Umbria - Our Group

This is the second blog entry covering our trip to Umbria, Italy. Here is the first.

There is an incredible amount of scenery and history in Italy, and I took pictures of a bunch of it, but lets start with more on our group.

Julie and I wandered around Rome for two days before we met up with the rest of our group. We were staying about a half mile or so from the Colosseum at the Residenza Cellini.

From left to right, Bob, Julie, Terry, Jennifer, Cosette, Laurie, Ilona and Bob.  Dick must have been taking a picture.

This was our main activity, wandering the streets of small towns just to see what we could find.

Dick, our trip organizer, doing what we seemed to do best, eating and drinking.

Julie and Ilona on our afternoon gelatto break.

Eireann giving us some background history on whatever we are looking at. It was great having our own tour guide.

At one of our lunch stops, we ran across a wonderful Italian woman, who ran and probably owned the restaurant.  She had a collection of photos all over the walls of famous people. Dick wanted to pose so he could be added to the wall.  Not gonna happen.

Over the numerous centuries, towns got built on top of towns on top of towns.  Sometimes they uncover some interesting Roman ruin below, and just put plexiglass in the floor so you can see it.

Terry was at lunch one day when he noticed he was feeling swelling in his left cheek and throat. It seemed like an allergic reaction, but we didn't know if it was food or a bug bite.  None of us had anything like Benadryl.  Neither did the restaurant.  Wouldn't you know it, the little drug stores, like everything else in Italy, shut down for a while at lunch.  Thankfully, he didn't end up with any breathing problems, so no hospital trips were required.  Eventually we were able to get some Benadryl and knock the swelling back.

What a lovely couple.  Julie found that hat at one of the little shops.  Very nice.