SATURDAY, May 25, 2013
Today is our last day here at Ventena Vecchia. We got up to find natural treasures (Helen for her 13 MW friends and Jill for her garden).  Once that mission was accomplished, we have time to read, relax and Jill took a few pictures of our apartment.

The name of our room is ' Poppies'. We selected it in honor of Jill's love of poppies.

We are excited for the next leg of our 'Girlfriends Gone Wild in Italy' as we move to Venice! Stay tuned!

FRIDAY, May 24
This is simply amazing!  On our first train ride on Sunday, we met Alix, a woman who owns TuscanFitness . She told us about her business and we asked if we could come for a half day experience so we set it up for Friday morning at 8:30. ( She also was invaluable on the first Sunday in that she oriented us to Florence, suggested we take part in the gellato fair that was going on and suggested a place to eat dinner!)
 We met her at the Bodegga in Moncioni on Friday.  We hiked, (lots of hills), did yoga--absolutely fabulous (I am going to insert the video of the beginning of our session) Alix studied in India and it was the best yoga experience either of us had!  Helen is going to India! ;)

After our hike, we did yoga.  It was wonderful.  Here is Alix with the opening.

She prepared us a vegan lunch.  Fritata, salad, warm fresh bread and apple with homemade peanut butter. It was fabulous!

Our final event for this day was wood fired pizza!  We enjoyed Bruschetta, pizza, and (of course) wine!!

What a DAY!!!!!

THURSDAY, May 23, 2013
We got up at 6:15am, got ready and left to catch the 6:56 am train to Florence.  This is the day for the tour of major art works, buildings and 2 galleries.  The first tour begins at 9:15 on the Ponte Vecchio (a REALLY OLD bridge).  Helen is reading Dan Brown's new book Inferno, and is excited to see some of the sites she has been reading about.  The bridge where we are meeting our tour plays a prominent part in the beginning of the book......and we are HERE! 
Jill is pictured with the 'fake' David in the Piazza della Signoria (it seems this Piazza has the most exposed male genetalia than any in Florence--Helen got a calendar of them!) and we saw the original David carved by Michelangelo in the Galleria dell'Accademia (but of course they wouldn't let us take pictures).  He is a FINE specimine! Our tour guide, Anna, was absolutely delightful! We learned alot!

This is the Ponte Vecchio (the one in Inferno)! and where the tour started.

Helen is standing on the Ponte Vecchio with the yellow tour amplifer box hanging around her neck. She is holding her Kindle on which Brown's book was delivered May 14!  What a hoot to be here seeing the sights mentioned in the book!

Between the tours, we did a little shopping in Florence and headed out to find lunch.  We hardly had time to eat our lunch and we had to race back to the Ufizzi, (another gallery) for our second tour. The good news was we had another delightful tour guide.  The bad news was we were both tired.  I wish we would have taken pictures of each other trying to stay AWAKE!!!!  The group was only 14 people and after about an hour people began to leave.  After 5 people gracefully left the tour, we did as well. We felt a little bad for the guide, but she made us feel better when she said,"It is your holiday! Go right ahead!"

We had a bit of a trek back to the train (if we don't lose weight on this trip, it is because of the wine!  ;) Plus we had dinner scheduled at Ventena Vecchio so we needed to be back by 7pm.

Our final gourmet was four courses.  It began with the pasta dish pictured above, then we had lemon chicken & peas, a fabulous salad was next, and it ended with the dessert pictured above.  Biate, Eva and Olaf, our hosts, again prepared a wonderful meal and provided a great place to visit with our new friends!  Jill and Helen had NO problem falling asleep!  Tomorrow is a fitness day!

 

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

This morning we drove over to Siena to attend market day. Jill bought boots and Helen bought a scarf. It was really interesting. People here are so friendly!

  We feel pretty good about our ability to navigate our way around Italy in our rental car. It is amazing that we have not gotten lost!!!  AND we have to credit taking the Schaal Garmin with maps upload for Italy!!!  WooHoo!!!!

Here we are Piazza del Campo eating lunch and the second picture is what we are seeing.

 

 

We have napped and now are ready to go out for dinner!  Will post photos later!

