Italy Day 1

We arrived in Italy today and began our 10 day adventure.  The next eight days will be spent in Tuscany relaxing, visiting family, and going on day trips to nearby sights. The final two days will be in Rome for a fast-paced set of tours of the expected attractions. Here are some pictures of our adventures.

Chris and Carrie humor their parent’s by posing at this welcome sign right after clearing Italian immigration.
Minutes later the kids are asleep in the rental car.
Nearly two and a half hours later we spotted the church spire of Arezzo, the closest city to our home for the next week.
Between Arezzo and our villa we passed the Castelnuovo Castle.
The closest town to our villa is Capolona. The town sits along the Arno river and we passed this small dam and waterfall every day, returning to the villa.
Finally we reached Podere Sant’Egidio which is Italian for Farm of Saint Giles.
The villa consisted of three main building with a variety of independent apartments. The main farmhouse had a common area for cooking large meals. This panorama shows view to the east and south including the main farmhouse and one of the other two apartment buildings (the other is behind the camera to the west). It also shows the pool and laundry building.
We stayed in one of the apartments in the main farmhouse and this is the view from our kitchen window toward the west. Note little meadow off in the distance…
…late in the day, we spotted several sheep grazing…
…within a few minutes they had moved down the slope and were out of sight. They only reappeared once during our visit.
C&C are joined by their cousins Lauren and Zach, and by the “Buddy” a local dog which visited every afternoon and evening.