Day Five: Hiking the Cinque Terre

Wednesday morning we woke up to an absolutely BEAUTIFUL day, a perfect day for hiking the trails through all the five villages. We took the train to Riomaggiore, Town #1, and explored the town for a little bit before starting on the Via dell'Amore, the "Walk of Love" between Riomaggiore and Manarola.

The story behind this trail is that after World War II when the original train track was blasted, a trail was left connecting the two villages and making it a rendezvous spot for young lovers to meet in secret when they were forbidden to marry outside their village. The walk was absolutely gorgeous and right along the cliff over the water. Here are a few pics...

Legend has it that if you attach a lock to the bridge you'll forever "seal your love." Of course we had to do it... :)
It was just so gorgeous. This whole area of Italy is gorgeous. The Via dell'Amore was the only cliff-side trail that was open, and knowing the rest of the trails up through the mountains would be way more rigorous than I was willing to handle, once we finished the first walk I took the train back from Manarola to Vernazza to let Derek enjoy the beauty of nature by himself. Here are a few pics from his hike. This doesn't even do it justice, but here's a taste nonetheless...

And just to show you that I clearly made the right decision by foregoing the hard hike and reading my book while sipping my wine in the sun instead, here's a video...

It was just a lovely day to be outside enjoying the incredible Italian Riviera, and at this point a few hours apart didn't hurt us, either. :)

Once Derek returned to our home base, we showered and headed back out to the harbor for dinner, followed by after-dinner drinks with our Utah friends (we learned their names were Amy and Joel) from Tuesday night at the Burgus Wine Bar right next to the 5,000 steps up to our room.

The owners and bartenders of these little Vernazza bars were so cool. When the bar was closing, we were sitting outside with our friends and two new friends from North Carolina, Ben ("the doctor") and Trey. The bartender came out and gave us a bottle of wine on the house and told us to enjoy ourselves and just set our glasses by the door when we were done. So nice!

It was yet another late night, but again so much fun to hang out with some people from the States and share travel adventures. This is the greatest place on Earth, I'm just convinced of it.

Only one more day in pure paradise...

Day Four: Pisa and the Cinque Terre

Tuesday morning we said goodbye to the beautiful hills of Tuscany and drove north towards the "coastal" part of our Country-Coastal-City tour of Italy, the Cinque Terre. It was only a three-hour drive, and we stopped halfway at Pisa for a short visit to the Leaning Tower.

I told Derek it was totally worth the stop JUST to see all the tourists from all over the world pose for pictures while "holding up" the tower. Absolutely hilarious. But of course I had to do it too. :)

After our short two-hour tour of Pisa, we hopped back in the car and continued our journey towards the Cinque Terre. This is an area along the Mediterranean Sea that is made up of five towns. It is absolutely beautiful. I would say this was probably the most fun we had on our trip. It was just a really cool place to relax and spend a few days.

We dropped our rental car off in La Spezia (which took us forever and many a cuss word to find the drop-off location) and took the train to the fourth town on the Cinque Terre, Vernazza. Each of the five Cinque Terre towns has their own unique characteristics, but we so happy we chose to stay in Vernazza. Look at this picturesque little harbor town. Amazing.

We immediately relaxed knowing we'd be without a car for the rest of the trip. We found our hotel, which was one of about six rooms high above one of the harbor restaurants, and got settled. Let me tell you about our room. It took about 250 steps to actually get to it. It was UP THERE. I had to stop halfway up to catch my breath. Poor Derek had to drag my 80-pound suitcase up the steps because I couldn't physically do it. It was tough. Take a look...

After we made sure we were good and ready to leave the room until bedtime, we made the downhill hike back to the harbor and walked around for a while before dinner. We ate at our hotel restaurant, Gianni Franzi, and had some amazingly fresh pasta. Derek had the pesto pasta, which this area is known for, and I had fresh black spaghetti with prawns sauce. If I had known it was made with squid ink at the time, I probably would have ordered differently, but it was so good!


After dinner we made our way over to the Blue Marlin Bar, which we had read about in the Rick Steves guidebook (which apparently, we learned here, was THE guidebook to follow). This was such a cool little bar. The main bartender played the drums on wine bottles and would break out a piano solo every now and then, too.

We met some backpackers from Rhode Island and a couple from Utah who we made friends with for the night. It was so interesting to hear everyone's travel stories and find out where they had been and where they were going. Two bottles of wine and two beers later, we called it a night. We had a big day of hiking ahead of us.

