Trip to Umbria

A couple of weeks ago some friends and I went on a 3 day trip to Umbria, a region in Italy. It was with ITR, which some of you are familiar with. We had tons of fun! We stayed our two nights a the Etruscan Chocohotel, which, as the name suggests, has a chocolate theme. Here is the three of us sitting on the bathtub filled with huge chunks of chocolate. Now, if you're asking yourself if it's real chocolate.... yes, it is!



In this picture, Colleen and I are taking a big bite out of the huge table made of, you guessed it, chocolate! That place smelled incredible!



So I hope that I do not offend anyone by posting this picture, but I just have to. This wall was in our room. This fine young man is painted diving into a sea of chocolate, or into Colleen's bed if he keeps going... After all, this is Europe.



The first little town we visited was Castiglione del Lago. A beautiful little walled city that overlooks a lake.







Perugia was the next town we visited,where the hotel was located. Perugia is a college town, a nice town, tons of college students everywhere!





A cool shot in Perugia.




We also went to the very cool and beautiful hill town of Assisi. Some of you may have heard of St. Francis of Assisi, this would be that Assisi. I LOVED Assisi!! There are many beautiful churches, stores, scenery, stores, buildings, more stores... Can you tell we shopped a little in Assisi?? They had an olive wood store that was incredible. I took home a beautiful chess board/set for Matt made of olive wood.



We visited San Damiano, it used to be a convent. Colleen got this great picture of the monks walking toward San Damiano. If I had listened better to our tour guide, I would know more of San Damiano's significance...



We saw many very beautiful churches, but Basilica di San Francesco (St. Francis.) was gorgeous. The grounds were very pretty, but inside the upper church, are 28 beautiful frescoes that depict the life of St. Francis. The lower church is where St. Francis' tomb lies. They liked to build churches upon churches upon churches.




Our last stop was the town of Deruta, known for it's beautiful ceramics. Here's a picture of what most of the buildings look like in Deruta.





We had a great trip, I loved Umbria and would love to go back...