Our trip to Italy

We traveled with a tour from Skippack Travel. It ended up being about 42 senior citizens. I think there were 2 other people under the age of 60 besides Roxane and I. This turned out to be both good and bad. It was good in the sense that we went to places that we would have never been able to find on our own. The bad part of course was that it felt like we were with a bunch of kindergarteners on a school filed trip. We were told, were to go, how long to stay, yelled at if we returned to the bus a few minutes late, stopped for frequent potty breaks, tips on how not to get lost etc.
We stayed the first two days in a town called, Montecatini Terme. We were told that it’s known as Italy’s most famous spa town. Of course, I thought that meant that there would be hot springs were everybody bathes naked and a beautiful Italian woman named, Francesca would give me a massage. I was very wrong. It was nothing more than a beautiful town with a water fountain the center of town.

The third day we went to the city of Florence. It was a beautiful city with lots of Italian Catholic history. We went to the some beautiful museums. We saw the famous status of David by Michelangelo. Of course, Roxane kept pointing to his pee-pee and giggling. I just kept staring at his great sculptured physique and thinking, “Damn, I gotta stop eating so much pasta and get back to the gym!” After shopping at street vendors and buying stuff that we really didn’t need, we headed to the quaint town of Cortona. Cortona is the town where the movie, Under the Tuscan Sun, was filmed.

We stayed in this beautiful village the rest of our 7 days. We took a train ride, a boat ride and did a lot of walking to some quaint villages. We saw a lot of beautiful catholic churches and learned about the history of them. We saw a lot of “difficult to understand” paintings. Like ladies with one boobie exposed with chubby, naked kids flying above them. I’m sure they explained what they meant. I was probably distracted, yeah, yeah, by the exposed boobie. We visited a monastery and got to meet a monk. He prayed for us, shared a brief message and gave us a blessing. It was very moving. Really it was!

Overall it was a great trip. We ate way too much food, drank way too much wine, spend way too much money. Roxane wasted ...ummm, I mean...spend a lot of money on “Italian” stuff; like wine, olive oil, goat cheese, ceramics, truffle oil, sweater, pictures etc. As, if you couldn’t find that crap at the Q-Mart! I of course was much more practical and only bought the “Italian” necessities. That’s right, a pair of shoes and a silk tie.


It was a great way to celebrate our 25 year anniversery. Thanks to those who prayed for our safety.

Back to reality.