We were already totally in love with this part of Italy, and the best was yet to come!

Day Three: Siena

Monday morning we headed about an hour south to Siena. Here's a little history lesson for you... back in the 12th to 14th centuries Siena was a hot spot for Italian business, in much competition with Florence and Rome. In the mid-1300s the Black Death wiped out the majority of Siena's population, leaving it as more of a red-headed stepchild as Florence and Rome kept flourishing. To visit this city, there's nothing stepchild-like about it. It is beautiful, bustling and to us, even more enjoyable than Florence.

This city was very clean, and there were even escalators that took you from bottom of the outside of the city to the top where the square was.

There was another tall building in the town square, Piazza del Campo, for Derek to climb. It was the tower adjacent to the City Hall, and while not quite as tall as the Campanile in Florence, still equally as nice of a view...

The Crayola color "burnt sienna" is named after this city and all the clay-colored architecture that makes up the cityscape. One of the nicest things about Siena was the Piazza del Campo. It was slightly bowl-shaped, and everyone just sits wherever they want all along the square. It makes for PRIME people-watching, which is one of my favorite hobbies. Here's a short video of our view sitting down on the bricks in the square...

We wandered around, ate lunch, did a little shopping and just relaxed before heading back towards our B&B to watch the sunset. It was our last night in Tuscany, so we wanted to enjoy every minute of it. On the drive back, we passed these giant corks on the side of the road with the Chianti regional logo on it. So of course as true tourists, we had to pull over and take a picture.

Back at the B&B, we climbed up in the treehouse with a couple of bottles of wine to watch the sunset. We were finally "Under the Tuscan Sun" - haha, cheesy, I know, but beautiful. I wanted to cherish every second of it.



After the sun set, we headed back into Panzano for dinner at this GREAT restaurant, Il Vescovino. I had sausage and tomato pasta and Derek had a steak that was absolutely delicious. Then we had to stop in at our little corner bar we found two days before to say goodbye. The bartender even put on some "rock" music (a random mix of Beatles, 3 Doors Down and some Top 40 songs) for us to enjoy. Needless to say, we drank their entire stock of Budweiser beer - they only had six.

Then it was home to bed and time for our next adventure, heading north to the Cinque Terre...

Day Two: Florence

It was hard to schedule which day to take a day trip into Florence and which to Siena. The main tourist sites in Florence were closed half one day, half the other. We just decided to go on Sunday and see what we could in Florence, then do Siena on Monday. Lots of pictures and videos coming up, so be warned.

Florence was only a short 45-minute drive on the crazy Tuscany curves. Speaking of the drive, here's a short little snipit of how it was driving through Tuscany. Absolutely BEAUTIFUL scenery, but the curves made it hard to actually look at the scenery when you were in the car. Especially for the driver, which was always Derek. (Sorry, D.)

Driving into the city of Florence was a little tense. Some of the roads were so narrow you just prayed that it was a one-way street. It wasn't. I swear I don't know how those Italians do it. But we made it there safely and parked in the Piazzale Michaelangelo, which was free and had the absolute best view of the city. The only downside (which I would learn later) was that it was soooooo much higher than the city itself. Walking down was easy. Walking back up later, not so easy. Very very hard. Derek filmed a video of that, too. Don't worry, you will see me in all my glory. But first, our tour of Florence.

The first David statue in Florence in the Piazalla Michaelangelo...

View of the city. Gorgeous...

The Ponte Vecchio, the most famous bridge in Florence lined with shops...

Another David, this one in the Palazzo Vecchio... This was actually where the real statue stood until the early 19th century when he was moved inside the Accademia Museum for protection.

There are three David statues in Florence. We saw two of the three. The real one inside the Accademia we didn't get to see because of the lines (we unfortunately did not follow Rick Steves' advice and reserve our tickets ahead of time - lesson learned). The same went with the Uffizi Gallery with all the classic art. We still saw plenty without touring the two museums though.

The courtyard of the Uffizi was just as interesting with statues of Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Galileo and Dante. They even had a few New Orleans-esque street performers posing as statues. Here I am with Cupid...

Next stop on our tour of Florence was a short walk to the Duomo, Florence's Gothic cathedral, whose claim to fame is its magnificent dome. The dome was actually the beginning of the Architectural Rennaisance and the model for other domes to follow throughout Italy. The Duomo was closed on Sunday, but the Capanile (270-foot bell tower adjacent to the church) was open for visitors, and Derek climed all the way up the 414 steps to the top to see the amazing views. I, on the other hand, sat and read our guidebook while he was up on top of the world.

