Lavagna, Pisa and Florence, Italy

After quite a drive up, down, and around the Alps, we finally arrived in Lavagna, Italy to spend a day with our friends the D fam.  It was lovely catching up with them, hearing about life in Italy, and what God was up to there. 

Somehow, this is the only group shot I managed... 

We crammed 14 people into their apartment that had only ONE bathroom, but really, it didn't feel crowded or crazy.  What very gracious hosts they were!

This is sweet B who babysat our boys when they were only babies in TX!  Can you see her pizza?  It's the Americano.  What's on an Americano?  Why, french fries, of course!

The kids playing soccer on the street.

After saying Bon Voyage to the D fam, we decided to take advantage of our location and drove an hour south to Pisa...where we spent all of 15 minutes taking really poorly positioned photos.

Then we hopped back into the car and hit McDonalds.  No, not kidding.  We don't even eat it in the US, but Pisa didn't offer much and we'd been told it was the best place to grab a bite, use clean bathrooms and even wifi.  

Then we were off to Florence.  We planned this detour last minute, and I was so bummed about that because we didn't get to do much, but it was the cleanest, loveliest of all the Italian cities, thus far. 

The Duomo

Look at the details!  This is one of the sets of doors on the Baptistry.

Marble statues in every square...

The ceiling of the Baptistry.  I loved to see God glorified in all the art.  The kids enjoyed taking time and figuring out all the Bible stories depicted.

Ya know, just another David.

The famous Bronze Boar

G-E-L-A-T-O.  Yum.  The BEST ice cream I think we will ever eat.

After too short a time in Florence, we headed home.  Since stopping anywhere in Europe overnight with a large family is difficult and expensive, we planned to drive straight through.  

It should have taken 12 hours.  It ended up being about 15 because we had torrential rain all the way from Florence and into Switzerland.  When we went through the tunnel from the Italian side of the Alps, to the German side, we exited the tunnel into this... 

The van erupted in a roar!  It was a winter wonderland with several inches of snow.

Crazy trip...but wonderful memories!