Our Last Italy Post!

We are getting all of our things packed for our final night in Italy and wanted to send out our last batch of photos before we start our journey home. If I forget to say it later, we loved our stay in Italy and the group tour was perfect! We got to see so much and would do it again.

Siena: Okay, we left off in on our way to a countryside hotel in the “Chianti” region of Tuscany followed by a day trip to Siena. This beautiful hill town had all the usual churches, ruins, and old buildings but it also had this amazing event called the Palio di Siena. This is the site of a twice a year horse race that only lasts about 90 seconds. It involves 10 horses each time and everyone comes to watch – 40,000 people. Each horse represents a different area of the city and the people go crazy for their horse! Check it out on You Tube.

Volterra: On our way to Volterra we stopped at an olive farm and had a delicious lunch, then on to Volterra. This was the last Roman hill town on our trip. We learned a lot about the stone walls that enclose so many of these towns and even a quick story on how they saved the main gate during WWII. They had Roman ruins that were discovered in the 1950’s and Volterra is the place where alabaster is found. We visited a studio where they carve this beautiful stone. It is a dusty business but the end products were something special. Finally, we had another delicious wine tasting to end our evening. Our guide was incredibly knowledgeable and we learned a lot. There has been vast amounts of wine during this vacation, just saying…

Cinque Terra: This is the name of a group of towns on the slopes of the coast of the Italian Riviera. On our ride to the area we went to the town of Carrara where, you guessed it, Carrara marble comes from. We went up the hill to see where they mine it and walked through an outdoor museum area. Once we arrived at the coast area, we boarded a boat on our way to our hotel. We passed by all of the towns and stayed in Levanto. We had a whole day free here and we had perfect weather.

Modena: Modena is our final stop and we got to taste authentic basalmic vinegar and learn how it is made. Then we ended up wandering around town because they were having a chocolate festival! There were live bands (next to really old buildings), a lot of chocolate, and even a ballerina on top of a piano moving down a street. But the best way to end our trip was a stop at the home of Ferrari in Modena. It had an interesting museum that talked about Enzo Ferrari, how he got started, and his vision and philosophy. The cars were beautiful. We caught a shuttle bus to the town of Maranello which is the home of Scuderia Ferrari F1 (this is where the F1 racing team is located.) Everything we saw was high end-especially in the gift shop.