When I originally planned out our trip, I had cities to visit every single day. Once we landed, the fatigue from flying, the semester, my certification program, everything, came crashing down on me so I asked Timmy if Friday, would he rather wake up a bit later, tour our village, maybe go to Siena, and in general, really relax? Of course his answer was yes.

So that changed our other traveling days a little bit. The ambitious nature in me thought we could do 3 cities in one day. Why not? They were all located in a straight line, nearly 30-45 minutes away from each other, and all we had to do was start at the farthest city and then stop by each one on our way home.

Yeah that didn’t happen. Sleep happened.

So we shortened our plans (which it turned out we didn’t shorten them enough), and headed to Reggio Emilia, home of parmigiano reggiano.

(Everytime I say or write that, I immediately think of Giada DeLaurentis and her over-exaggerated way of pronouncing Italian words. Love it.)

This trip was not well-timed. In addition to leaving the house late, we arrived in Reggio Emilia, a super cute, tiny little town during the Italian version of siesta. Everything was closed. No one was out. We suck.

But hey, we drove almost 2.5 hours to the Emilia-Romagna region, so we decided just to make the best of it and take a stroll around the town. And it was adorable.

Piazza Prampolini

Palazzo del Monte in Piazza del Duomo

So tiny and so different from the Tuscan mountain cities we had seen up until now. We left Reggio Emilia and headed about 45 minutes east to Modena, home of the greatest balsamic vinegar in the world. The original plan was to visit a balsamic vinegar company for a tour and tastings, but they never responded confirming our tour, and besides, the whole day was off from the moment we woke up.

Modena was such a surprise to us; we loved it. I made the mistake of driving into the historical part of the city, and tried for a good 10 minutes to parallel park our little Fiat, only to realize that we were probably going to get ticketed for even bringing our car there (since there are cameras on the perimeter of the historical section). Silly tourists.

This town…wow. It was gorgeous. We walked and walked and walked some more as the town woke up from siesta and came alive. We were there until the sun set, and it was definitely worth it.

Torre della Ghirlandina

Tim smart…indeed

Modena Cathedral

Modena Cathedral

City Hall and Piazza Grande

We tried to hit Bologna, home of bolognese sauce (which is undoubtedly my favorite thing ever), but it was dark, we were tired, hungry, and the traffic, oh the traffic! It took us an hour to get into the city, a city maybe the size of Athens, GA. We tried forever to find parking only to find that the one spot we pulled into was about 3 miles away from the restaurant we wanted to eat at. I was DONE. Enough driving, enough walking, enough tourist-ing (not a word). Plus, thanks to Daylight Saving, it was completely dark so we couldn’t really see anything in the first place. Bummer, but one day, we’ll come back and plan better.

Our next day was Florence, and that my friends, was a super successful trip. Stay tuned.

♥, VB