LIKE NOTHING ELSE I'VE EVER SEEN...

We're B-AAA-C-K! Back from the Italy trip we considered one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities! Hopefully we'll return someday, but it was just something we really wanted to do, with our daughter being a student there this summer. It was wonderful, seeing sights 2,000 years old, incredible churches, awesome statues and artwork, and the gelato...oh the GELATO is really as good as they say. One day we had gelato 4 times!!! But that was because we'd been hiking and it was incredibly hot. That is the ONE THING I WOULD CHANGE NEXT TIME: go in spring or fall! But we wouldn't have seen our daughter and the Harding University-Florence (HUF) group then. I think the heat is like OK's it just that we aren't normally out in it between 12:00-3:00 p.m. And especially not on black cobblestone streets with little breeze and green spaces. Still, it was AWESOME! Here's a few pics:

Eating Italian food!
Florence Baptistery doors of bronze by Ghiberti
10 Euro gelato - we shared - after that we always made sure they understood we wanted the 2 Euro size!
Ponte Vecchio bridge -rebuilt in 1300's - last one standing after WWII
view of Florence from Piazzale Michelangelo
THE David by Michelangelo - didn't know I wasn't supposed to take pictures!!!
One of our favorite days - cooking in the olive grove!
Cinque Terre hike - wishing we had a ride on these Vespas!
Another Cinque Terre view of a village - see how sweaty I am from the hike between all the villages?
Monterosso beach - the reward at the end of the Cinque Terre hike!
Our daughter's "free travel group" at the Spanish Steps in Rome after we treated them to Hard Rock Cafe!
The Colosseum is beautifully lit at night!
The entire HUF group at the Arch of Titus in the Roman forum.
We got to hear their "reports" on the different antiquities in this area so they made great tour guides!