Day One: Touring Tuscany

I have dubbed our trip the Country-Coastal-City tour of Italy, and that's exactly what it was. When we woke up on Saturday morning, the view from our B&B was absolutely breathtaking. So, you see, it really worked out for us to miss our flight and arrive actually much later than originally planned. It was a gorgeous way to "officially" start our vacation.

Here's a video tour of our room and surrounding area at Il Casello, our B&B.

Il Casello was in the Chianti region between the two villages of Greve and Panzano. We decided we would spend the day exploring both. And what a great plan that was...

Saturday morning was market day in the town of Greve. The streets were filled with merchants selling every possible thing you could imagine - fresh fruits and vegetables, household items, jewelry, seafood, clothes, clothes and more clothes, everything. We just wandered through the little winding streets and explored.

We found this great wine-tasting museum and spent a good hour and only 10 euro tasting all sorts of regional wine. We found one we liked that was actually made there in Greve and decided to ship six bottles home to Mississippi. I'm ready to drink it now that we're home!

With a nice little morning wine buzz we headed back to the market for our first taste of real Italian food. Pizza. Honestly, it wasn't very good and after this picture was taken we found a fly (ew) in Derek's piece, but we knew we had plenty more deliciously authentic food to taste in the coming days, so it was all good.

After Greve, we decided to check out Panzano. It was less than five minutes away from our B&B. Once we parked, our first stop was at the gelateria for some famous gelato. SO GOOD!

We wandered around, stopped for a cold beer at this cool little corner bar (they sold Budweiser), then walked up to the Church of Panzano for a great view of the village.

On the way back down the hill we stopped in at the Accademia del Buon Gusto, the cutest little wine shop I've ever seen. "Welcome to what I call my living room," said the very Italian man in a red chef's hat. (Imagine his quotes in a very strong Italian accent.) His name was Stefano Salvadori, and he called himself an instructor of wine tasting.

"To taste is your liberty," he said. "The only way to know is to taste." He had a scrapbook in which people from all over had written little notes of gratitude. He let us taste about 10 different wines - each in what he called the breakfast, lunch, and dinner wine categories. He wouldn't give us prices for any until we decided what we liked. Of course, we were thinking these would be $40-$60 bottles of wine. At the end (and after tasting this amazing dessert liqueur of caramelized grapes) we decided on one of the Chianti Classico "breakfast" wines. He pulled out his cost guide and surprisingly it was only 15 euro (like $20). Sold!

We chatted for a few more minutes with Stefano and got some passersby to take a picture of all three of us. "Is it possible to e-mail for my book?" he asked. And of course, we had to sign the book. "To sign is your liberty," he said. "I do this for my children." The note I wrote to him was about helping us to relax and to simply enjoy loving life, which was so very true. Lovely lesson learned our first day of vacation. Our time spent with Stefano was such a great part of our little Italian adventure. He was such a character.

On to the next stop: another cold beer at the corner bar we found earlier and then siesta time back at the B&B. I think this was when the jet-lag hit us hard and we crashed for a good couple of hours. When we woke up I swear we just would have ordered Pizza Hut if there had been one. We were absolutely exhausted, but we dragged ourselves back out and into Panzano for dinner at the Villa San Giovese in the town square. Dinner itself was just so-so, but the fresh bruschetta we had as an appetizer and the from-scratch cheesecake we had for dessert were absolutely to die for.

So, in conclusion, Day One was a success and we still had seven more wonderful days to come...

Mambo Italiano!

We're HOME!! What an A-MAZ-ING vacation! Italy was absolutely wonderful and everything I hoped and dreamed it would be. We got in late last night and have spent the day recuperating, washing clothes and trying to get back to our normal time zone. Because there's so much to tell and because I want to remember everything about this trip when I read this years from now, I'm going to split the trip up into several different posts, so just be patient. :)

To start with, I'll tell you a little bit about the actual getting there part... Our flight from Jackson to Atlanta was supposed to leave at 12:35 on Thursday afternoon. It didn't. It actually departed about an hour and 15 minutes late, which of course made our tight one-hour connection time in Atlanta impossible. (If you've ever been to that airport, it's huge, and our gates were far apart. It was NOT fun to try to run and catch it, but we tried anyways.) Even if our plane had been on time I don't think we could have made it.

Sooooo... on to Plan B. Delta rescheduled us to fly out of Atlanta late Thursday night and connect in Amsterdam and then on to Rome. The original flight would have been direct to Rome. I had a minor mini break-down at the ticket counter just because this whole vacation didn't seem like it would actually happen. The lady was so incredibly sweet and gave us vouchers for food and drinks at the airport (since we had 5 hours to kill) and free drink vouchers for the plane. She also ended up booking our seats from Amsterdam to Rome eight times accidentally just to make sure we had a spot. Bless her heart. She was an angel.

