ciao italia

Well internet, it's time to say goodbye for a couple of weeks. Off to Italy I go! Mom and I are taking a mother-daughter trip to visit Tuscany and Rome. Our flight leaves first thing tomorrow morning from Albany, but Jay is being a dear and driving me down to mom's house this afternoon. Thus, much packing and last minute coordinating ensues! I couldn't help but get one last blog post in before I left.

Due to the overwhelming generosity of my mom's friend, Patty who is living in Cortona for the winter and my popop, who so graciously bought my plane ticket as a Christmas/birthday gift, I am a very, very lucky girl. Of course, I'll miss my hubby dearly, but he has plenty of good friends and Call of Duty to keep him company while I'm away. :-)

Here is a sneak peek of the villa Patty is renting, where we'll be staying for 8 days in Tuscany. Amazing, right?! We'll be taking day trips to Florence, Pisa and Siena.

:: images courtesy of rentvillas.com :: see more here!

Then Mom and I will take the train back into Rome and spend 4 days touring the city. So far on tap is an Italian cooking session (including market shopping, meal prep, and eating of course!), a tour of the Vatican/St. Peter's Basilica/etc, and a trip to the Colosseum. We're leaving the rest of the time open for exploration. Design*Sponge has a great trip advisor on hip, crafty, designerly-like places to visit, so you can bet those are high on my list! Of course, there are a million other places to see in Rome, but we just won't have the time. We'll save the rest for when Jay and I go.

So, I'm signing off... I'll be back in the groove on April 1st. No internet for 14 days... phew. That's by choice, not lack of connectivity. It'll be nice to break away from the computer screen and hustle bustle of technology for a while. I'm sure to have tons of pictures and stories to share when I get back. (Remember this beautiful journal that's coming with me?!) Until then... ciao!