Mercantia!

Ciao a tutti! What a crazy couple of weeks we've had here in Italia. Everything from broken noses to cross-Italia roadtrips and ocean views - needless to say I haven't had time to blog! Here are just a couple of things we've experienced in the past couple of weeks:

• visits from 4 of our closest friends
• pigs getting loose (twice)
• many dinners composed of cheese. only cheese.
• visits to Florence, Pisa and Rome
• our first and hopefully last scooter accident (don't worry, everyone is ok!)
• road trips all the way up to Cannes, France and all the way down to Positano, Italy
• a broken nose (sorry, LuLu!)
• a broken bottle of red (sorry, rental car)
• more than 5 but less than 10 burratas
• approximately 1,000 bottles of wine
• renting a boat for the day to cruise along the Amalfi Coast
• more than a couple skinned knees
• countless laughs & immeasurable scenic beauty!

Aaand the rest you will see in good time. Once I'm caught up on my posts here...so in the interest of time, this post will be 99% pictures. All from our night in Certaldo Alto, an adorable Etruscan hill town about 20 minutes from us, where once a year they hold an international festival focused on street theater. We had no idea what was in store for us before we went - we almost didn't even go! But I'm so glad we did, it was absolutely amazing. I would return to Tuscany again and again just for this festival, it was that incredible.

Read more about it here or here if you're interested, but basically the festival focuses on performance art and theater, and people come from all over the world to show off their skills in everything from marionettes to mimes to jewelry making to bubbles. Yes, bubbles. We only knew about it from our Italian coworkers and I don't think it's advertised much outside Tuscany, so there were no tourists in sight. Our eyes were popping out of our head the whole time - make sure to go if you're ever in Tuscany in June!

More soon - a presto!