Life, Love, & Florence

We finally made it home late last night from our family trip to Italy after a brief — and unplanned — 24 hour layover in Munich, Germany. Having failed to make our homebound connection to Boston on Monday afternoon, we learned that German Holiday Inns are just like the Holiday Inns here except that they have big beers. And are neater and more functional. Alright, so perhaps the similarities mostly ended at the hotel sign but in any case all was well that ended well.

Florence, Siena, San Giminagno, Volterra, and all the other parts of Tuscany that we were fortunate enough to spend the past 10+ days visiting were amazing. A combination of the natural beauty of the place with the history, art, culture, and  — lest we forget  — the food, make it fairly unbeatable. All those nauseating romanticized images that writers and filmmakers have created and/or alluded to over the years? All true. I guess you could say I’m sold on the place. Suffice it to say that though this was our (Ian and Jen) first visit to Tuscany or any part of Italy for that matter, it will most definitely not be our last, at least not if we have anything to say about it.

The purpose of this trip was, as previously noted, to celebrate my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary and celebrate it we did. I’ve even got the 5 lb. I gained to prove it too! The four members of this household, my folks, as well as my sister Sarah, her husband John, and our two lovely nieces were all there. Though my parents (knocking on wood) are both in great physical shape at around the age 70 and we hope to have them with us for many more years to come, it is not lost on me that journeys and experiences such as the one we just shared should ever be taken for granted. To have been able to celebrate their 50 years together along with all 4 of their grandchildren and in a place of such deep meaning to them (my mother, sister, and brother-in-law are all painters meaning that Tuscany and the Italian Renaissance are kind of where it’s at) was really quite special and is a memory which we will all cherish regardless of where the road leads from here. So though it’s good to be back home on the farm here in VT, there is now a whole new catalog of sights, sounds, and smells that has permanently found a place in the psyches of the the Lutz family here at CCNF…and that can only be a good thing.

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