Saturday morning we took a car to Milan and met a guide at The Last Supper. Everyone was really jazzed for another day of touring…

ha! But viewing The Last Supper was totally worth it and way neater than I was anticipating.

We then met with another guide and went to Sforza Castle which is an enormous medieval fotress in Milan. It was very big!

Our guide then who took us all through the The Duomo di Milano, also known as Milan Cathedral. It was very impressive – it is Gothic style and apparently one of the largest churches in the world. I believe it and it was really cool to go to the top and walk around.

Then we walked in the The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II and got some lunch.

We then walked around and went into stores – spending most of our time in the Nike Jordan store.

We then headed out to our hotel by the airport for the night. This was probably the one misstep of the trip. We really should have just booked a nice hotel in Milan and gotten one more good Italian dinner…but instead we went to an airport hotel and walked over to this random mini-mall with an Italian version of Walmart and ended up eating mall pizza that had hot dogs on it. Yep, hot dogs. How’s that for an ending to the trip of a lifetime?! ha!

We made it to the airport with no issues the next morning and started the American re-entry process…

and then had an uneventful flight back to Atlanta!

We were all happy to finally get home that night…but I’d go back to Italy tomorrow if I could! It really was a dream trip. These pics didn’t make it into an earlier post but maybe that’s fitting because they might be my favorite representation of the experience…

What an unbelievable trip with my favorite people on earth! Simply PERFECTO!

Thursday was maybe my favorite day of the trip! We started with breakfast by the lake…

and then took a full day boat tour of Lake Como! Our tour guide was so nice and informative. He showed us all the sights of the lake – including Clooney’s house! – and it could not have been better.

We stopped and walked around the Villa Del Balbianello which is where they filmed some of the Star Wars films as well as some James Bond scenes! It was beyond beautiful!

It was a little windy up there though!

Loved these trees at one of the houses on the island – some accessible only by boat!

We stopped for a fantastic lunch and took this photo featuring Robert’s hat. ha!

This is the life!

We also stopped and walked around Bellagio which was neat and very steep!

It was a very full and long day on the boat!

We returned around 4:00 and the kids couldn’t wait to swim and jump in the lake!

Robert was game for it too!

That night we had dinner “in town”. GJ and Samantha dressed to match the hotel!

Dinner was good and all I got from it were pics like this from the kids…

It was nice to walk to and from the restaurant and then walk around the hotel a bit that night.

I think we could all get used to that Villa D’Este life!

On Monday afternoon we walked all over Florence…

including finding my school from sophomore year of college and the street where I lived! I couldn’t remember our exact address so not sure which door was ours but we were close!

Razorbacks in Firenze!

Some important purchases were made…

including a special one on the Ponte Vecchio!

That evening we climbed the 465 winding steps to the top of the Duomo Bell Tower! The climb wasn’t that bad and the views were pretty impressive!

Robert catching a breeze halfway up!

Dinner that night was what Robert was most excited about – Trattoria Dall’Oste! Turns out there is more than one in Florence and I’m not entirely sure we actually ate at the one we had a reservation at but, it was an incredible meal! It was a little confusing to order but we ended up with some of the best food of the trip!

Samantha’s pasta being made in a giant cheese wheel…

Spencer’s wagu!

and Maxwell and Robert’s Florentine steak!

I had a steak with green peppercorn sauce that was to die for. Everything was top notch!!

After that we walked off our dinner a bit…

and then of course got some gelato!

A great day start to finish!