Bella Firenze

One of my favorite countries in Europe is Italy. And amazingly, since Travers and I moved to Geneva, we had yet to travel there. My first trip to Italy was in junior high with my family. We went to Venice, Rome and Florence. And it was then that I first fell in love with the city of Florence! Then in college, I studied in Turino for a few months over the summer. My friend and I traveled a lot while we were there and ended our stay with a trip to Florence where I fell in love with it all over again! Then after Travers and I were married, we spent part of our honeymoon in Florence and the Chianti and Tuscany regions too!  So I was thrilled to be going back to Florence at the end of July, even though it was for work, as it is one of my favorite Italian cities.

I was there for 5 days, and unfortunately, wasn't able to see much of the tourist hot spots, but I walked across the famous Ponte Vecchio probably 10 times every day. I saw some beautiful wineries and vineyards in the Chianti countryside. And I helped run a 3 day event for several CEO's of various hotel brands. During the day, I was husseling back and forth along the Ponte Vecchio between the various beautiful Lungarno Collection Hotels, and made great friends of all the hotel staff that were helping run this event. While extremely busy setting up the event and making sure everything ran smoothly, I was able to sneak away a couple nights by myself to check out the city.

My first night, I went to a restaurant called Mamma Mia, which is in the heart of Florence on the Mercato Nuovo Square. This square is covered by pop up shops of leather goods and touristy items during the day, and at night is covered with people sitting admiring the Fontana del Porcellino, a statue of a wild boar that brings fortune to those that rub its nose.  After dinner, I strolled through the streets a bit, taking in the architecture and the buildings all lit up at night. I was able to see the replica of The David, but will have to wait until my next visit to go see the original again.

The next time I got a night to myself, I walked to the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, commonly known as the Duomo. I chose one of the most touristy restaurants in the Piazza del Duomo, and sat outside, staring up at this beautiful cathedral, as the sun set, soaking in the culture surrounding me, and enjoying a delicious pizza all to myself. It was moments like this where I wish Travers had been with me, and it brought back all the memories we had when we were here on our honeymoon. We will definitely have to come back and experience it all over again.

Throughout the rest of my time there, I was running around making sure everyone was happy and taken care of. And I was able to tag along on one of the evening excursions out to a castle and vineyards called Castello Di Nipozzano, now owned by the Frescobaldi family. We enjoyed a tour of the grounds and the wine cellars/caves and then enjoyed a delicious dinner with wine pairings of several delicious Frescobaldi wines. A story we walked away with is that every newborn child of the Frescobaldi family gets 100-500 cases of wine (depending on gender) from the year they were born. It is stored at the castle and for that child's important events such as birthdays and weddings, that child's wine will be drank for their event. We got to see some of the wine stored there and the youngest one I could find was born in 2003 and the oldest I saw was 1930! It was an amazing opportunity to see this winery and take in all the beautiful views of surrounding Tuscany.

From 2003

The final day of my stay in Florence was spent about an hour's drive back out in the Chianti region at Il Borro, another vineyard and winery owned by the Salvatore Ferragamo family. A huge estate, we hardly had time to see any of it, but what we did see were beautiful buildings, gardens, horses and wine!  We were able to meet Salavtore Ferragamo Jr. who manages Il Borro and kindly showed us around the grounds and cellars and gave us a short wine tasting lesson.  We finished with a tasty lunch before hopping in a van to head to the airport and back to Geneva. Not too bad for a work trip, but it definitely made me want to spend more of our vacations going to Italy, which I actually ended up getting to do for my birthday this year!

End of Spain

Unfortunately its been a long time since we actually were in Malaga, our last destination of our trip to Spain, as I've drastically fallen behind in my blogs. But I do remember most of it. I remember it being hot. I remember it having a cute old town area, with lots of shops and restaurants. And I remember it being relaxing sitting at the same bar for pre-dinner drinks every night we were there.

We dropped the car off at Malaga airport and took a train into the city to our hotel. After settling in, we wandered to Old Town and through the streets, finding a cute bar on one of the main drags to have a couple drinks and tapas and watch all the people go by. We continued our walk and found a large square with lots of restaurants. After finding one for dinner, we had tasty Mediterranean meal, then wandered around the city taking in the historic buildings and architecture.









