When you spend 12 days in Italy visiting seven different cities and take 2,488 pictures, it can be challenging to share such a broad experience with friends. Where do you even start? Well, I'll start with a brief description of our itinerary, some personal observations made along the way, and 42 of those 2,488 pictures that represent the experience to me.

Journey

• Day 1 - 16 hours of travel; sunrise in Amsterdam; arrive Rome; gelato tour begins next to the Pantheon; share a liter of red wine; best spaghetti alla carbonara ever

• Day 2 - Explore the Colosseum; lunch and Italian lessons amid 2,000-year-old ruins; tour of the Pantheon; gelato outside the Pantheon again; another delicious dinner

• Day 3 - Up before dawn to tour the Vatican, St. Peter's Basilica, and Sistine Chapel; birra and a snack at Biblio Bar (books + alcohol); lunch in Piazza Navona next to the Fountain of Neptune; the very tall Column of Marcus Aurelius in the Piazza Colonna; more gelato; the Spanish Steps at dusk; tossing a coin over our shoulder into Trevi Fountain

• Day 4 - Nidia's birthday! Shopping around the Pantheon; drive from Rome to Orvieto; squeeze through narrow streets in the tiny town; drinks next to Duomo di Orvieto in Piazza del Duomo; celebratory birthday dinner at Trattoria La Palomba; seated above Etruscan caves

• Day 5 - Day trip to The Dying City (Civita di Bagnoregio); more cats than people live there; lunch in a 1,500-year-old olive oil mill (Bruschetteria L'Antico Frantoio); shopping ladies; one more stop in the gelato tour

• Day 6 - Drive from Orvieto to San Gimignano; visit 800-year-old cathedral, Duomo di Siena; lunch in Siena's Piazza del Campo; more gelato you say; view from our hotel room is straight from a painting

• Day 7 - Sunrise over the Tuscan countryside; explore San Gimignano; we all buy fancy shoes; gelato (yep); wine-thirty on our room's balcony overlooking the Tuscan countryside; dinner at Quattro Gatti (the Four Cats)

• Day 8 - Tod's birthday! Drive the wrong way down a narrow one way street reserved for pedestrians (no one was hurt); drive from San Gimignano to Venice; figure out how to drop off the rental car; private water taxi to the hotel; explore the city; streets made of water; Nidia buys fancy pants; drinks in St. Mark's Square (Piazza San Marco); celebratory birthday dinner at Ristoranti Al Conte Pescaor

• Day 9 - Halloween in Venice; lots of walking and shopping; so many bridges; tour St. Mark's Basilica and the Doge's Palace; walk across the Bridge of Sighs; gelato tour must go on; Crocs as heels for 500 Euros (true story); accidental fine dining

• Day 10 - Rainy day; train ride from Venice to Florence; cheeseburger and fries; gelato tour continues; walk around the Duomo (Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore); 20 minute torrential downpour

• Day 11 - Galleria dell'Accademia to see Michaelangelo's David; wonderful street art; chocolate waffle sandwich (instead of gelato); jewelry shopping on Ponte Vecchio (Old Bridge); bought new (extra) suitcases; "life is better in Italian lingerie" at Intimissimi

• Day 12 - A bit overwhelmed at the Uffizi Gallery; covid test in a tiny doctor's office; last stop of the gelato tour

• Day 13 - Up at 3am; tiny airport; layover in Paris; first class is soooo nice (thanks for the birthday present, Mutti!); rainy afternoon in Seattle; happy Dexter and Chewie

Observations

• All of the food was delicious…not a single bad meal

• Drank wine every day without the next-day headaches

• Ate dessert every evening without the guilt

• Driving on the highways…keep to the right or you'll get a prostate exam from the driver behind you

• Street art in Florence was amazingly fun

• Public toilets often didn't have seats

• Enjoyed carrying my Nutsac, way more comfortable and stylish than a backpack

• Amazing architecture and history everywhere you go

• So many interesting buildings and doors full of character

• COVID-19: Traveling felt safe because most businesses checked vaccination status and required masks

• TIP: Having temporary European SIM cards for our cell phones made it easy to use GPS maps and communicate with each other

• TIP: Learning basic Italian phrases made communicating with locals much more pleasant: ciao, per favore, grazi, prego, buon giorno, buona sera, scusi, caffè, il conto