Florence

Florence is a lot like San Francisco, small enough town to walk with lots of shopping and eating

Jesse and his phone saved the day so many times.  He took us to so many great places we otherwise  would never have found

a lot of the houses had these illegal wine holes where they use to sell wine to the public without having to pay taxes 

Typical Jesse holding up his 360 camera taking videos

We were wandering the streets and came upon this church, Cathedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore.  It was so massive and ornate

shopping in the leather district for a purse, I found the perfect one

We took another food tour.  Here the guy is making fresh pasta to eat as "fastfood" in the market place.  We tried a bunch of different raviolis and the lemon with ricotta was out of this world

We had the best tour guide and we almost went to her house the next day to learn how to make ravioli but she only had time in the evening.

Dessert on the tour was Coccolo where you got to stuff the inside of the bread/dough with your choice of Nutella, Cream or Apricot.   It's kind of like a cream filled donut

We headed to the gardens to burn off all our food

A little mossy garden growing on the side of a medal wall

Giardino di Boboli

views of Florence were incredible from the gardens

love this statue

everyone does it, so did we too

360'

Ponte Vecchio -bridge

Dinner at the local market place where the locals go.  Jesse in vacation mode!

We both did some shopping and got new outfits!

Driving to Cinque Terre

We drove through Modena and took a Parmasean cheese tour which was super interesting.  It just happen to be the parmesan festival weekend so all tours were free and frequent

tasting, it was so good!

32,000 aging parmesan wheels

Then a mile away we took a balsalmic vinegar tour 

 We tasted 8 different types, of course all of them tasted great

Then we drove to Corniglia, Cinque Terre.  5 fishing villages that you can hike along the cliffs to.

Our room was one of those yellow buildings

Our room. 

The town was so unbelievable cute and small, wish I took more pictures

exploring the village

The next day it was raining and Jesse and I both woke up feeling ill.  So we hopped in the car and headed for Florence. 

Our little 2 door Fiat could barely make it through the town in Corniglia

 So sad to miss the hiking in Cinque Terre, but the weather wasn't fit and neither were we.  We felt so icky in this picture as we were driving out of town

Venice

We woke up early to beat the crowds in Venice.  

Rialto Bridge

San Marcos Cathedral

We toured Doge's Palace

time card slots for workers

Jail cells inside the palace

Bridge of Sighs, connecting the palace to the prison

 Inside the Bridge of Sighs, looking out the window

My favorite sculpture

Lots of amazing photo opts in Venice

In the market square, husking artichokes

a little taxi boat ride.  Thanks to Rick Steves, his app he had an hour long tour you could take while on the water taxi explaining the city as we floated along

Bell tower, San Marcos Square and Doge's Palace

We crossed the river and went to the top of the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore looking over all of Venice

Back to Venice to take a food tour

love these drinking fountains

We ended our 3 hour food tour with Gelato and the place where they make the Gondolas 

It was hard to leave, we walked around the city, outskirts, for 14 hours