If you're ever in Italy...

We were busy traveling this weekend and one of the places we went was beautiful Cinque Terre. It is a series of coastal towns along the Italian Rivera in the Liguria region. It is a beautiful hike from each town to the next and the path runs along to coast. We started at the first town and began our beautiful hike. However, part of the path was closed due to sliding rocks so we took the train the rest of the way to one of the main beach areas. We were ready for a little relaxing time on the beach so we found a rock and spent the rest of our time between swimming and reading. It was so beautiful and the water was so blue, if you are even in Italy this is a must, in my opinion.

XOXO Cassi

Next stop: the movies!

On Friday we went took the train (followed by an hour hike) to beautiful Cortona. That is the town where the movie Under the Tuscan Sun was filmed. We just went there for the evening but it was a nice little town with a beautiful view. We ate dinner, did a little shopping and had some gelato, of course. These pictures do the place much more justice than I could ever explain.

XOXO Cassi

I will swim this entire lake if we can spend the day at that spa.

So on our weekend to Verona we also went to Lake Garda, which is in the town of Sirmione. It was a quick drive form Verona, just under an hour, but it poured the entire way. Once we got there the rain calmed a lot and we were still able to go on our boat tour of the lake. It was so beautiful, but I can't even put it in words, so I hope you have some idea from the pictures. After the boat tour Mr. Golden Sun came out to play and we were able to get in the water and lay on the dock. As we were walking back to get on the bus it started raining again! We somehow got the perfect window of time in Lake Garda and it was so amazing :)

As for the title, there was a spa on the island that we could see from the boat and every girl, and even some of the guys, were trying to figure out how to get over there. As glamorous as Italy seems, the movies forget to tell you that it turns your feet into one giant callus. Maybe you can see the spa in my picture, it is a red building with "terme" on the top. (It is the 4th picture down.)

I hope you enjoy the pictures, my words just can't do this place justice.
XOXO Cassi

Oh dearest Verona

We went to Verona and Lake Garda this past weekend and it was such a great little trip, I'll post about Lake Garda soon.
We left early from the train station here in Florence and drove on a bus for about 4 hours to Verona. It poured the whole way but was beautiful once we arrived, which was so amazing!
Then we went as a group on a guided tour of the city. We saw a castle and toured it and even saw a wedding in one of the court yards. We also, of course, saw the famous house of Juliet! If you have ever seen the movie "Letters to Juliet" it was the same setting with the same statue but there were some differences. First, the movie doesn't even come close to showing how completely stuffed the place was, its like a turkey on Thanksgiving. Also, as far as we could figure out, there were no letters written. We thing the story stemmed from a wall in the entrance which has been written all over. Whatever the situation, it was a beautiful place and so fun to see where the movie was filmed. I put pictures of the castle and Juliet's house and the wall below so all the other pictures are just of the town. I hope you enjoy!

Also, just so everyone knows. If you have heard about the train station in Italy that was set on fire it was in Rome and I was not there during that time. So if you were worried please know that I'm safe and there have been no major problems for those of us in the program!

XOXO Cassi