Karen and Tom Wanderings

After recovering from our Italy trip for a couple of weeks, we were itching to get out in the Pacific Northwest.  The weather cooperated, so we headed up for a day, with our friend Dominic, to an old favorite ... Deception Pass State Park on the north end of Whidbey Island.  It was a very ordinary visit for us ... incredibly beautiful combinations of water and rocky shorelines, and big views out across Puget Sound!  Very refreshing!  A week later, we unexpectedly found ourselves needing to go to the south end of Whidbey for a Craiglist purchase, and figured we no choice but to make it worth our time.  So we spent a few hours walking on a new beach ... Double Bluff County Park.  Again, just gorgeous, and relaxing! Deception Pass State Park Deception Pass State Park Deception Pass State Park Olympic Mtns beyond Double Bluff County Park Heron and Olympic Mtns, Double Bluff County Park Bluff Detail, Double Bluff County Park More Photos

The Duomo and Belltower, Florence And so we bid farewell to Italy ... until our next visit.  Our return flight home from Florence was smooth sailing.  Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris (at least the part we were in) was clean, modern and uncrowded!  And our trip through customs at SeaTac took about 5 minutes, and that included the extra "random selection" to xray our bags.  There were some nice views of the Alps, Greenland, and (as a nice welcome home gift), the Cascades wrapped in low clouds!! The Alps French Countryside Greenland Cascades More Photos Overall, we had a great trip.  It was about the right length (2 plus weeks), as we were pretty tired by the time we wrapped it up.  Our overall approach of spending 3ish nights at most places was perfect, as was opting to primarily using trains to get around.  The timing worked out well, too ... we managed to miss the historic flooding, fires, and heat, and many of the crowds, that were big news through...

Ponte Vecchio over the Arno River   For the finale of our Italian getaway, we headed to Florence for a couple of days.  It is the capital of the Tuscany region, as well as it's largest city.  It was a major hub in the Renaissance movement, and has an over-abundance of art and architecture from that era.  In fact, it, too, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (surprise, surprise!).   With all the famous art and architecture, Florence is heavily touristed, with a very strong American contingent.  We hit a few of the major sites, but were more than content leaving some out.  We climbed to the top of the Duomo dome (aka Brunelleschi's Dome).  It involves over 400 stairs through narrow passageways, eventually going up between the inner and outer domes.  The design and construction of this dome is considered an huge engineering achievement, particularly for the time frame of its construction (early 1400s).  Half-way up, we got an up-close-and-...

During our stay in Siena, we rented a car for a couple of days to let us explore a bit of the Tuscany countryside.  We went on a little half-day driving tour to the Crete Senesi area, southeast of Siena, returning to Siena for the night.  The next morning, we departed Siena and headed to two hilltop towns, first Volterra, then San Gimignano, where we spent a night. Our midday drive around Crete Senesi was quite fun.  Tom was a bit apprehensive about driving ... not being familiar with all the local "customs," etc. ... but it turned out fine.  Fortunately, the rental car office in Siena was, in fact, a ways out of town, and in the direction we were headed.  So, we had minimal interaction with traffic.  Lots of small, narrow, windy roads through lush green hilly countryside.  We stopped to look around a couple of towns and have lunch.  We also explored the Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore, which is an active St. Benedict Monastery.  There was so...