Happy New Year!

Friends, Romans, Countrymen… oh wait- I’m not Mark Antony on the speakers stump in the Roman Forum, I’m Angie and I’m blogging… apologies.

Italy was fabulous, amazing, incredible, fun and yummy! We spent 11 days abroad in the boot shaped country and spent our time taking in the sights, eating pasta and pizza with abandon, drinking house wine for 3 euros a ½ litre, and taking full advantage of the siesta. A quick recap:

Rome: We spent four nights (including Christmas) in Rome. We stayed near the Colosseum and took us where Rick Steves told us to go. The city is great- it is organized chaos at it’s best. The people are nice (and most speak enough English to get you by) and everywhere you go there is some ruin or statue on the corner. It is incredible. We went to the Borghese museum, took in some great Baroque statues and art and then did our own walking tours to discover the city. On our final day there we did an organized tour of the Colosseum and the Roman Forum and heard fun stories of people from thousands of years ago inventing everything from roads to cities to socialism. It was really cool to get a refresh of history lessons that we had long since forgotten. We stayed at a hotel that treated us like we were at a bed and breakfast: Hotel Lancelot: www.lancelothotel.com

Siena & Tuscany: We took a coach bus from Rome to Siena on our fifth day in Italy to the town of Siena in the Tuscany region. Tuscany is just what it is portrayed to be- rolling green hills, vineyards and rows of olive trees, big hill towns surrounded by nothing. I can imagine during the spring it would be even more gorgeous, but we really liked Siena. I think in all this was our favourite town mostly because of the slower pace, lower prices, gorgeous scenery and great food. We explored neighboring villages and cities while there, courtesy of a mini-car we rented on one day and then a guide we hired to take us wine tasting and such the second day. We saw Cortona (where “Under the Tuscan Sun” was based), Montelcino (where they make the expensive and tasty Brunello wine), Montepulcino (more wine!) and Buonconvento. Here we stayed at a villa/guest house that was much like living in someone’s home- which is both good and bad. It was pretty loud, which if that is the only thing we can complain about we are lucky. http://www.villaeldasiena.it/

Florence: Finally we headed into Florence for the last two nights of our trip. By this point we were a little tired out of museums and such which is really a shame because Florence was the birthplace of Renaissance art and even for us art novices we knew there was some great things to see. After waiting through a painful reservations-but-you-still-have –to-wait-an-hour-in-line thing at Ufuzzi we enjoyed the place but decided we had enough of Italian run museums (completely unorganized, inefficient- like herding cats or something) and just concentrated on roaming the streets, admiring the various piazzas and enjoying gelato- which supposedly is the best in Florence. We loved our hotel here- in the middle of everything and reasonably priced. http://www.hotelsantamarianovella.it/

Food: Italians know what they are doing. We didn’t have one bad meal- even the more touristy spots served delicious and fresh pastas and pizzas. I think we have spent over a year deprived of really good food here in London (yes yes, there are good restaurants- but let’s get real…) so this was a real treat for us. There aren’t many options other than Italian food options- so if you are watching your carbs then forget it – but I challenge someone to go to Italy and say they are on a low carb diet… Italians don’t eat Italian food when they visit other countries, and they are all convinced their region’s food is the best. I won’t argue- it was all great.

Holidays: We spent Christmas in Rome, which was a treat. There were a few things open, but the weather was so nice that we just walked around the whole city and enjoyed all the street performers and other tourists and took lots of pictures. We enjoyed a Christmas Eve dinner of five courses of fresh fish that was the highlight of our time in Italy. We had Christmas dinner at the hotel with other guests staying in Rome for the holidays and met some nice people that night. New Years Eve we spent in Florence with another incredible meal (Florentine steak! Yum) and then followed the crowds to the main piazza in town to watch the incredibly unsettling and yet strangely entertaining firework shows put on by the towns most drunken and rowdy people- there was no organized show, just loads of illicit fireworks going off all night long. We fell asleep to huge bangs and booms, but it was part of being in Italy (the Italians love loud noises).

All in all, other than our honeymoon, this was the best trip we’ve taken. I hope everyone enjoyed their holidays as much as we did! Pics are on shutterfly and some are on Facebook as well.