to a native named Jesse, and he invited us to go up to his loft to checkout his art. His loft was very nice and I really loved the concept of his art. He took recyclable boxes and painted Rembrandt-like pieces on them. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a loft in Amsterdam that you dedicated solely to art making?? Jesse then proceeded to tell us that he is an actor and showed us some of the commercials he’s been in world-wide. He was in a McDonalds commercial, BMW commercial, banking commercial, etc. and had won an award from Warner Brothers for a project he helped them with. We were hanging out with a true celebrity here and he was extremely down to earth and hospitable.

After leaving the loft, we decided to go to the Anne Frank house. Most of you have probably read “The Diary of Anne Frank” when you were in grade school/middle school, but this house/exhibit was exquisite and I highly recommend you visit if you come to Amsterdam. Scott’s mom had recommended we go (thanks Becky!), and I am happy we did because it was one of my favorite adventures in the city.

Besides the fact that Anne Frank and I share the same birthday and that we are both writers, I felt a weird connection with her. I ended up being the same height as her as well (her measurements were on the wall). I can’t imagine what it would be like to be stuck in an attic for years while being hunted by Germans and not being able to breathe the fresh air/run around/be free. How claustrophobic! I also can’t believe that after all that, they were actually caught by the Germans and only her father survived. It was nice to have the story brought back to us to remember a) how recent WWII is to us in our history and b) to remember that we never want something that hellacious to happen again. We must love one another.

The one part of the museum that I thought was truly sobering was watching a video of her Father’s thoughts after the whole ordeal was over and after he read Anne’s journals about the incident. He said that after he read Anne’s journals he was surprised and how little he actually knew his daughter and what was going on in her mind. He had no idea that she was so critical of herself and wished he could have known that so he could have been there for her more. It’s amazing how little we actually know about our closest friends and family members.

That’s something only our journals know…

That night, we went to dinner at a very “posh” place for a five course meal and entrance into an exclusive night club. The food was delicious… goat cheese salad, miso soup, vegetarian ravioli, chocolate strawberry ice cream dessert. The dinner that night was one of my favorite dinners of the trip. The night club was okay… it had a great D.J. (ACE) and Eddie kept saying “Let’s keep it poppin!” so that is what we did : )