LOOKING BACK

I wish I'd had more time over these last few weeks to write down my thoughts and feelings, but alas, packing and cleaning have been time-consuming tasks.  Luckily Art's daughter arrived for a quick visit, giving us an excuse to take a break and revisit some of our favorite places.  When I thought about writing about where we'd gone, at first I was going to say we'd made 'one last visit', but that sounded so final!  It's not as if we'll never see most of these places again - we already have plans to return to Italy this fall for six weeks, so, rather than say we made 'one last trip' to Florence, I decided to simply say we made 'another' visit to Florence, which implies that yes, we've been there before, but certainly doesn't give the impression that we'll never be there again. 

So, last week we made another visit to Assisi, to Orvieto and to Montefalco.  We also made another visit to Florence, Perugia and Rome.  All places we love for sure, and for the most part we re-visited some of our favorite sites in each of those cities:  the Basilica in Assisi, the Duomo in Orvieto, L'Alchemista in Montefalco (you just knew food would be involved, didn't  you?).  We strolled through the food market in Florence as well as the Bargello, wandered through the Rocca Paolina in Perugia then spent some time in our favorite Rome museum, the Borghese.  We've also made sure to stop by our favorite gelateria in Marsciano, Stefania's and we've enjoyed a perfect porchetta sandwich. 

It's a bittersweet time for us, but knowing familiar faces and familiar places will be waiting for us whenever we return makes our impending departure seem less like 'goodbye' and more like 'alla prossima' - until the next time.  Ci vediamo dopo!