Tuesday, May 21

After the amazing bike ride, Helen had a massage and Jill took a nap mid morning!  We got directions to a winery and set out on our own to tour the country side.  We decided to take the scenic route and hoped to end up in Siena.  We first came across a little town that looked like it belonged on a post card!

We drove on and Jill saw a sign for a winery so we went in.  We met the owner, Giuseppe,  of I Sevatici winery.  He was a blast!  He has homes in Miami and Colorado and does much business with American clients. We tasted his wine and bought some.  It was so good, we bought some to take to Venice to share with Helen's family when we meet them on Sunday.

 

We left Giuseppe and went on to Siena.  Getting to Siena was a long scenic drive with very curvy roads.  Getting around Siena was a challenge.  Jill found a guy outside a supermarket and asked for assistance.  He offered to drive his motorcycle so we could follow him to the parking lot that would be best for us.  What a wonderful guy!  We were headed to Piazza del Campo inside the walled part of Siena.  It was amazing because from the street level we took at least 4 maybe 5 escalators--straight up!  We followed the signs and easily found the Piazza.  We sat at an open air cafe and enjoyed people watching.  Came home and are preparing to return to Siena for market day on Wednesday.

After our bike ride, we returned to Ventena Vecchia for a gourmet dinner.  We had a great time visiting with all the other guests and eating!  Boy were we tired!  Olaf's 94 year old mother outlasted both of us!

MONDAY, May 20, 2013
   Bike ride through Tuscany!  We got to the origination point of the ride and met the other bikers: Julian & Lauren from Australia (nurses on a 3 month holiday!!) Jake & Kelly from New York.
They drove us out of Florence to get our bikes. We biked up hill and down, through round abouts and along quiet country roads. Our guide, Joseph was very knowledgeable about the area, including wine making. Our first stop was to hear the history of Chianti wine, second stop was for coffee where we heard more history of the area, at the third stop we toured a winery and had a wonderful lunch there and our fiinal stop was for a gelato. The biking was work! Mostly up hill for 3-4 hours! The saving grace was the last 1.5 hours was downhill!

Sunday, May 19, afternoon
We prepared for our bike ride by going to Florence on the train, getting a map and locating the office of the bike ride company.

Then we went to dinner at Da Paoli and took the train back to Ventena Vecchia. We have the train thing down!

At 11:00, amazingly enough, we got up feeeling great! We atk breakfast and took off for a 1.2 k walk but it ended up to be 5 k because we took the 'scenic route'!

After our walk we showered and took the train to Florence to figure out where the meeting place was for our bike ride on Monday (today as I write thius, but not sure when it will post). 

After we got settled in our apartment, Beate & Olaf showed us around the property. We returned to the kitchen to get the antipasto, wine and went out to a table under a canopy of trees.  We were only going to drink a glass, then come into dinner.  But, the view was so wonderful and we were having so much fun, the first bottle was gone. Andre and Andi, from Germany, joined us so we got another bottle. A few bottles later it was time to eat so we invited them into dinner and had a great time.

All of our flights were on time and we arrived in Venice ready to rock.  As we were in line to get the rental car, we met a guy from England who offered to program our GPS for us. We wish we  had taken his photo because we have MANY times looked at each other and thanked him. We probably would still be looking for our final destination if we didn't have the GPS. The drive down was FABULOUS.  We took the autostrade A1 from Venice to Florence and on to our destination. In the travel book it mentioned they don't want you to travel slow.  Yahoooo, Helen was in heaven. 130 km and she felt like Danica Patrick!  The scenery was great, rolling hills, tunnels, bridges we ohhed and ahhed all the way.  And we didn't get lost!  We were a little worried about paying the toll, but it was a snap!
After a long day of travel we arrived here at Ventena Vecchia late afternoon. Here we are at the gate.

Well, the post last night was made after a little wine and it appears a couple of letters were switched in the title.  Oh well! Can't figure out how to edit it so it stands! Jill thought of the Girlfriends Gone Wild what a hoot!  Waiting for our plane right now.  You will next hear from us when we get to Ventena Vecchia!
Helen & Jill

Helen drove down to Manitowoc today and joined Jill for their trip to Italy. They will fly out of Milwaukee tomorrow morning at 9:45 am to begin their adventure!  Follow them as they bike through Tuscany, visit Siena, tour the Galleries in Florence, hike at Lucca, visit winerys and have a blast!