Wow... can't believe it's already Tuesday night! The past two days have been a whirlwind. We left Florence on Monday morning and visited two gardens, Villa Medici in Fiesole and Villa Garzoni in Collodi. We also got to visit a butterfly garden at Villa Garzoni (see picture below of butterfly on Jenny!) It was incredibly hot, but we toughed it out. In the afternoon, we drove to Pisa where we all posed for a zillion pictures in front of the leaning tower and lounged in shade for awhile. After that, we drove north up the coast to Marina de Pietrasanta, a small town right on the beat. Our hotel is just a couple of blocks from the sandy beach, and we also lucked out with a pool on the roof! When we got to the hotel, most of us headed to the beach where we laid in the sun, got pinched by crabs, and swam in the ocean. There is nothing like swimming in the ocean while looking up at mountains in the distance.

Today (Tuesday) was a free day. Most of us took a day trip to Cinque Terre, five small towns perched on cliffs right on the ocean. It was incredibly beautiful. The ocean was bright blue, and a few of the towns had sandy beaches. Jenny and I decided to hike between two of the towns, while others (Allison, Liz, Alex, Arlan, Yilin, Jean, Blake, Ben, Garry, and Bill) took a ferry and got tons of awesome pictures of the villages from the sea. The hike was tougher than expected--lots of stairs and rocky ledges--but it was exciting to hike into the villages from the hills above. This is definitely a place I want to come back to someday!

Tomorrow, we drive north to Lake Maggiore. Hopefully there will be internet access somewhere, but no guarantees...