Toscana, Italia <3

Mom arrived in Paris on Saturday morning. I barely slept the night before in great anticipation of seeing her for the 1st time in 3 months! I hopped on an early morning train on my way to surprise her at the airport. Had no idea where to meet her all I knew was the Terminal. I guessed the Baggage Claim she would be at and actually got it right, I swear it’s that connection we have that does little things like that 😉 I was waiting for her with this sign as she exited the Arrivals area

After a couple tears and hugs we were off on the adventure of a lifetime! Headed back to my place to settle in and then we went to Ladurée for some French style macaroons and tea! After that we headed to Versailles to visit the gardens. It was one of the coolest days Paris has had in quite some time but we enjoyed golf carting around the BIGGEST gardens/park I have ever seen. Here are a few pics

We were cold brrrr

What a beautiful place 🙂

For dinner we headed to a little place we discovered near where we stayed last time and then off to bed! Sunday slept in and did some laundry before headed off to lunch near Luxembourg gardens and then airport for ITALY 🙂

Flew into Florence Sunday evening and then went to check in at the hotel and enjoyed eating on top of the hotel with a wonderful view overlooking parts of Florence.

Cheers to our 1st “real” Italian experience!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter as well, definitely a different experience being over in Europe for it but loved seeing all of the pictures that were posted 🙂

Monday is a holiday in Europe so a lot of celebrations are still going on from the long Easter weekend. We walked around Florence a little bit in the morning before going to the airport to pick up the car we would be traveling in for the week. Here are some pics from Florence

Cathedral

it was HUGE

stopped in for some chocolate

One of the most amazing parts of this trip is really seeing how “old” things are, there is so much history here it definitely goes beyond what I have come to know in America. Such beauty ❤

After walking around and some lunch we got a taxi and went to the airport to pick up the car. I tried to wheel and deal with the guy but we settled with an Italian car, how could we not! Fiat Panda, yep like a little go-cart practically but it is FUN! Manual drive and I will say my mom fits right in with these Italian drivers lol CRAZY help me!! jk jk But driving through the Tuscany hills is no joke! I actually gave it a whirl yesterday to see how my manual skills were coming along and I made it! I am still terrified of starting and stopping on a hill but it was fun to drive 🙂

We arrived at our place in the lovely little village of Castelmuzio and instantly in love. Check it out for yourself! Our little apartment for the week…

everything here is made in the Tuscany region ❤ so good!

God’s beauty ❤

our apartment upstairs

How can one go through out life and never come here!? Hands down the most wonderful places I have ever been and I will DEFINITELY be coming back! I will also say that we found this place in Rick Steves book “Florence and Tuscany“. I bought the book and had it sent to my mom’s house a month or two ago so she could do some research on a place to stay. She discovered a wonderful recommendation at Casa Moricianni which just so happens to be AMAZING! The owners, Isabella and Carlo Moricianni have made this an extremely enjoyable experience to say the least. We arrived and Carlo met us and showed us to our apartment. He speaks French and Italian so it was quite nice to chat with him using some of my acquired skills in French 🙂 We were in AWE and just blown away by the classic, sophisticated, antique and historic beauty. Isabella showed up about 20 minutes later to go over an itinerary with us. A written itinerary of possible excursions, spa treatments, places to visit, dinners, wine tastings and more! About a hand full for each day of the week was provided and we could indulge in ANY of it, wow wow wow ❤

We got settled in that evening and then headed to one of the nearby Tuscan towns, Pienza for some exploring and dinner.

A very cute small town in the Tuscany region. Actually spent a few times driving through and hanging out there.

I will wrap this one up for now but I will be back later to tell you all about our week in Toscana (Tuscany) I am off to get an Ayurvedic massage 🙂

Love to all!
Kels