 The next day the temperatures outside were over 100°F with winds coming up from Africa.  So we tried to wander the streets again and headed out to the beach to see if being by the water would be cooler. It wasn't. We watched as several brave people sunbathed and Travers and Shelley braved the hot sand to put their feet in the water. We found an air-conditioned restaurant for lunch and then all decided the heat was too much so we headed back to the hotel to rest in the air-conditioned rooms for a couple hours and we would reconvene later that afternoon.

Travers and I braved our roof-top pool but as there were no umbrellas working to cover us from the sun, we sat by the pool-side bar under the awning sweating in the heat. We eventually made our way out later that afternoon and sat at the same bar we had the night before, people watching, having drinks and tapas.  Being one of our last nights of vacation, we decided to have dinner at a Japanese restaurant, followed by some drinks at a local Irish bar.

Shelley and Mike left the next morning and the temperature had dropped so Travers and I put on our swimsuits and braved the beach. We hired two beach chairs and a tiki umbrella and spent the next several hours lounging at the beach, trying not to stare at the overweight topless women sitting next to us.

The sun and beach relaxed us and revived us. After freshening up at the hotel, we headed out to have our last dinner in Spain. And of course, it had to include paella and tapas.  The dinner was delicious. We sat on one of the main drags in old town, watched as people went by, and listened to a couple street musicians entertain us.

Our trip to Spain was over. We were happy to be headed home as it was a long trip, but sad that vacation time was over. Although there are definite places we will want to go back to someday, we can now officially check Spain off our list!

Road to Relaxation

After 6 days into our tour of Spain, we were so happy to be getting into a rental car on the 7th day and driving to our next destination.  With my expert google map directions, we headed south out of Sevilla for a quick stop in Gibralter and then onto Estepona for some resort relaxation.  The road trip was going well, all enjoying not being on a train and seeing some of the countryside that we were driving through. About half way there though, there was an error in communication and an exit was missed!  We thought, hey no problem, we'll just get off at the next one and turn around. But then we realized the next exit wasn't for several km. When we finally did find another exit, it was a transfer to another highway. So we said, ok we'll get off at the first exit, turn back around and get back on the original highway. Well that first exit was another transfer to yet another highway!!  We were absolutely beside ourselves at this point and getting quite frustrated with the Spanish road systems. With a few tricky maneuvers by Travers, the driver, and lots of patience by all, we finally found a spot to turn around, about 20-30 minutes after we had missed the original exit. And with some expert memories and using our phones for live google map updates (don't want to know what the roaming charges are there), we were actually able to find our way back to the original highway and to the original exit that we needed to take. And on our way again.

The Rock

We finally made it to Gibralter a little later than planned, but still within lots of time to see what we wanted to see. Gibralter, for those that don't know, is a British territory in the south of Spain. Its famous for the Rock of Gibralter, which is a huge rock/mountain that looks so oddly placed as everything around it is flat for miles. There is only one way in and one way out of Gibralter, so we sat in a little bit of traffic to get us through border patrol. And the road that leads into Gibralter actually crosses a airport runway!  They stop traffic from time to time when planes are landing or taking off. Its crazy to drive across it and look left and look right and realize you are driving across a runway, and just hope they have their communication working so that no planes land on you and your car!  Once in Gibralter and parked, we made it into town just in time for a late lunch, at Burger King!  This is one of Mike's favorite places and we like to splurge on it when we're on holiday too, so it was a tasty treat for us all! We strolled the main street for awhile, checked out some local stores and then called it a day and headed back to our car and onto Estepona!

as good a pic as i could get of the runway

Us in Gibralter

Estepona is a beach town with tons of resorts that line the beaches of southern Spain. We stayed at the Kempinski Hotel Bahia and through connections with my company, got some fantastic rooms with some nice views of the property and ocean.  We checked in and being that the sun doesn't go down until after 9pm in Spain, we headed right out to the pool to get some sun and swim time.

