Fall riding

After spending the past couple weekends traveling I was looking forward to having a low key weekend to catch up on everything. I had a nice weekend of riding, running, cleaning, shopping and exploring Florence.

Friday:
Great ride with Barbera and Andrea. It as 40 miles riding south, through beautiful color changing vineyards and hilly views.




Saturday:
The ride was longer (60 miles) and it was with the group, and the conditions that morning were far from ideal. 4 hours of cold, winds averaging 20 mph. And we chose to go west, unknown territory for me, and flat. Yes flat road does exist in Tuscany. Well the only thing is the guys decided to pick up the pace a bit, making it a long and painful ride for my legs. But I didn't get dropped and it was a feeling of accomplishment when I finished.




Sunday:
My friend Brian and i decied to go check out Boboli gardens and grab a bite to eat the Gusta Pizza (Florence's best known pizza spot). It was a great afternoon of perfect weather, great views, awesome workout and yummy pizza.


Monday: I FINALLY GOT TO SWIM! I did my research, found the bus I needed to take (#10) bought a bus ticket, get off at the right stop. Found the pool, bought a 10 time pass (I had to) and got a great first swim in of drills, kicking and pulling. It was much more simple then I thought it was going to be so that was a huge relief and I can't wait to go again.

Oct 7-9 Visiting Italy

Friday Oct 7th: CEA took us to San Gimignano, which is a beautiful town in the Chianti region. We explored the city and visited the main church there that had a beautiful fresco of the life of Christ inside.

The views...


The town...


After the tour of the town we went to a vineyard for a wine tasting and lunch. Everything we ate and drank was DELICIOUS!



Saturday/Sunday October 8th- 9th: Cinque Terre ... AGAIN

My friend from home, Brian, wanted to see Cinque Terre, and Kallyn and I wanted to go back there while it was still nice out because we loved it there. So a small group of us, Kallyn and i, Brian and two of his girlfriends of culinary school went.



first mistake of the day happened when we didn't get off at the right stop in Pisa. We accidently took the train to the Pisa airport, instead of getting off at the Pisa train stop to catch our connecting trip to La Speza. So when we get back to Pisa train station we went to the ticket help desk and asked how we were going to get there. We ended up upgrading our current tickets to get on the next available train, which conviently was the fast train.

when we got there we hiked from the first train stop Riomaggio to Vanezza. This was the part of the hike Kallyn and I missed on our first visit so we were thrilled we got to see it.

after the hike we went got yummy pesto pizza in Vanezza ( a MUST if visiting Cinque Terre) then took the train to the last terre to lay out at the beach and get Miami Vice drinks.


As the sun started to go down we decided to go back to Vanezza to get seafood. The resturants were close till 7 so to kill time we got a bottle of wine to drink on the rock and watch the waves crash into the shore.

everything was great and absolutely ideal UNTIL a HUGE wave hits us and we got SOAKED! and inconveinently it was getting cold out so we were all freezing. We were told there was a laundry mat to dry our clothes so we tried that which was a fail, and only made our clothes hot and more wet.

Brians two girlfriends had enough and went to the train station to get back to Florence, while Kallyn, Brian and I decided to stay and enjoy a seafood meal like originally planned. When we went back to the train station we noticed that we MISSED the last train out, and had to wait 2.5 hours for the next one, in wet clothing. we met strangers who knew English who offered to help us figure out how to get back to Florence once getting back to La Speza (the mainland stop before Cinque Terre).

BUT of course we missed that last train back to Florence so had to spend the night in a cheap hostel close to the train station in La Speza.

We learned a lot that weekend about trains and traveling in Italy, and in the end laughed about it all.

Croatia

September 30- October 2 I spent the weekend in Croatia on Spilt Island !!



I went with a student travel agency called Bus2alps. There was about 50 all Florence study abroad kids who came with.

We stayed in an awesome hostel!



Went white water rafting and cliff jumping the on Friday when we got there:




Then out for a pub crawl later that night after an amazing seafood dinner



Saturday we spent the day on a booze cruise that took us to two small islands where we got to hang out on their beaches or explore the town. It was one of the most fun and relaxing days.



that night we went to another small island for more amazing seafood. Followed by a small pubcrawl and had another fantastic night


Sunday we had breakfast and sadly packed up..