Saturday, July 18, 2009

Italia - day two

Still on the plane. Randy's all happy even though he didn't sleep.

We landed in Frankfurt, Germany early morning of day two. We had a several hour layover in the airport, but luckily it wasn't a bad airport to be stuck in. Many shops to walk through and by this time, we'd met all of the KState travelers (except Jan from Salina who flew over by herself).

Had a coffee in Frankfurt and a water (but forgot that I needed to order still water, so it had bubbles). I only like bubbles in my sparkling wine, not water. We spent a couple of hours in the airport, and I didn't buy a thing. I wanted to buy some Korres skin care products, but we had to go through security there so the same 3 oz. rules applied to carry-ons.

After landing in Florence, getting our luggage on the bus and then an hour and a half trip through beautiful Tuscany (which I could hardly hold my eyelids open), we'd arrived in Cortona. Our home away from home for the trip. What an incredibly enchanting sleepy hilltop town that became famous because of the movie, Under the Tuscan Sun. The photo is the view of the Tuscan valley from Hotel San Luca where we stayed. Completely overwhelmingly picturesque and forever sketched in my mind.

We had just a tiny bit of time to wonder around the corner to the main streets of Cortona. This is a little slice of the City Hall steps where lots of people sit and conversate. The couple there was on our trip, how ironic.

Craig and Dena are from Wichita, too. Randy and Craig grew up 30 miles from each other, both in small towns, competed in high school track, went to KSU together and then to Washburn for law school together. Then we figured out that Dena was in my uncle's high school class. What a small, small world.

We met in one of the beautiful terraces that evening for appetizers (including these delectable lightly battered and fried squash flowers). We had a lovely dinner in the wine cellar (pics to come of that) and CRASHED.

4 comments:

MrsKatherineA said...

I'm loving all your photos, everything is just stunningly charming and beautiful - so glad you had such a wonderful trip!

Adriene Rathbun said...

Thanks Katie! :) xoxo

Dee Dunlap VanBoening said...

Good job with the new camera, too! It all looks very serene.

Adriene Rathbun said...

Thanks so much Dee! Appreciate your encouragement. :)