Day 14 - July 20, 2013 - Orvieto and back to Rome

     Today is the last day of our Globus Tour (Italian Treasures) - we need to drive back to Rome to fly home tomorrow morning. We followed the Tiber Valley in order to reach our one stop in Orvieto today. Orvieto is perched high atop a volcanic rock.  We had to ride a FUNICULAR to the top of this mountain town! We walked around - had tea and pastries at a local Pasticceria when we arrived, then a pizza lunch with our group (Marc, Kay, Mike, Vibbi, & Kelsey). In the late afternoon, we returned to Rome and stayed one more night at NH Midas. We had time to rest, shower, re-pack for tomorrow.  Our driver, Flavio took us to a really nice restaurant with four Opera singers entertaining us throughout the dinner! Excellent meal with wine and ending with Tiramisu and champagne!!  The show was very entertaining and they sang "Arrivederci Roma" as we all swung our cloth napkins around for our "Farewell Dinner"
    

 Hugs and kisses to our driver - Flavio and our tour guide - Aida! They were excellent!!
Kisses to the rest of the people in the group in front of our hotel.
Then about 17 of us went into the ristorante and ordered drinks - wine and beer for everyone!
Anne decided to get her bottle of Limoncello that she purchased earlier that day and everyone did a "goodbye" shot with all our new friends - We laughed and had a Blast until around midnight!! This was a great group of people from Australia, New Zealand, and North America! Hugs all around and off to bed because we needed to leave the hotel at 6:00 AM tomorrow morning for a shuttle to the airport! "Arrivederci Italia!"

Day 13 - July 19, 2013 - Ravenna and Assisi

Drove along the coastline of the Adriatic Sea to Ravenna.  Here, we saw the famous mosaics in the 6th-century Basilica of St. Apollinaris in classe. This was the 1st of the three cathedrals that we saw today...

The Basilica of St. Francis

What a day! Lots of driving, then lots of walking, a nice dinner in our beautiful hotel and then drinks outside in Assisi! We visited three very beautiful cathedrals today!  When we arrived in Assisi, we quickly checked into our rooms, and then met for a tour of The Basilica of St. Francis - the church has three parts: the upper basilica, the lower basilica, and the saint's tomb.  In the 1997 earthquake, the lower basilica — with walls nearly nine feet thick — was unscathed. The upper basilica, with bigger windows and walls only three feet thick, was damaged. Following a restoration, the entire church reopened to visitors in late 1999.

The Papal Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Order of Friars Minor—commonly known as the Franciscan Order—in Assisi, Italy, the city where St. Francis was born and died.

Assisi reminded me of a small San Francisco! It's on the side of a mountain above the clouds~ We walked to both churches -  The Basilica of St. Francis  & The Basilica di Santa Chiara

- this was the first day it rained a little while we started the Tour in Assisi.  We had an hour & 1/2 to rest before dinner. Dinner was fun tonight! They served us - pork, tomatoes, mashed potatoes, caprice salad, dessert, cappuccino, white wine & water- About 12 of us had drinks outside overlooking Assisi ~ just beautiful!!

Basilica di Santa Chiara, Assisi

Our hotel

Day 12 - July 18, 2013 - Venice

Woke up in Venice - Room 503~  Great room - large room with a beautiful bathroom, large shower, and a walk in closet.
We were served a beautiful buffet breakfast at Monaco & Grand Canal Hotel with tables outside overlooking the water and regular coffee, not espresso (1st time).
We met our tour guide for a walking tour of Piazza San Marco (St. Mark's Square) She was excellent, very interesting and very funny! We toured the museum and learned about the history of the Venetians - so interesting! No one trusted each other in Venice, so someone was always in charge of watching over the Doges (their ruler). It was a Republic for eleven centuries, until Italy became a country in 1861.
We walked the world famous Bridge of Sighs, where the prisoners walked over into the cells (and so did we) Then we went into the Byzantine Basilica and the lavish Doges' Palace (24K. Gold) everywhere!! GOLD ceilings  - it was totally amazing and beautiful! In the Church, we saw the Tomb of St. Mark the Evangelist (one of the four people who wrote the Bible) The New Testament! Michael was blown away by that fact!

We continued on to the glass blowing factory where we watched the Master glassblower make two things - a vase and a horse, which was very interesting! We went into the store, and Michael decided that he wanted me to have a necklace for my upcoming birthday so he paid for it!