The tower he climbed...

Little me in the orange being a dilligent student of Italian travel. Ha...




After Derek climbed back down to Earth we walked over to the Piazza della Repubblica, nicknamed the "bellybutton of Florence" because of its one column once served as the main intersection of the two main Roman roads. We decided this would be a great spot for a lunch break.

My sausage pizza. Now THIS was a good pizza... (Yes we were those tourists who took pictures of our food, but aren't you glad?)

Derek's linguine with seafood sauce...

One more photo opp before the looooooong trek back up the hill...

And now, for your viewing pleasure, my unhappiness about climbing the hill. Don't judge. It was tough, I promise...

But then it was all worth it once we got to the top and looked back out over this gorgeous city and witnessed some real life Italian meatheads (think "Jersey Shore") apparently preparing for the new season of that show to be filmed in their fair city. Their little Ford Fiesta was completely tricked out and blaring some Snoop Dogg. Totally made my day.

And thus ends our second day in Italy. The adventure continues...

Day One: Touring Tuscany

I have dubbed our trip the Country-Coastal-City tour of Italy, and that's exactly what it was. When we woke up on Saturday morning, the view from our B&B was absolutely breathtaking. So, you see, it really worked out for us to miss our flight and arrive actually much later than originally planned. It was a gorgeous way to "officially" start our vacation.

Here's a video tour of our room and surrounding area at Il Casello, our B&B.

Il Casello was in the Chianti region between the two villages of Greve and Panzano. We decided we would spend the day exploring both. And what a great plan that was...

Saturday morning was market day in the town of Greve. The streets were filled with merchants selling every possible thing you could imagine - fresh fruits and vegetables, household items, jewelry, seafood, clothes, clothes and more clothes, everything. We just wandered through the little winding streets and explored.

We found this great wine-tasting museum and spent a good hour and only 10 euro tasting all sorts of regional wine. We found one we liked that was actually made there in Greve and decided to ship six bottles home to Mississippi. I'm ready to drink it now that we're home!

With a nice little morning wine buzz we headed back to the market for our first taste of real Italian food. Pizza. Honestly, it wasn't very good and after this picture was taken we found a fly (ew) in Derek's piece, but we knew we had plenty more deliciously authentic food to taste in the coming days, so it was all good.

After Greve, we decided to check out Panzano. It was less than five minutes away from our B&B. Once we parked, our first stop was at the gelateria for some famous gelato. SO GOOD!

We wandered around, stopped for a cold beer at this cool little corner bar (they sold Budweiser), then walked up to the Church of Panzano for a great view of the village.

On the way back down the hill we stopped in at the Accademia del Buon Gusto, the cutest little wine shop I've ever seen. "Welcome to what I call my living room," said the very Italian man in a red chef's hat. (Imagine his quotes in a very strong Italian accent.) His name was Stefano Salvadori, and he called himself an instructor of wine tasting.

"To taste is your liberty," he said. "The only way to know is to taste." He had a scrapbook in which people from all over had written little notes of gratitude. He let us taste about 10 different wines - each in what he called the breakfast, lunch, and dinner wine categories. He wouldn't give us prices for any until we decided what we liked. Of course, we were thinking these would be $40-$60 bottles of wine. At the end (and after tasting this amazing dessert liqueur of caramelized grapes) we decided on one of the Chianti Classico "breakfast" wines. He pulled out his cost guide and surprisingly it was only 15 euro (like $20). Sold!

We chatted for a few more minutes with Stefano and got some passersby to take a picture of all three of us. "Is it possible to e-mail for my book?" he asked. And of course, we had to sign the book. "To sign is your liberty," he said. "I do this for my children." The note I wrote to him was about helping us to relax and to simply enjoy loving life, which was so very true. Lovely lesson learned our first day of vacation. Our time spent with Stefano was such a great part of our little Italian adventure. He was such a character.

On to the next stop: another cold beer at the corner bar we found earlier and then siesta time back at the B&B. I think this was when the jet-lag hit us hard and we crashed for a good couple of hours. When we woke up I swear we just would have ordered Pizza Hut if there had been one. We were absolutely exhausted, but we dragged ourselves back out and into Panzano for dinner at the Villa San Giovese in the town square. Dinner itself was just so-so, but the fresh bruschetta we had as an appetizer and the from-scratch cheesecake we had for dessert were absolutely to die for.

So, in conclusion, Day One was a success and we still had seven more wonderful days to come...