from Tuscany to Venice

The first moment I laid eyes on the Tuscan country side we were on a train to Siena... I remember almost losing my breathe it was so beautiful. It was one of those moments in my life where all thingsa around me were still and I sat there with only one thought "I am in Italy...it is magnificant".
We sat on a train and realized we werent sure it was the right one... after a few moments of discussion a bubbley young Irish woman jumped in our conversation and offered her help. She was teaching English in Rome and looked up our trains for us... she was really fun to talk to and very helpful. Two stops into our train ride a plump, older, Italian woman sat right next to me and we immediatley started to converse. She was a charming old woman who spoke with such compassion of her country. She spoke to me for a good hour about old Italia and men she had loved in here life, and her husband of 50 years and their guesthouse in the heart of Tuscany. God placed both those women in our path...without them we would have been lost.

She gave me her phone number and told me we could stay in her loft.... I promised myself I would come back to Italy someday and call her.....


Fast forward a day or two:
In Siena we were befriended by the Italian workers at the camp. They told us to walk down the "white road" for a really good view. It turns our the "white road" was in reality a gravel road it wasnt a little walk down it... instead it was a 5k treck up the hills of it.... at the top, however, words cannot describe what I saw. Never ending hills and vinyards being lit by a golden, setting sun. It was worth every second of it.
On the way back from the "white road" we saw some cats just sitting by the side of the road... I went to pet one but they gave me the stink eye so I quickly decided to keep walking.
We arrived back at the sight only to find out that the beer Stephen was drinking was in fact NON-alcoholic and the "white road" was known for wild boars.....