I have been dying to go to Spain since I studying abroad in 2003.  Spain & Turkey were the two countries that I’d wanted to visit, but just never found the time.  And since Spain is literally on the way home from Italy, Chris & I decided to extend our trip a bit and experience something new!  I wanted to fall in love with Spain.  I wanted to soak in the little moments that make a new country so incredible.  But, with temps soaring near 105 degrees, and inadvertently landing our trip on a holiday weekend, Spain was tough.  It was like sightseeing in Palm Springs on the Fourth of July.  But, I’ve come home with a better understanding of siesta, a curiosity as to why anyone travels in the summer and continued hunger for the tiniest little plates of tapas.

We visited Barcelona & Madrid.  Barcelona is such an international city, a melting pot of so many cultures.  It’s relaxed and vivacious.  We probably stumbled upon five different street fairs, celebrations and parties where we were just invited in to be a part of the festivities.  I have no idea what we were celebrating, but I felt excited and invigorated!  It’s a gorgeous city!

So, a few snaps from our few days in Barcelona…

This is the last of our Italy pictures!  We spent one day marketing and relaxing around Lake Trasimeno.  It was a glorious day!  The markets in Europe are one of my most favorite things.  Little stands with the freshest vegetables, cheeses and meats. We bought half the market and made the most incredible meals!

Chris LOOOOOVES kayaks.  Like, adores on an entirely inappropriate level.  And I hate it.  But sometimes, you do what you have to do for the people that you love

And on our final day, we went wine tasting.  I found it to be such a different experience than any wine tasting I’d ever done before. In Napa or Sonoma, each vineyard seems to have a tasting room.  They’re ready for you to arrive and prepared to pour whenever they are open.  There are teams of people making everything work.  The tasting rooms feel setup for tourists and you’re never permitted to walk through the vines.  In Italy, you kind of stumble upon a guy taking a nap in the backyard.  He wakes up, thrilled to see someone.  You find out he’s the owner, the farmer and he’ll be pouring for you.  This wine is his baby… he’s taken it through the entire process and knows every single thing about it.  The experience was, well, absolutely amazing.

If you blink while driving, you’re going to miss the entire town of Valiano.  And unfortuantely for you, you’re going to miss Piccola Trattoria Guastini.  Amazing food, fantastic wine, incredible views.  A must.

Next up, a quick stop in Spain!

Hands down, the best thing we did in Tuscany was take a cooking class.  I’d looked into quite a few classes before we went, and it seemed we had a few options for an inclusive day.  An Italian woman that spoke no English, an American woman teaching Italian cooking and an Italian woman with fantastic English.  As we don’t speak Italian, the first was out.  And as it seems ridiculous to go all the way to Italy to learn about Italian cooking from an American, that was out.  And so we booked Alessandra… which was the best decision of all.

Alessandra is loud.  She is funny.  She is direct.  She is generous.  She is so warm, so kind and so wonderful!  We meet Alessandra at a coffee shop in town to go over the menu, drink some coffee and run through what the day would be like.  Then we followed her through town to do the shopping… grocery store, butcher, produce store.  And then to her house where we drank wine, cooked amazing food and learned so much about Italy!    She told us about living in Italy, about the healthcare system, about bidets… no question was off limits and I learned a lot more than simply the proper way to cook pasta.  I think one of the best parts for me was really spending time with an Italian family, in an Italian home.  Those things that you don’t really get a feel for when you’re staying in a hotel, or just passing through a town.   How they live the everyday life… how it was different from my everyday, and how it was so similar.  We ate together and more than overstayed our welcome.  It was all around the most amazing experience!  If you are ever in the vicinity of Cortona, call Alessandra and grab a seat at her next class… it will be the best part of your trip too!

Finally!   Finally I have dug my way through the thousands of images I shot in Tuscany!   Knowing that I wanted to do a lot of shooting, I decided to only take my digital cameras.  While I love & adore shooting film, I try to be aware of each shutter click.  Because, well, it’s wicked expensive.  Thought I would be a bit easier on myself and let my fingers click away.  And I’m pretty happy with the outcome!

