Only In Italy Once!!

Everyday in Italy is an adventure. You have to remember that we are three women with no experience of travel, especially international travel. This is our first time doing this and with each day we learn something new. Today's adventure started with getting around Florence. We walked the town so that my mom could get a leather purse. Of course I had to get one as well then. Florence is known for it's leather!! As we walked we also made our way to a small sandwich place and a gelato shop that was recommended to us by my good friend, Sarah Terry. I had the best gelato of my life today. First I had carmel and cheesecake which was good but then I decided I just HAD to go back and get the strawberry mousse because it looked so creamy and light. I mean, you are only in Italy once right? OH MY GOSH. PERFECTO! It was absolutely amazing! The lightest, creamiest gelato I have ever had!! 

The days go by so quickly here. We walk around and are so amazed by everything that we see and before you know it the time has passed us by! We took a taxi back to the hotel so that we could get our rental car. (I am getting really good at flagging down taxis by the way!) Once we got our car we took the adventure to Lucca, which is in the Tuscany region. My mom was so nervous but she did such a great job driving in Italy for the first time. The drivers here are NUTS! There are no lanes, hardly any traffic lights and they just drive wherever they want. There are a lot of people driving scooters and motorcycles and they drive in between cars in traffic and on the side of cars in your lane. It is crazy! I know my mom was afraid but she did a good job at staying calm. The drive to Lucca was beautiful. This is wine country. The vineyards and the old homes are so cute! The sun was setting which made it all the more fabulous. My grandma kept falling asleep. I told her she needed to look around and she assured me she was just closing her eyes because the sun was so bright. Not sure your head bobs around when you are just closing your eyes. ;) 

We were so excited to go to Lucca because we had heard it was a really small town. Little did we know-it is a town within a town. Picture a large circle with a smaller circle inside of it-sort of like a donut. The small circle is the small, cute town. This has small, narrow streets and cute little shops and places to eat. It has beautiful churches and hotels. This is where our hotel is. When we entered the small town it was hard to drive and it made my mom really nervous. The streets were narrow and there were people EVERYWHERE! We had to pull over and ask for help. This is when we found out that only residents can park and drive in this area and everyone else had to park outside and walk in. He drove his car and we followed him out of the town and we parked our car and walked in. We thought we would find out hotel and then drag our luggage in from the car. Well once we got to our hotel we realized that we had to climb multiple flights of stairs. Readers-our luggage is not light!! Lesson learned-pack LIGHT-LIGHTER THAN YOU WOULD EVER THINK TO PACK! Also, we learned that our hotel was actually an apartment style room. The lady that owns them met us and she helped us get our luggage up to our room. However, to do this mom and I had to walk back to our car (large circle) drive back in town (small circle)-which was a nightmare! It is easy to get lost. The street signs are not like they are in America. They are high up on the sides of the building at each corner and they are made of concrete. The letters are carved in and they are difficult to read. So needless to say we got lost a time our two before we made our way back to our apartment. They the woman helped us get our luggage and we had to drive our car back out of town. Then we proceeded to drive around for about an hour before we found a parking spot. The parking here is crazy. People were in their cars just sitting next to parked cars waiting and waiting for someone to come and leave. Once we got a parking spot the night was smoother.

 We have this cute family owned cafe across the street with lattes and pastries. They owner and his son are so nice and were very helpful to us so we went to their place and bought some Italian pasteries to eat later and then walked down to a little place to eat. We share some pasta and wine. There were some Americans sitting close by and so I was trying to listen to see where they were from when I heard them say something about a place called Gunther Tooties (we have this in Colorado). We turned around and said- where are you from?? And they replied-Denver! NO WAY!!! SMALL WORLD!!! This started a loud and fun conversation between us all. We talked about our trips in Italy and all the places we had been and are going. We exchanged lots of tips which was nice to do. Then we talked about Colorado and the Broncos of course. It was so nice and refreshing to chat. We decided after sitting there awhile to get some gelato-why not? You are only in Italy once right? We shared gelato and talked some more when we decided to get one last dessert...vanilla gelato covered in whiskey. It was like a whiskey float. I mean why not? You are only in Italy once right? ;) Oh my goodness-it was strong but so delicous! My mom and I finished this while my grandmas enjoyed a latte. What a nice relaxing way to end our semi crazy day. It is now 12:30 am. Mama Mia! I need sleep. Tomorrow we head to a wine tour and a day enjoying the small circle of Lucca.