Siena

If we had to choose one word to sum up our Siena stay it would be "scooter". Casie had the great idea that we should rent a scooter and ride around the Tuscan hills, which turned out to be very easy and pretty cheap. We got a scooter for two, strapped a couple helmets on our heads, and off we went. As you can see from the pictures, the Tuscan countryside is amazing. We rode around all day and saw tons of vineyards, wheat fields, villas and little towns. We ended up at a small village for dinner and had a great meal, and then rode back to Siena during sunset. It was definitely one of the highlights of our trip.

We had a great hotel room in Siena with a balcony that looked out over the city. We spent a couple evenings just watching the sun come down while drinking wine - it doesn't get much better than that.

Florence

Our second stop was Florence, where we spent three nights. We did some pretty good Expedia sleuthing and found a hotel within sight of the Duomo, which meant it was also close to the Uffizi and Academia. Casie was on the ball and got advanced tickets for the Uffizi, which we'd highly recommend because otherwise you can spend all day in line.

Despite the crowds, Florence was one of our favorite places. We had 1 or 2 of the best meals in our lives in some of the restaurants that have tables out in the courtyards. We managed to get through about a bottle of wine a night (I think that was our average for the whole trip, actually) which made the walk back to the hotel interesting! And, in all honesty, the quality of the art cannot be overstated. If you're into Italian renaissance art, it doesn't get much better than the Uffizi. And if you like sculpture, the David is really something you have to see at some point in your life. We just sat and stared at it for about 20 minutes without saying anything.

We also went on a walk in the hills above Florence and, despite getting pretty lost, had a great time and saw some awesome countryside.

Next stop... Sienna!

Pisa

We kicked off our Italy / France adventure by flying in to Pisa en route to Florence (why? because its cheap!). After waiting for a bus for 45 minutes until figuring out that all bus drivers were on strike, we caught a train to the city center and went to go see what all the leaning tower hubbub was about. After seeing the tower we must admit that it is quite a spectacle and a great example of poor engineering. We took the obligatory photos as you can see below and then headed to the train for Florence. There's really not much else to Pisa - good for a half day but that's about it. On to more exciting stories!

Stonehenge and Bath

In early August our friends Latina and Nyron fron New York came out to visit us. We had some good times in London and even ate some Mexican food (yes, there really is Mexican food in London, and its quite good, really). We did a lot of walking and saw some Shakespeare. We also took a bus tour outside of London to Stonehenge and Bath.

Stonehenge - according to Spinal Tap this is the place where "banshees live and they do live well". We didn't see any banshees but we certainly saw some very old rocks put in strange positions. It was interesting being there and thinking how much effort must have gone in to making Stonehenge, especially before things like cranes and backhoes and semi trucks. They still haven't figured out what the purpose of Stonehenge was so we can all have our theories.

Bath was fun and the Roman baths were really interesting. They've done a great job of preserving the site and have audio guides that explain everything you could possibly want to know. The town also had a strange pig exhibition going on, so that there were pigs just about everywhere you looked. Susy, you would have been like a pig in.... Well, let's just say you would have been very happy.

Anne's Wedding

Anne Murphy, my Irish godmother, graciously invited Casie and I to her wedding and thereby gave us a great excuse to visit Ireland again. We stayed in Galway for a couple days and then took a bus to Dublin and stayed there for a couple days as well. The weather was terrible as usual but, even though it was raining ridiculously hard during the beginning of Anne's wedding, it cleared up and turned into a great night (as you can see from the night picture looking out from the balcony of the boathouse where the wedding was).

One of the many highlights of the night was Tim's speech. I managed to get a great part of it on video and have uploaded it below. One of the other highlights was the band, which was great! Casie and I actually danced (I taught the Irish how to do the Rain-bird) which is saying quite a lot for the quality of the music and the alcohol.

Dublin was great as well. We took a tour of the castle, which used to be the seat of the English government but is now the seat of the Irish government (not without a little drama in between). We saw the University although we did not make it to see the book of Kells (yet another reason to go back). We also sat in a number of fine pubs and had a number of fine pints. When in Rome...

A big congratulations go to Anne and Tim. Hope to see you soon!

London Eye

Brimmer came back into town in mid-June and whipped us into shape... He got us to do the Eye! We'd been here for almost a year and still hadn't done it. For anyone planning a trip over here we'd highly recommend doing the Eye (although it's a good idea to pre-book over the internet). The views are amazing as you can see.