My aunt rented an amazing house just outside of Cortona, a sweet little town on the side of a mountain.  It’s where Under the Tuscan Sun was actually filmed!  It was absolutely gorgeous, so, well, Italian!   All about the food, the wine and the people!  It was everything that I hoped it would be!  What we were not expecting, was the heat.  It.was.so.hot.  Sweltering.  Unbearable.  We made up for it with copious amounts of prosecco and dips into the pool!

So, this is the first round of images from our fabulous trip, the little towns of Tuscany!

Chris & I actually flew into Rome, and took a train into the city.  When we were there in December I fell in love with the Trastevere neighborhood.  We had just missed dinner at La Gensola, a little restaurant in the neighborhood, so it was high on my list to return.  So.Good.  So.Fresh.  So. Delicious!  Go, eat all of the fish.  All of it.

So, I left my camera in the hotel room the one night we were in town.  That’s it on Rome.  Just the train/drive into the city.  Blargh, that’s so boring!

In the morning we rented a car and drove out to Tuscany.  This is the view from our house.   Nothing… just stars, sky & fields.

And this, this is Cortona.

We drove over to Siena.  And I have a lot of thoughts about Siena.  If you are in Florence, and don’t want to rent a car, take the train to Siena.  It’s cute, it’s Tuscan, and it’s very different from Florence.  BUT, if you have a car, and can go to any of the little towns in Tuscany, avoid Siena with all you have.  For a small town in Tuscany, it’s pretty big, it’s touristy and not so much authentic.

If you have a car, go to Montepulciano.  My husband still cannot say this word.  At this point, I think he thinks it’s just funny to add other letters.  But this town, this town is fantastic.  And produces some of the best wine in the region.  Well, my favorite at least!  We didn’t go to Montalcino on this trip, but we went in December and it’s just as fantastic!   Some of the best views we saw in all of Tuscany were in Montalcino.

Arezzo has a more medieval feel… we didn’t spend much time here, but it’s super tiny and very nice.

We’re back from a whirlwind trip to Italy & Spain!  It was HOOOOT.  So hot.  Like, taking a vacation in a sauna hot.  The kind of hot where are you just want to stand under a cold shower.  The kind of hot that makes it horrendously hard to get up and be a productive tourist.  But, we tried.  Our feeble attempts were usually rewarded with prosecco, or cava or sangria.  And that, well, that made it delicious!

I’m still getting through all of the images from the trip, but I did want to share all of the goodies that I brought home!   I love to bring back things that I’ll use.  Things that will remind me of the wonderful experience without necessarily screaming I WENT TO ITALY AND BROUGHT BACK THIS T-SHIRT!  I try to pick up the pretty things that a country is known for.  Things that might have originated there or have beautifully adapted to there.

So, turns out the Italians love olive wood.  Or they just have too much of it.  So I picked up olive wood cheese boards and lugged them through Italy.  And then Spain.  They are so heavy and so lovely I couldn’t bear to leave them behind.  More olive wood serving spoons and olive oil drippers.  A few kitchen utensils and the teeniest flour scoop.  I adore it and am so upset with myself for not buying at least fifteen of them. The book is Marie Antoinette in Spanish, picked up at a tiny outdoor book store in Barcelona.  And then my most favorite new purchase, a dragon head spicket for the new back yard sink.  If I’m going to have to scrub dirt off vegetables, I’d like to do it in style.  Now, just to find the perfect outdoor sink.  I’m hoping to find something in marble, maybe with a high back, so the spicket comes out of the wall, through the sink and then down.  I have a feeling it will be a lengthy search!

My Aunt has always wanted to rent a house in Tuscany.  Ever since Under The Tuscan Sun, who didn’t want to rent a house in Tuscany!?   After years and years of talking about it, thinking about it, she’s finally done it!  And the family is coming along for the ride.  My Aunt, cousin, sister, future brother-in-law, husband and I will be spending a week eating food, drinking wine and sitting under the Tuscan sun… soaking it all in.  I couldn’t be more excited if I tried.  Oh, but then Chris & I are taking a little pit stop in Barcelona & Madrid on the way home.  If we’re flying over it, may as well stop in for a bit!  Yep, over-the-top excited. See you in a few weeks!

A few frames from our last trip to Italy!  More here, here, here & here.