February 2018

At Carson's school they have an assembly each week and all classes take turns presenting at each assembly. In February Carson's class had a turn and below is a picture of his class singing during the assembly. They also recited some poems and showed a video they created themselves. 

The kids had a one week half-term break in February - another chance for us to visit Europe. This time we chose Italy! We flew into Pisa then took trains to Florence and Cinque Terre. Pisa is quite small so one day was enough to see the leaning tower and walk around the city a bit.

On to Florence! What a beautiful city. The Duomo which is part of the Florence Cathedral is in the central piazza of the city. Its coloring is so unique - white and green paneling - in contrast to the famous red roof of the dome.

Carson is enticed by the 'mountain gelato' - this was our name for these type of gelato places where each flavor looked like a mountain!

This statue was just outside the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. We loved the Uffizi, it is smaller then other big-city museums and has a quaintness and coziness that I did not expect. Plentiful windows provide nice views of the Arno river amidst the amazing artwork. Probably the most famous painting at the Uffizi is the Birth of Venice by Botticelli, shown in the second picture below.

Picture taken from inside the Uffizi looking out at Ponte Vecchio

Just outside the museum is the Arno river and the famous bridge known as Ponte Vecchio. There are shops all along this bridge, most of which sell upscale jewelry at inflated prices to unsuspecting tourists. We almost fell into that category of unsuspecting tourists before a simple Google search warned not to buy jewelry here! Thank goodness for Google 😁

We decided to make the trek up to Piazzale Michelangelo and it was well worth the view.

On to Cinque Terre - a string of 5 seaside villages along the Italian Riviera coastline. We stayed at the southernmost town, Riomaggiore, in a small apartment. We were definitely there during off-season, many restaurants and gelato shops were closed until March. But there were a few places open and it was nice to have no crowds.

The main trails connecting the villages were closed for construction (another pitfall of off-season travel) so we took to the hills for a steep climb and were rewarded with amazing views.

Terraced landscaping allows them to grow their own wine grapes despite the steep terrain

We took a short train ride to the northernmost of the seaside villages, Monterosso, where the kids had a chance to play on a sandy beach (always a treat for them).

In February I did the 10K London Winter Run with a group of friends. Great fun running through the streets of London with no cars around, and they raised lots of money for cancer research.

Starting line in Trafalgar Square