Days Spent Under the Tuscan Sun

Tuesday; Pasta & Gelato Tour
Pasta & gelato; the Italian diet. After living with my host family I have definitely learned that pasta & gelato aren’t the only dishes Italians have perfected! Through our program we were given a pasta & gelato tour of Florence. The gelato tour was more of a taste testing, although I don’t think any of us were complaining!

The pasta tour was a lot more in depth, it was fun to see how much science and detail there truly is behind making the perfect pasta. We also got to try some of the fresh wine that the pasta shop had on tap as well as their olive oil.

Wednesday; boat tour along the Arno river
I no longer feel like a tourist here and am beginning to get annoyed of the tourists myself, although I know I have no right to! Our program offered a boating excursion down the Arno river, which brought a new view of the riverside to my eyes. It felt as if I could watch all of the tourists passing on the ponte vecchio as a fly on the wall. Of course we were the ones that they had their eyes on, floating down the river on a gondola!
I loved this photo of the painters freshening up the colors of the shops on the famous ponte vecchio!

Processed with VSCO with c1 preset

Saturday with temperatures in the high 80s it was only right we take a day trip to the beach! We headed to Viareggio to do just that. Not only was the weather perfect, but the views were beautiful; on the left the Mediterranean Sea and to our right rugged mountains. I couldn’t get enough of this place, although the water was no Lake Superior 🙂

Sunday we had another excursion planned through our program. We boarded the bus at 8:30 sharp to head to the picturesque Cinque Terre. This area was on my list of go to places & I was so excited to finally be heading that way! We first stopped in manorolo before taking a ferry to monterosso. Originally I had planned to hike between the towns but the weather was too warm for this Michigan gal, so another beach day would have to do! From where we layed on the beach we could see the other 4 lands that make up cinque Terre. The relaxed pace of these towns made them easy to fall in love with & I hope to return sometime.