Thursday May 23 (Travel) to Friday May 24-Arezzo, Bologna, Baone

Off to Italy!  The kids were a little bit sad to miss their last week of school with all the play days and parties, but everyone was looking forward to our big adventure.  We left Wednesday evening, flew to Madrid, Spain and then arrived in Rome on Thursday evening.  From there we started driving north, staying in Arezzo for the night.  

The travel all went really smoothly, but the last couple hours of driving were rough.  We were trying to keep kids awake until we got to the hotel so we could adjust to the local timezone.  Everyone was much happier after stopping for pizza.  

After a yummy breakfast at hotel of pastries, ham, cheese, bread, fruit we decided to explore a little bit of the city we were in.  Arezzo had typical old European buildings with cool alleyways. We also witnesses a rally demanding for cleaner earth, which added to our cultural experience.  We continued north, appreciating being able to drive in the daylight. (our drive the night before was all dark.) It was a beautiful drive toward Bologna.    

We drove to Bologna where we met up with Ian and Annie's family who had flown into Venice that morning.  We explored Eataly, learning about how ham, pasta, chocolate and jam were made.  

We didn't get a picture of the full apple wall.  But there was an impressive display of over 1000 varieties of apples that grow in the region.  

After Eataly we got our very first (of many) Gelato of the trip. It was delicious.

We drove toward Baone, where we stayed with our friend, for a couple nights.  She served us an amazing dinner.  Tortellini in broth, rice salad, sausages and bread.  What a wonderful welcome to a beautiful country.