Today we got a bit of a late start- everyone slept in! After breakfast we headed back to the Florence train station to meet our tour bus. It was a rainy yucky day (but not as cold as home). We were able to get an overview of the area and see some really cool sites. We had fun exploring the Piazza de Michelangelo and were able to decide what we wanted to spend time on the next day.

The kids noticed an American 50’s  Diner on our street and insisted we had to eat a late lunch there. It was pretty funny. Grease was playing the whole time and Bren got a picture with a Marilyn statue. The burgers and hot dogs were pretty good and the hot chocolate tasted like pudding!

We relaxed back at the apartment for a little bit and then headed out to dinner at a local restaurant our host suggested. It was fantastic! We all enjoyed a very Italian dinner (wine included!) and tried some new things too. We met the original owner (who’s recipe for cheesecake was one of the best parts). She was lovely to talk to about cold winters as she was born in Canada. In typical Italian fashion it was a long and late dinner but a really good one!

We woke up in Milan! The kids were excited about their adjoining room. They were such great sports about going with the flow during our long travel day. We had to wake them up to get ready to head out! They were tired but also very excited to see where we would be staying in Florence!

We took the hotel shuttle to the airport and a bus from the airport to the train station. Then we took a train to Florence. Lots of moving around, but its own fun adventure. We went through AirBNB and found a great place to stay in Florence- and it’s as amazing as the pictures! The kids have their own loft space, the building is super cool and the apartment is very fun. And our host has been amazing with answering questions and helping us too.

We went to the store to pick up some food. It was fun to see what’s different verses US shops. The kids squeezed some fresh orange juice at the store’s juice machine. We ordered pizza (of course) from the place next door to our apartment- it’s so good!! Then we made an early night of it since we had a long day of travel.

There’s a lot of places on our list of countries we want to visit. When we talked about a next trip Italy came up. I visited in 2000 and wanted the boys to see Rome. I also thought it would be neat to visit the village my grandmother was born. We looked at our calendars at the beginning of 2017 and realized with Aidan going to a new school, Brendan in (at least) a summer show and timing for Chris, it was going to be almost impossible to find a time to enjoy a family vacation. We joked about having to leave Christmas night. And then realized, it may be quite the perfect time to go away. We shared our plans with a few friends and our friends Paul and Heather decided they were up for an adventure too!

When planning we realized we wanted to leave after all the excitement of Christmas. We found a 9pm flight out of Boston. We had two choices for a layover. We decided to go with the longer one which meant we could spend day 1 of our trip in London!

We loved London when we visited in 2014. We took a quick tour and visited Trafalgar Square. It was funny how quickly the memories came back. We wished we had more time there but it was a fun way to break up the day. Because it was Boxing Day the express train wasn’t running so it cut into our fun time. We plan to find another time to go back.

We then headed on to Milan. Who knew there are two airports in Milan? And of course that oversight meant we ended up not very close to our hotel for the night. Luckily we were able to come up with a new plan and everyone took all the changes in stride.

Day 1 was a LONG day. It was full of transportation (planes, buses and taxis) but we made the best of it! And now we are in Italy!!