This post was coming a long time ago, but sadly, life interrupted.

At the beginning of this week Mary, Mary and I returned from Italy, land of cheese and lots and lots of tourists. The vacation there was great, the traveling there was incredibly stressful, and all in all I think I've recovered enough to share some cool pictures.

Here's what we did:
Wednesday 18/02:
-Uffizi Museum, the highlights of which included Botteceli's Birth of Venus and the beautiful view of the Arno River from the building, which once housed the Medici offices.



-Boboli Gardens at the Palazzo Pitti, which were beautiful. We had very good weather for the entire trip.


-Trips into the open-air market and past the Duomo, stopping to view the Paradise Doors on the Baptistry.


Thursday 19/02:
-Accademia Museum to see Michaelangelo's David (enormous!) and similarly famous art.
-San Lorenzo cathedral
-Santa Maria Novella cathedral
-Climb of the Duomo (up to the top of the dome for a lovely panorama of Florence), and views of the Duomo interior at various heights.



Oh look there I am! Thanks to Doc for taking this photo.

Friday 20/02:
-Day trip to Siena, where we climbed the Torre del Mangia for amazing views of the Tuscan countryside




-Visited the Civic Museum, where I got excessively excited about the Allegory of Good and Bad Government
-Went to the beautiful, striped marble Duomo, possibly my favorite church of all.



Saturday 21/02:
-Visit to the Museo de San Marco, which was pretty cool, and then a return trip to the Palazzo Pitti to see the Argenti and the Costume museums, which were actually not that exciting.

This is for you, snail pony!

-Last minute church visits: Santa Croce and San Spirito. We were pretty churched out by the end of this trip.




Sunday 22/02:
-Part one of our homecoming adventure, mostly just traveling but we spent some of the afternoon in Pisa. Hooray for leaning towers!


And finally, I love this picture, but after so long I have to admit I have absolutely no idea what it actually is.