Day 5: Bracciano

This was by far one of our favorite days in Italy. We drove about an hour out of Rome to a tiny town called Bracciano. We originally went to tour the castle in the town belonging to the Orsini family but when we got there the tours didn't start for 3 hours. We decided to do a little exploring and discovered one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. Bracciano is so small that even cars don't fit on their streets, everyone parks outside of the town and walks everywhere. It was simply beautiful. So beautiful in fact that Tom Cruise & Katie Holmes were married at the castle there! ;)

If you ever go to Rome and have a car I highly recommend exploring this town. We actually preferred finding quaint towns outside of Rome rather than being downtown with a million people.

clearly there are no "building codes" in this town :)

the city overlooks a beautiful lake, how amazing would it be to live right there on the lake?!

We had such a wonderful time walking around the city, eating a little picnic lunch and just enjoying time together. After ooo'ing and ahhh'ing for a couple hours straight we finally headed back home. 

We met up with some people my parents know for some gelato that evening. I am so grateful for these people- Ramon & Lorena and their kids and Danielle & Norma. They are so kind to my parents and were so kind to Logan & I. We fell in love with Ramon & Lorena's kids, four little adorable Spanish speaking boys (they just moved to Rome from Spain to work on the temple). All in all it was a wonderful day :)