 We had a one hour break, then we met for our boat ride to Burano Island. (about 40 minutes) We had a fantastic lunch at a fancy Italian ristorante which consisted of wine, risotto, calamari, shrimp, fish, biscotti, cake, cafe and Sambuco! Boat was back around 5:30 and we had a free evening - Rest, shower and dinner at the Hard Rock Venice with Michael!We really enjoyed hearing American rock music and the food was delicious! We walked St. Mark's Square for the last time~

Day 11 - July 17, 2013 - Florence - Verona - Vencie Island

OMG!! We're in Venice!! BUT, we had to take a speed boat from the mainland (about 15 minutes) 12 people and our luggage! I was praying the entire time because I really don't like speed boats! It's unimaginable, very big, many tourists, very beautiful, surrounded by water and boats and canals - Our group gathered and we walked to our hotel.  Michael and I had a beautiful room - one of the best so far! Huge walk in closet and a huge shower in the beautiful bathroom - we we're happy!!

SIDE NOTE  - Michael's comment: I think you should never go on a speed boat ever EVER again!

This morning we drove to Savona - very nice town with great shopping.  We had lunch with Alex - Pizza and a greek salad in an air conditioned ristorante~

The Gondola ride was  a dream come true for the entire group! We had five boats, one accordion player and one singer - it was wonderful! In our boat - me, Michael, Alex, Jiselle and her Grandma - so much fun! It lasted about 45 minutes and we took tons of photo's and video.

Dinner was fantastic too~ We had champagne, wine , dessert & cafe, but we had tea.

We walked to St. Mark's Square and back to our hotel and called some family members (Free WiFi in the hotel)

Day 10 - July 16, 2013 - Florence

Breakfast buffet at 7:15 and bus by 8:00 - Met our local tour guide (he was suppose to be the BEST in Florence) at the Academy of Fine Arts to see Michelangelo's DAVID - we were not allowed to take photo's here but I purchased a few postcards. Our tour guide explained every part of this sculpture - Michelangelo was commissioned by the Florentine government to do the sculpture and it took him 2 1/2 years (age 26-29) to do it in secret! DAVID was outside until 1973 when it was moved into the current gallery.

We walked through the city to see The Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore - English: Basilica of Saint Mary of the Flower) is the main church of Florence, Italy. Il Duomo di Firenze, as it is ordinarily called, was begun in 1296 in the Gothic style to the design of Arnolfo di Cambio and completed structurally in 1436 with the dome engineered by Filippo Brunelleschi.

It was massive - could fit 17,000 people inside - the Florentine art was like I've never seen before - totally amazing and beautiful!

We went into a local Gold/Leather Factory (shoppe) to learn about 18K gold and real leather production here - BEST in the world and they are very proud of their work!!

Michael and I walked back to our hotel and ate lunch in our lobby bar~ pasta del pesto and a cheese tasting platter - delicious!! After that, I needed a nap!! I woke up 30 seconds before room service came to drop off all my clean laundry  and Michael thought that was funny!! This was the only day that I got a bad headache and I'm now thinking it could have been the blue cheese?

 The highlight of this day was DAVID for sure!! This the the only day that we actually rested and relaxed in our hotel for the evening.

Day 9 - July 15, 2013 - Lucca - Sienna-San Gimignano-Florence

A scenic day in Tuscany!  We went to Siena and ate lunch with Aida (our tour director) and Alex in a local restaurant.  Next we drove to San Gimignano, one of my favorite places! We shopped and ate lunch with Alex in this most picturesque medieval town. We found an air conditioned restaurant playing American music! I loved this village because it was small, very clean, and had great shoppes! We also had espresso with Aida & Alex went we arrived..Photo's by the wishing well and Michael flipped a coin for good luck!  This town is also famous for their ceramics.  We are high up in Tuscany region.  We made a quick stop in a co-op grocery store for fruit! We bought two bananas for .74 cents E.

Every village has many "piazza's" - usually around a church or a cathedral - there is usually a gelato & cafe shop in every Piazza~ Our dinner stop was very, very high up on the mountain top - Castel de Verrazzano.  This is a beautiful castle built 1,000 AD and we learned how they make their Italian wines - mostly Cabernet but we were able to taste Rosso & Cabernet with our delicious dinner.  The dinner was served  by courses - Pasta (Penne Rigate) with tomato sauce, drip of olive oil, grated cheese (very close to what we make at home) Garlic bread (fantastic), pork, salad and beans.  For dessert - almond biscotti soaked in dessert wine!  We loved it and the entire visit at Castel de Verrazzano!  Everyone was so happy when we got back on the bus!!

On to Florence (Firenze) Italy! Checked into hotel Grand Hotel Mediterraneo http://www.hotelmediterraneofirenze.com/ - logged into the free good WiFi (which I always do went I get to the next hotel) and then took a shower and went down to the lobby to join about nine people from my group for drinks at the "American Bar" - off to bed.