italy vacation photos: tuscany

from rome we went on to cortona, tuscany. my sister studied in cortona one summer in college and absolutely LOVED it. since then my parents and i wanted to check it out for ourselves :) rome was one of my favorite cities on the trip, and cortona was my other favorite for almost opposite reasons. it's located in the country, and besides the U.S. study abroad program, there weren't many tourists around. i'm really glad sarah had spent time there previously, so we could see the best that the city had to offer.

we went to siena the day after arriving, did a little shopping, and spent the day walking around the downtown area. we stopped by the duomo di siena, and it was the coolest and most unique church that i've ever seen. i called it the "beetlejuice church", lol.

duomo di siena // downtown siena

on our way back we stopped in montepulciano. it was recommended that we buy our wine there, so we tried a few different wines and some amazing cheese at the various shops.

remember the scene in twilight: new moon when bella runs into the doorway before edward reveals himself to the masses in italy? yep, that last photo is me standing in the same doorway, haha!

our last day in tuscany was devoted to enjoying cortona. we did some more shopping, and checked out some great restaurants. the weather finally brightened up towards the end of the day, which was nice. we ventured to the area where my sister stayed while in school, and talked to a few of the students that had just finished their last final.

as soon as i got home, after watching angels and demons i watched under the tuscan sun. again, it was cool to see the various areas around cortona in the movie. we had always loved the ceramic dishes we saw in the movie, and stocked up at the local shop (pictured below). i'm happy to report that all of ceramics made it back safely, haha.

next up is the last leg of our trip, venice. be sure to check out my posts about sicily and rome if you haven't already :)

i uploaded a handful of photos (well, 50) to flickr. there will be some overlap with those photos and the ones i share on here, but if you want to check 'em out here's the link.