HANNAH SHARES

I’ve been meaning to post several times since March, but here we are, in June. Oops! Here’s what we’ve been up to…

Cancun, Mexico

In March, Lucy and I flew to Cancun, Mexico to meet my family for my mom’s Spring Break. The number of times flight attendants and airline employees asked me, “Are you travelling alone with a baby?” is too many to count, and yes, I know that was a pretty brave (or… crazy) thing to do. It was a long travel day from Venice to Cancun (we stopped in Amsterdam). But, we did it! We enjoyed a nice, relaxing week on the beach and it was really nice to spend time with my parents and sister. Lucy unfortunately did get a sunburn (despite my best efforts) and chose to discover she was allergic to eggs while there (ugh!). Luckily, her reaction was not too severe, the resort had a great doctor on staff, and my cousin who is also a doctor helped to ease my worries (thank you, Tammi!). It was still nice to enjoy the sunshine and warm weather. Lucy loved the sand, water, and splashing in the pool! It makes me excited to take her to the pool more this summer. After doing that long trip by myself with Lucy, I’m glad we went, but I don’t think I would do it again (the travel at least). It was hard!

Eppan, Italy / Bolzano, Italy

A couple weeks later, the first weekend in April, the three of us took a spontaneous weekend trip to a small town called Eppan in the mountains near Bolzano, Italy. We booked the reservations on Wednesday night and left Friday morning.

Michael found this neat resort/hotel/castle and thought it would be a relaxing place to spend a weekend, so that’s really the reason we ended up going to check out the area. We stayed at Schloss Hotel Korb, and I can’t recommend it enough! The main building of the hotel is a castle that houses several guest rooms as well as the restaurant. There is a newer building of “residences” just behind the castle, which is where we stayed. The residence rooms all look out over the hills and provide breathtaking views of the vineyards and mountains in the area. You can see the city of Bolzano down below, too.

On the property there is an old war bunker that the owner of the property (who is also the winemaker) turned into his private wine cellar. On Mondays he does private tours and tastings for the guests. We unfortunately weren’t there on a Monday, so we didn’t get to go inside, but we did take a peek and it’s very neat!

On Saturday we drove down to a winery, St. Michael-Eppan, that Michael was interested in. We tasted several of their wines and bought a few to bring home. That afternoon we went in to Bolzano to walk around a bit and have lunch. It was unfortunately a rainy day, so we didn’t see as much of the city as we would’ve liked.

The property is truly like nothing I’ve seen before. We knew it would be even better in the summer, so we actually are heading back there in July for three nights! We are excited to enjoy all the property has to offer in the warmer weather and do some hiking in the area. This time we will be there on a Monday, so Michael is especially excited to see inside the wine cellar and do some more tasting of their wines!

Easter Celebrations

The weekend before Easter Michael’s Battalion Commander’s family hosted a big gathering at their home, which is an incredible Italian villa. Everyone brought food to share and they did a big egg hunt for the kids. It was one of the first especially warm days of the year and it was so nice to sit outside and enjoy the warm sun. We ate lots of yummy food and Lucy even made a new friend!

That next week Michael’s parents arrived to spend about 10 days with us! For Easter weekend we drove down to Tuscany to our favorite little town, Montalcino. We just can’t stay away! We had several great meals, spent lots of time walking through the town, and enjoyed the views from our hotel. On Saturday we went to Castello Banfi for a wine tasting and lunch. Easter Sunday was unfortunately quite chilly and super windy! We went to Mass in the town at the Church of Our Lady of Soccour (Chiesa della Madonna del Soccorso). The Church sits on a beautiful hilltop on the edge of town and you can see for miles. It was interesting to celebrate Easter Mass in Italian (last year we went to the English Mass on base). It’s getting a lot easier for us to follow along after learning more Italian. Plus, the great thing about Catholic Mass is it’s more or less the same everywhere you go! Since it was so chilly that day, they actually had gas heaters inside the Church in the center aisle to keep everyone warm. I’m pretty sure that is not considered safe at all, and it was pretty funny to see that, but it was also appreciated!

We had Easter dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Il Giardino. Lucy even tried some of my lamb chops. It’s a wonderful restaurant with lots of yummy choices and a great wine selection! If you go, you must try a Brunello, the red wine staple from the region. Some of our favorite wines are from this area. We spent the rest of their visit mostly just walking around Vicenza and doing some shopping, of course!

Spring in Vicenza

We didn’t do a whole lot in May. Michael has been pretty busy at work this month. We celebrated Mother’s Day with lots of walks downtown, açaí bowls for lunch, and a yummy dinner at a favorite new-to-us restaurant, Tira Tardi. It’s in a little alley right off of the city center. It’s never super busy, but the food is fantastic, and the staff is so friendly. We’ve been maybe three times in the last month, and we’re actually taking a friend there tonight for dinner! The best part of Mother’s Day was that Lucy finally decided to crawl for the first time! It was practically right before she went to bed, and it wasn’t far, but it was the best gift! Since then, she has been army crawling all over the place. It’s so fun to watch her explore!

The weather has been very warm lately and we have been loving it. The past couple of weekends we walked to a nearby park, Parco Querini, and brought a picnic with us. There are a few parks within walking distance of our apartment, but this one is by far the nicest. It’s well-maintained, clean, and they even have security. It’s actually right next to the hospital. There are two parks a lot closer to us, but they are hit-or-miss with the crowd that typically hangs out there. Not necessarily unsafe, but not the kind of parks I would want to sit and have a picnic. This one is about a 15 minute walk for us, and it’s perfect because there’s a little gelato shop nearby we can stop at on the way home – Gelateria Brustolon. On our first picnic walk, Lucy finally got her first taste of gelato. She loved it – naturally!

Michael had another 4-day weekend for Memorial Day, and we decided to stay in Vicenza. Friday night we went to Il Ceppo for aperitivo. They had two wines for us to try and a plate for each of us of three small dishes – a typical Northern-Italian style lasagna (our fav), pasta fredda (cold pasta, one of our picnic staples), and asiago cheese with apricot jam. Lucy enjoyed the asiago cheese the most, she LOVES cheese. She’s never met a cheese she didn’t like. After aperitivo we stopped at Tira Tardi for dinner. We sat outside, and during our dinner a jazz band walked into the piazza and stayed to play for a while. One of my favorite parts about living here are the little things like this we encounter. One Saturday morning a couple of months ago we were walking through the piazza and there was a pianist playing in the middle of the square. He was incredible and there was practically nobody around. Like, who wheels out their piano to the middle of the city to just play for fun on a Saturday at 8am?! I love those moments so much!

On Friday we have another big trip coming up – we’re heading to America! Lucy turns one next week (how?!) and we are celebrating with family in Omaha before heading to Disney World with the Shares! We will be gone for two and a half weeks and are so excited to spend time with family. As much as I love summer in Italy, there’s something about summer in the midwest that I really miss, and I’m glad we will get to have a little of that this year. My dad sent a picture of a Traeger box on his back patio this morning, and I think Michael can’t get there fast enough. I am sure he will be cooking for us every day next week. He’s already talking about ordering a new one to have waiting for us when we move back to the States. He misses his grill a lot.

We have a few more trips planned for this summer and fall, and are narrowing down the rest of our “must see” places while we are still here. Nothing is set in stone yet, but we are fairly certain we are down to about one year left in Italy (a little less actually). I still feel like we just got here, but our time in Italy is more than halfway over already. We’re excited about what will potentially be next for us, but we’re already talking about the things we are going to miss here. Vicenza has really become a special place for our family!

We can’t wait to see many of you next week!

xx Hannah