So off to Amsterdam we went about 11 p.m. that night. We flew all night and arrived early Thursday afternoon to connect. The flight to Rome was so nice. It was daylight, we sat by the window and actually flew right over the Swiss Alps.

After more than 24 hours in a plane or airport, we arrived in Rome about 4:30 Friday afternoon, got our luggage (we were worried it wouldn't connect like we did) and finally got our rental car. It was an Opel Insignia, a brand new station wagon. We had hoped for a not-so-brand-new little compact car, but oh well. This pic was not taken in Rome, but here's a preview of the Tuscany pictures to come...

We left the airport right during rush hour traffic in Rome. It was a tense few minutes while we waited for our GPS to locate the satellite since we started our journey in the parking garage, but we made it onto the autostrada (interstate) and FINALLY made it to our B&B in Tuscany about 9:30 p.m. Italy time (2:30 p.m. here). So of course, the next order of business was this...

We listened to the peace and quiet of the Tuscan hillside (remember it's pitch black and we couldn't really see how pretty it was at all) and finally called it a night about 11. We were SO glad to be there and ready to officially start vacation.

Stay tuned for the next leg of our adventure... :)

Katherine and Paul's Shower

On Saturday we hosted a stock-the-bar shower with a "backyard barbecue" theme for our friends Katherine and Paul. It was a BEEEA-U-TIFUL sunny day, and we had most of the food catered by the Hickory Pit and a cold keg of Miller Lite. Perfect way to spend a gorgeous Saturday!

It was so much fun! Now let the countdown begin to your beautiful wedding! :)

The Greys' European Vacation

It's been quite the whirlwind around our house, but I'm pleased to share with all five of you who actually read this that our revised international vacation is to ITALY! It will be such an adventure, especially since we've only had a couple of weeks to make plans and learn all about where we're going, but we're excited!

We'll see a little bit of this...

And a little bit of this...

And, of course, a little bit of this... And just think of all the blogging material I'll have to share when I return! This is me MAJORLY stepping out of my comfort zone of planning out every detail of my life. This spontaneity will be good for me. Sometimes last minute plans are the best ones. :)

Bim Bam!

This weekend I headed to Hattiesburg to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Delta Pi chapter of Delta Gamma at Southern Miss. It was SO MUCH FUN!

It was great to see everyone, meet some new people and just share the overall fabulousity (is that a word?) that is Delta Gamma. CHEESY, but I was truly feeling the love this weekend, so pardon me. :)

There were activities all weekend long, but I just went down Saturday afternoon for the cocktail party at the Touchdown Club overlooking the football stadium and the banquet at the Thad Cochran Center. That campus has changed so incredibly much since I was there. It's crazy. Everything's so nice and state-of-the-art. It's wonderful. Here are a few pics from the day...

The special creme brule with a white chocolate crest cookie on top. So delicious!

After the banquet (during which, might I add, many tears were shed - both from laughing at old stories to crying when the pref singers sang) we headed to Mahogany like old times to catch up with everyone we didn't get a chance to talk with before. The manager pulled enough tables together to sit all 20ish of us, and we just had a few drinks and caught up. It was perfect!

I am still so proud to have pledged DG and it was a great affirmation of the choice I made almost 12 years ago. I love these girls!

Crazytown!

I'm still alive and kicking, just crazy busy! This week has been a whirlwind of epic proportions.

To summarize, Monday we finally found out that our tickets to Japan were being fully refunded, so we were able to move forward with our vacay planning. If anyone has the bright idea to plan an international vacation in less than three weeks, I do not recommend it. BUT it will be so worth it when we actually get there!

Work has been crazy for both of us this week, so there hasn't been a lot of time during the day to even think about all the other things we have going on right now.

Plus, we have a TON to do before a shower we're having at our house next week, I'll be out of town this weekend, I've been working on last minute Taste of Mississippi marketing since the event is Monday, and our air conditioner has been on the fritz.

I have a feeling it will be crazy like this until we step on the plane in two weeks, but I'll take it. Then we'll really be in need of a fabulous vacation! Can't wait! :)

St. Patty's Day Parade

What a GORGEOUS weekend! Our friend Dave and his girlfriend, Rachel, drove down from Memphis to spend a lovely couple of days in Jackson and enjoy the St. Paddy's Day Parade on Saturday. We had so much fun!

Here are a few pics from the parade...

After we got nice and sun-burned, we headed back to the Bulldog for an Abita Strawberry and some good food, then back to our deck for some quality deck-sitting time. Dave even brought out the guitar for another Dave Unplugged session.

It was a great weekend, even if my shoulders are still feeling the burn today. My pasty skin hasn't seen the light of day until this weekend, so here's to many more weekends in the sun now that I have my first burn of the season. Ha!