Views of the ocean

Looking back at the hotel

Throughout the property there were several sculptures that for some reason I really liked, and Travers had fun posing with, so I took lots of pictures of them. Here are a few:






















We spent the rest of the day by the pool, then had a cocktail party in our rooms on our balconies, then headed into town for a nice beach-side dinner.









The next day we did more of the same, sat poolside, got tan, and relaxed as long as we could. It was a great relief to have this nice break during our trip to just sit and rest and not do any touring or walking. That afternoon, we hopped back in our rental car and drove just an hour away to Malaga for our final stop in Spain!

Slice of Pizza

Leaving Madrid, the four of us headed to Sevilla. We had less than 24 hours there and definitely made the most of it. I think I took more photos of this beautiful city than any other place we went to on this trip. The narrow passageways, the beautiful buildings, the river and the fun nightlife all made this one day stop a memorable one.

After we settled into our hotel (and after getting a bit lost on the way through the narrow winding streets), we headed out to see as much of the city as possible. We started with the Sevilla Cathedral, which is the third largest church in the world. It towered above us and promised beautiful views from the top.  Unfortunately it was closed for visitors, so we only admired it from the outside.  Walking around the cathedral, we stumbled upon a main drag that was filled with restaurants and cafes. Dodging some horse-drawn carriages and lots of people, the boys managed to find a restaurant that served smoothies, beer, and New York Style Pizza!! The owner (seen behind them on the left) is originally from NY and after marrying his Spanish wife, moved to Sevilla and started this pizza joint! Amazing!

We continued our tour of the city, stopping in Real Alcazar for a tour of the beautiful gardens and surrounding buildings. The architecture outside and inside had me snapping photos non-stop.





















And the gardens outside were just as photo-worthy that I was sure to run my camera battery down. We saw as much of the property as possible, having fun along the way regardless of the hot temperatures outside.

I think that's Mike's head!

We went inside to another part of the buildings and were overwhelmed with the amount of tile work and design.





















Leaving the Real Alcazar, we headed towards the river, passing by the Torre Del Oro and then crossing the river to walk past several riverside restaurants and see Sevilla from the other side.









Finding another bridge to cross back over, we popped into the Plaza de Toros de la Maestranza and then finally exhausted from all the walking, hopped on a bus to the Plaza de Espana. As soon as we stepped into the Plaza seeing the beautiful structure and the man-made moat around it, we heard a scream and a splash! Some woman that was sitting on the wall surrounding the moat somehow fell into it!! I'm not sure how she fell in, and I really try not to laugh at others' misfortune, but it was HILARIOUS!!  The water is only about waist deep and luckily she wasn't hurt. I think more embarrassed and upset that her handbag had fallen in as well!  She struggled for a good 10 minutes trying to get out of the moat the way she fell in, up over the wall, with the help of her family. She could have easily walked across to the lower bank and walked out, but for some reason she really wanted to get back over the wall.  Finally she was able to be pulled back up over the wall from where she fell. Hilarious!

She had just fallen in here.

Trying to pull her out of the water!

So we continued to visit the Plaza de Espana, enjoying standing in front of the fountain as a breeze blew the running water on us to cool us off a bit. Again, the architecture was really interesting here, and running along the walls of the building were tile alcoves depicting the different provinces of Spain.


















We were all pretty tired of walking around at this point, so we headed back to the hotel to rest, shower up and get ready for the evening.  After an hour or two of rest, we headed back out to a nearby tapas restaurant, enjoying the liveliness of the locals and the relaxed atmosphere of the city.












We then continued our tour and headed to Plaza del Salvador where a couple bars opened up their doors and lots of locals and tourists were hanging out outside enjoying beers and good conversation. We joined them for a bit then headed on to the next Plaza de la Encarnacion, where a huge structure was recently built that most of the locals hated when it was under construction, but loved it afterwards as it gives you beautiful views of the city.


















We found a nice restaurant for a late dinner after that, and being exhausted from all the touring, we walked slowly back towards our hotel and fell asleep quickly. We had a leisurely breakfast the next morning in front of our hotel and then headed to the train station to pick up our rental car so we could get to our next destination, Estepona!