Venice, a sinking city

Our longest day of travel was when we went from Cinque Terre to Venice. The trip required 2 train changes and took about 6 hours. It was raining when we arrived in Venice and that made me a little nervous. It floods in Venice, normally in November and March, so I was hoping we wouldn't be there for any flooding. It had been raining in Venice the previous 5 days, but luckily for us, it only rained the day we arrived.

We opted to use our Hilton points for our stay in Venice, might as well save some money. We had been staying in small hotels and family-run B&Bs throughout our trip, but we enjoyed the comfort of the hotel. We had a nice, large, flat screen TV to watch the election results, we arrived in Venice on Nov 4. It was also our anniversary and the hotel had a bottle of Bellini and a card waiting for us in our room. After getting used to having a cappuccino and a croissant for breakfast, we had a nice buffet that included eggs, potatoes, waffles and the most delicious ham. Staying in the Hilton was a nice way to end our trip and celebrate our anniversary.

Gondolas with the Rialto in the background.

Venice has some great architecture and lots of canals and bridges everywhere. The gondolas everywhere were beautiful. We got lost in Venice a lot! There are no major streets and none of the streets go straight and once you hit a piazza, the streets go off in different directions. We had the most trouble looking for restaurants that were in our Rick Steves book. By the time we found a place, I was starving! There were signs along certain paths that pointed you in the direction of the major sites, like St. Mark's Square, the Rialto, even the train station, but it was hard to stay on the right path. All the sudden there weren't anymore signs. It was neat though seeing the backstreets of Venice, not knowing where you were. You couldn't get too lost, since you were on an island!

Canal in Murano

The food in Venice was my least favorite. There were a lot of fish on the menus. We like fish, Mike more than me, but options for non-fish dishes were very limited. I was brave, however, and tried cuttlefish in ink while we were there. It was a popular dish in Venice, so I wanted to try it. I didn't like it much, but ate what I could. We went to a hole in the wall joint for lunch one day and I had spaghetti with clams and Mike had fish lasagna, both were pretty good. Our last night, we went to a restaurant that proudly served no fish. It was one of our favorite restaurants from our trip.

St. Mark's Square

We flew home from Venice last Friday. We've been home a week now and have just got back in rhythm with our time zone. We adjusted to the time difference pretty quickly when we got to Italy, but it took some time once we were back home. All I know is that we can't wait to go back to Italy some day!

All Venice pictures are at this link.

Cinque Terre: sun, sea, wine, and culture (and pesto)

From Florence, we visited the Cinque Terre, an area of 5 little towns connected by trails. This area was Mike's favorite from a previous visit, so I was pretty excited to get there. After we arrived and checked into our hotel, we decided to grab some lunch at a little outdoor restaurant by the breakwater in Vernazza. While we were eating, we met a couple from Australia. They'd just come off one of the trails and started telling us about the storm that came through the night before. This storm caused a mudslide on one of the trails and it was closed. We were hoping by the next day, the trail would be back open. Swimming and hiking are the popular things to do when visiting this area, but swimming wasn't really an option.

After lunch, we decided to walk the trail between Vernazza and Monterosso. It was supposed to be the hardest and one of the longest. We took a lot of pictures while we were on the trails, because it was so pretty. The next day, we walked the trails between the remaining 3 towns. The trail that was closed from the mudslide the day before was still closed, but there were lots of people climbing over the gates...so we did too. We were lucky to have 2 perfect days, weather-wise, to walk the trails as it rained our final day in Vernazza. Having a rainy day allowed us to do some laundry, check our email, and sort of experience being a local in town.

During our trip, I tried several things for the first time...things like espresso, mussels, anchovies, cuttlefish, and spaghetti with clams. One of the specialties of Cinque Terre is anchovies. I always remembered anchovies as being smelly and that turned me off instantly. At dinner one night, we had the pasta and entree courses. Mike ordered pasta with mussels and I really liked it. We, both, also ordered the white fish entree. The dish ended up being fresh anchovies, potatoes, and marinara sauce. I was surprised that I liked them, Mike liked them too.

Cinque Terre also produces pesto and a dessert wine, called Sciacchetra. We didn't try any Sciacchetra while we were there, but we brought some home with us. We went to lunch one day and I was criticized by the server for not ordering a pesto dish!

