Florence.

Florence has been my favorite city to visit so far. Full of tourists, everyone is so friendly and accommodating! You can get gelato or granita (my new favorite slushie) in just about every other shop--leather goods in the alternating ones. We spent one solid day exploring and making the rounds of the must-see sites, including David in the academia, il Duomo, etc. Our Florentine guide, Bernie, grew up in the area and went to the same high school that Galileo looked through telescopes and where da Vinci painted Mona Lisa! He was a proud alum. There are so many day trips you can take from Florence, and we chose an afternoon in Chianti and a bike day through the region the next two days. For dinner, we had one fun, casual night eating outside in a lively piazza, one salami and cheese night in the hotel before Hunter and I went bar crawling, and one 5 star (by the quality, not price) meal. I will never forget our food at Acqua al 2. A five pasta sampler, amazing Greek salad and the blueberry fillet will be hard to beat anywhere!

Cook.

One of the must-dos we wanted to experience in Italy was an Italian cooking class. So, Diane Seed was our lady! Finding our way to her 5th floor apartment that overlooks the Roman Forum and monuments was an adventure in itself, but the dinner we cooked was even more fabulous--if possible. It was just the three of us and her. We cooked the food completely out of order and ate it immediately when it was hot. Starting with a delicious salmon-cream dressed pasta, we moved onto the zucchini and mint risotto. Two carb-o-licios plates I couldn't get enough of! Next was our fennel seed chicken (Hunter single-handedly ate almost the whole thing), and we finished with the fabulous anti-pasta: fried yeast balls stuffer with olives, cheese, onions, capers and goodness! The whole evening was quite an experience, and we definitely learned a few things about Italian cooking! There was even one point when I asked for more cream sauce on my pasta and Ms. Seed promptly told me no. Apparently Italian dishes should be lightly dressed, not drowned in sauce. I wasn't too happy, as it was salmon deliciousness, but had to respect her and accept it as a learning process!

The last supper.

Yup, I leave Cortona tomorrow! Heading to Roma, and am so excited...but still so sad. You would think I'd finish my trip at a wonderful Italian restaurant. Wrong. Lions Well got the best of me. Burger, chips, salsa and queso. So wrong. I complain about the squishy layer I've gained on my body, and would love to blame it on my daily gelato treats and the full pizzas I eat by myself, but no--it's the late night cheese dip at Lions Well pub. Go figure.

Mangiare.

When in Italy, eat! But seriously, all we do it eat. If someone were to observe our eating habits I am confident they would be disturbed by our group of eight girls! This picture shows us in action, casually sharing four pizzas...and an appetizer, and three plates of dessert cookies and chocolates. The best part is, when we aren't eating, we are talking about food—how good it was, what we will be eating next, etc. We were craving this pizza again last night, but when we got there it was closed and we decided to go for lunch today instead. This morning, my roommate literally sat up in bed and said, "I am so excited about pizza today!" Case closed.