"Marble" ous times with dani

Wish I could take some of this home with me!

Wow it's been a whirlwind of fun since Dani has been visiting. I'll try to recap the past few days. On Tuesday we went to Carrera Italy, home of my favorite...Carrera marble.  We found an adventure tour which takes  you in a land rover straight up (and I really mean straight up!) into the mountains and the marble caves where you can actually see the men cutting the blocks of marble from the mountain. If anyone saw 007 Quantum of Solice, the opening scene was filmed right on this site!    This mining  has been going on for hundreds of years and to see how the marble is cut and excavated helps explain the extraordinary cost of getting it to us at home.  Close to Carrera however, the. marble is so readily available that some of the sidewalks nearby are paved in marble rather than cement or tile since the marble is less expensive and more available.  So strange to see.  The enormity of the marble caves was something I will never forget. Don't think the pictures really capture it but its the best I can do. After the marble caves we headed back home and I shared the recipes from the cooking class which  I had taken with my mom and made a mini cooking class with the girls!  We made our own pizzas and pici (pasta) and sauce.  Yum but ALOT of work making homemade pasta if you plan to have more than 3 strands per person!!! We all enjoyed it but I don't think I will be firing up the pizza oven again before we leave.  Lots of fun but with no gas starter it is a time consuming labor of love---same with the pasta!. On Wednesday, we headed towards the water for a beautiful day in cinque

Fun by the sea

terre. This time we drove in the back route and saw some pretty spectacular views.  It really is an amazing place and fortunately we are close  enough to be able to take our visitors there...I wouldn't want anyone to miss all if the natural beauty cinque terre has to offer! Thursday we headed out to lucca and then to a magnificent villa, monte chiara, for some wine tasting  

Our wine tasting adventure

This amazing property with views of the entire valley has been owned and operated by the most lovely family for 200 years.  They prepared a wonderful tasting and then a tour of their grounds and production facilities. Their wines have been recognized as worldwide and they really were delicious. After wine tasting it was off to lucca for some shopping and dinner.  Today we took the train into Florence where
the girls met up with two of Dani's sorority sisters who were spending the semester studying abroad.  They had a great afternoon walking around and then going to boboli  gardens and had a picnic on the grounds to take full advantage of the perfect weather.  While they were busy with friends, Howard and I secured our plans for Passover at the historic (and magnificent) Florence synagogue.  They will be offering a full service and sedar in both Italian and English!  That should be quite and experience.  Since we were already at the train station in Florence we decided to check and see where we could go on our last excursion that didn't involve a flight (the flights within Europe are inexpensive but also inconvenient!). Looking at the train schedule we decided on Naples since it is 3 hours by train and convenient times in and out of Florence.  That adventure will begin tomorrow but for now we are squeezing the last bit of fun in with dani and Emma. With the logistiics of our next few days taken care of, Howard and I walked around, bought a little art  and had a beautiful lunch.  After the fun filled day in Florence, we all met up at the train station and headed back to viaregio for dinner. We loved having dani and know it was an extra special time for Emma too!  Travel back home safely!!! Love to all. Xox

Dani and Emma having fun in Florence.