Ciao!

Bella's attempt to come along for the trip...

My amazing friend Michelle started this blog for me from e-mails that I had been sending home to friends and family and photos that I had been posting on Facebook.  She put together the design, title, and first several posts for which I am eternally grateful.  The title is inspired by (I believe) my kitty Bella, who had to stay home and I think she imagined me telling Bella the stories of my adventures a bit like Marco Polo telling Kublai Khan in Italo Calvino's "Invisible Cities".  This theme will occur later throughout the blog...
(Although, I am considering changing the name to "Confessions of a hopeless Italophile", but maybe that will be the name of my book...)


Ciao Tutti-

We made it safely to Canada and we are waiting patiently for our flight which will leave in about an hour.  Apparently we are boarding in about 5 mins.  We'll message when we are on the other side of the ocean.

View from the Capitoline Hill

A presto-

Marissa and Chris 


Ciao Everybody-
We're here in Rome! We are exhausted, but happy to be here. We're heading to bed, since he have an early start tomorrow. Have a good night. 
Love,
Marissa and Chris
PS Darren- we both have our laptops, so if you tell me how to set up Skype, we'll do it.

Ruined cloister connected to a Romanesque church in Viterbo

We made it to Florence yesterday. On our way to Florence from Rome we stopped in this really beautiful hill town called Viterbo. 

Wedding at San Miniato

It is ridiculously hot and humid here in Florence, but we're in Florence, so that makes up for it. We had another long day of walking today. We went to Accademia this morning early and then I met up with Emily and her husband for a while. Chris then joined us for lunch at our favorite restaurant. This evening/afternoon we took the long hike up the hill to San Miniato, saw an italian wedding, and the munks just happened to start doing their Gregorian chants while we were in the basement chapel (they normally only do them on friday afternoon and we were afraid we missed them). Oh, and Emily took home a sad little kitten that was being given away at the market. He is adorable! His name is Guelfo... love it!

That's it for our action packed day.  Time to go to bed for another early start tomorrow.

Buona notte tutti-

Marissa