Perugia, then halfway across the world

The day after visiting the winery, Liz and I hung out at the villa. We had been vacationing our butts off for quite a few days in a row, and wanted to take advantage of our awesome accommodations and relax a bit. Looking for some nice, light reading, I started War and Peace on my Nook while sitting next to the pool. It's the third time I've tried to tackle it, but the first time I've gotten past the first 100 pages, so I think I might finally finish it.

Antinori Winery

The following day, we visited the Marchesi Antinori Winery. I was expecting something like a typical small US winery - small tasting room, maybe a beautiful hillside, maybe a quick tour past some wine making equipment... well, this place was anything but that. 

Umbria

We've been in San Francisco for a couple of weeks now, and I've been seriously slacking on blog posts. There are so many things to do and people to see in this city that I somehow haven't had time to sit down and capture the rest of our trip in Italy. I'm back to it now though, so here's a quick (ok, not that quick) run down of our first full day in Umbria...

The Villa

For the rest of our stay in Italy, we'll be staying in "The Villa", near Perugia. Tom and Lori, our hosts, are friends of Marianne and Larry. They've always wanted to rent an Italian villa, finally took the plunge this year, and then invited all of their friends and family to stay with them. We were lucky enough to get included in that, and couldn't turn down the offer.

Colosseum, Rome Capital Building, Spanish steps

The main event of our second full day in Rome was a visit to the Colosseum. The scale of it was impressive - large enough that I can't really wrap my head around the level of effort and ingenuity it took to build it without any modern equipment. For me, it's similar to trying to grasp the scale of the universe... logically, I know how big the numbers involved are, but there's really no way to put it in proper perspective.

Vatican, St. Peter's Basilica, Pantheon

We went on a grand tour around Rome today, and saw maybe 2% of all the amazing things here.

It's all about the journey, not the destination, right?

Yesterday, after a whirlwind of final packing, we left Massachusetts for the last time before the trek. The plan was to fly to Italy for a vacation with Liz's family, then off to California for a couple of weddings, then off to New Zealand on October 21 to start the trail.

24 hours after we left, we arrived at our apartment in Rome. The trip was supposed to take about 12 hours.