Thanksgiving in Tuscany I know it's been forever already... Every time I tried uploading these pictures something kept going wrong... But here they are finally.

Day 1 Nov. 22
So, we flew out of Catania to Pisa. Right after arriving at the airport we took a bus drive to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It was incredible! The only not incredible thing was we forgot to get the baby backpack off the bottom of the bus, so we had to carry Carlee around all day. But it was okay. It was so amazing to actually be there... never in a million years did we ever think we'd see the Leaning Tower of Pisa. First, we had a walking tour of the area by a local guide. We walked around the Church, baptistry, and then the tower. The Church was beautiful, and to be in and near buildings that are so old was amazing.

So after the tour, the group had to split into 3 in order to climb the tower because they only let in 15 people at a time. Tony and I had to take separate groups because Carlee wasn't old enough to go up. But it worked out. I would of loved to go up together though. As soon as you take the first step into the tower you can feel the lean. It's crazy. And then walking up the 294 steps is tiring, and one of your legs gets way more exhausted than the other because you keep trying to compensate for the lean. The view from the top is amazing too.
After everyone climbed the tower we had the night free to ourselves to explore Pisa. We decided to eat dinner (since we still eat dinner on American time lol). We found a nearby little pizzeria, we ordered some wine too, well, because we had to since we were there. Afterwards, we walked around for a bit, found some desserts and a dulceria and ate them at the steps of the church marveling at the tower all the while. After a while, we went to the meeting place and took a bus ride to Florence where our hotel was.

Day 2 Nov. 23
Our second day was a day filled with walking tours of Florence..... Florence is breathtaking! I loved it. First we walked up to this hill in order to see a panoramic view of Florence. From there we walked down to the center of town. We saw the duomo (Church) and even went to the museum where the Statue of David is!!! That was amazing! We also saw some unfinished Michelangelo works, and it's incredible to see an unfinished figure of a body and then look at the back and see a block of marble. We didn't get to take many pictures because all of the places pretty much don't allow cameras.
After our walking tours of Florence, we took a bus ride to the country side. The fall colors there were just breathtaking. After what felt like a long and winding ride we finally arrived at the winery for our Thanksgiving dinner. The food was awesome, and we forgot how many plates Italians serve for dinner hehe. The first plate was roasted wild boar and noodles, and it was delicsious. Second plate, was prochutto (sp) and salami. Then came out the various meats (including our surprise TURKEY!), beans, and vegetables. The turkey was a surprise, because the guys said they don't even have turkey there, and don't eat it either. So that was nice. After eating, we took a walking tour of the winery and that was neat too. Then we headed back to the hotel.

Day 3 Nov.24
On the third day, we drove to a town called San Gimignano. This was I think my favorite stop. It's a medieval town from the 11th/12th century, and all the buildings are still there. The roads are still as narrow as they were in medieval times. It's amazing and made me wish I could travel back in time to see what is was like back then. We toured the Church, saw some of the original 14 towers that are still remaining. On our free time, Tony and I ate lunch, and then went to a Museum of Torture. It was about all the ways that they executed/tortured criminals from medieval times to present. It was insane some of the things they used to do, and to see thae ones that they thought were the most humane... they really weren't. So, that was interesting.
The next stop was a city called Siena. Another medieval town. We took a walking tour starting out at the Duomo where we saw Saint Catherine's mummified head and her thumb. St. Catherine apparently prayed there before her trip to Avalon, and so this Church wanted her body to display. But, Rome wanted it, and so did another city where she had lived, so eventually they decided to divide the body among all of them. We also saw the oldest bank in the world, established in 1472 I think, and still going! Amazing huh? We also learned that Italians don't consider themselves Italian unless they're winning something like the World Cup. Instead, they consider themselves whatever their region is, Florentine, Roman, Sienan (?) lol.. oh, and Siena apparently hates Florence to this day. why? Well, back in the day, Siena were wealthy merchants, but they felt that had to have control of a river in order to be respectable. So, they went after Florence's river. Florence fought back, and the wars went on for 300 years before Florence finally took over. The tour guide said that when that happened, Siena started paying tribute to Rome, such as making their archictecture more Roman, and even put a Roman crest on their flag. They did this to spite Florence saying, "Better to be Roman, than Florentine." :) After the tours, we had free time. We decided to eat and tracked down an open pizzeria. We don't have too many pictures of Siena either, because by this point we were running out of room on the memory stick, but here's a view of the Church:
The Church was actually supposed to be the biggest in Italy, but the Plague hit, killing 40,000 out of 50,000 people. Afterwards, the survivors eventually decided just to finish the Church where it was at instead of making it to the plans. So, it was an interesting day.

Day 4 Nov. 25
This was our free day to explore Florence more and shop if we wanted to. We slept in and rested a bit, since walking around for 3 days straight carrying 25 pound Carlee will tire you out! hehe... Then we attempted to go shopping, but were shocked at the prices... So, we found a cache in the area, ate lunch in a neighborhood park, fed pigeons, (Carlee was so cute with them lol), walked around some more, then finally made our way back to the hotel. In the evening we went to a nearby restraunt Alfredo's and it was sooooo yummy. I wish we had known about it the entire time, we would have eaten there every night! And then we packed. On Day 5 we hung out at the Pisa airport, before finally flying back to Catania.

The trip was just incredible. We loved it. The area was beautiful, Carlee was perfect! I think it really had to do with the fact that she had our attention the entire time. If we had tried to do this trip on our own, I think she would have been more upset alot more of the time because Tony would be trying to drive, I would be trying to read maps and navigate, and she would never have our attention. So I really liked the way the trip was set up, we didn't have to worry about any of that. I think we're going to try to take more ITT trips like this.

Anyway, I uploaded all the pictures which you can see here on Snapfish. Here is a description of all of the pics:

Day 1: Leaning Tower of Pisa
photo #s 2010, 2011, 2012:
view from the plane as we were landing in Pisa.
#2013 Sheena and Carlee at the entrance of the city walls.
#2015- 2020 various pics of Tower and Church
#2021 Baptistry
#2022- 2048 Various views of the Church inside and out.
#2049- 2077 Views of and from the Leaning Tower
#2078 -2084 pictures in front of leaning tower
#2088-2090 Church at Nighttime

Day 2: Florence
#2091-2117 pictures taken from the top of a hill overlooking Florence.
#2118-2121 start of our walking tour.
#2122-2130 Florence's Church
Afternoon - Thanksgiving Dinner at a winery located in the Tuscan countryside.
#2131-2134 Enjoying the walk up to the winery and restraunt.
#2137-2141 At dinner
#2142-2151 pics of the winery surroundings (which we could see from our dinner table as well.)
#2153-2155 playing outside after dinner
#2159-2163 tour of the winery, the grapes pictured are going to be made into Holy Water for the Church.

Day 3: San Gimignano and Siena
San Gimignano = #2164-2171
11 century Medeival town.
#2166 Medeival Church
#2170 few of the 14 tours still remaining from 11/12th century.
Siena = #2172-2207
#2173, 2174 Oldest bank in the world, established 1472 (I think, 1470 something anyways.)
#2177 2178 Refurbished cieling of the medeival time open air market place.
#2181 Tallest tower in Tuscany, 3rd tallest in Italy.
#2182-2186 Views of Siena's Church.
#2187-2189 Views of/from the square.
#2194-2200 Dinner
#2207 Siena fountain  ¶ 3:47 AM