All Cinque Terre pictures are at this link.

Florence, home of the Renaissance (and David)

After our 3 nights in Sorrento, we headed north for Florence. The second snag in our train travel experience came when we arrived in Naples from Sorrento. We got off at the wrong station this time, but were quickly guided to the correct station as soon as we asked for help at the information counter. We weren't that far off. The train from Naples to Florence was a Eurostar, the best of the passenger trains in Europe. It is smooth, fast, and quiet. However, don't order cappuccino in the cafe car. It's cold and weak!

View of Duomo and Baptistery from our room.

As I mentioned in a previous post, all our hotel selections (besides Venice) were from Rick Steves' book. He chose places that weren't too expensive and were a reasonable distance from the train station. Our hotel in Florence had a spectacular view. It was also the hotel that brought our breakfast to our room every morning. About 8am, the host would bring a tray to our room with pastries, hard boiled eggs, juice, and coffee. It was a treat to have spice muffins both mornings.

"Gates of Paradise" on Baptistery

When choosing restaurants, we also referred to Rick Steves' book. A lot of times we were at restaurants filled with mostly Rick Steves' readers. It made for great conversation starters when we had our book laying on the table. One restaurant gave us free limoncello for having the book.

One of our favorite restaurants on our trip was in Florence. We chose a place that was off the tourist path. We asked for a table for two by holding up 2 fingers and saying due (doo-eh) and were sat at one end of a long table with a couple and their daughter at the other. We ordered a mezzo liter of wine and some water, no gas. Italians drink mineral water, so the easy way to order non-carbonated water is to ask for it with no gas. You can also say natural or still, which we learned later.

The menu was in Italian, but our server ended up speaking English, as well as French we heard when he was at the table next to us. It seemed the thing to do was to have the full course meal at this place, so that's what we did. We ordered pasta, an entree, and dessert. We ordered one course at a time, the server came back in between courses and asked what we wanted next. The portions weren't that big here, so it worked out great. The food, we thought, was fabulous. We liked it so much that we ripped out the page in our Rick Steves' book and gave it to another couple we visited with in Vernazza.

Ponte Vecchio

We did see Michelangelo's David statue while in Florence, but they don't let you take pictures of him.

All Florence pictures are at this link

Sorrento, home of lemon and olive groves

Our first experience on a passenger train was when we left Rome and headed for Sorrento. We left early in the morning and were in Naples in 2 hours. We got off there and explored Naples for half the day before heading on to Sorrento. Naples is the home of organized crime as well as pizza. It was a Monday and the main street of Naples was crowded with people. Naples ended up being a crowded, noisy city (3rd largest in Italy), but we rewarded our survival by having pizza at the end of our walk. Some of the restaurants we went to had the menu in Italian and English, some places were just in Italian. This pizza place, supposedly one of the best in town, had the menu in Italian, so we didn't really know what to order. We knew ham (prosciutto) and mushrooms (funghi), so that's what we ordered. It was pretty good, but I didn't think it was the best.

Sorrento

One of the hardest parts of our train travel was getting from Naples to Sorrento. There is a separate train that runs between these cities. Once we got back to the main station, we followed signs to the separate train station, bought tickets from a window, and made our way to the tracks. The tracks didn't seem to be marked as well as they were in Rome, so we ended up jumping on the wrong train. Luckily, we discovered our mistake and jumped off a few stations down and waited for the correct train to come. Mike always says things will work out, but I was a little stressed. I think the train stations caused most of my stressing out moments, but it all worked out!

Amalfi Coast

Sorrento is a nice little town that sort of reminded me of La Jolla, CA. There are lots of little boutique clothing stores and limoncello everywhere (it's made in this area). A lot of visitors to the town are from England, so a lot of people spoke English.

We spent a day taking a bus from Sorrento down the Amalfi Coast. It was gorgeous. We got off in Amalfi and walked around and had lunch at one of our favorite restaurants from our trip. Meals in Italy usually consist of bread, wine, primi (pasta), and secondi (entree of meat or fish). Of course, there are appetizers and dessert as well. Most of the time, we ordered pasta, but a few times, we had the full on meal with entree and dessert. We always had wine. You could order by liter or mezzo liter (half liter). After meals, most Italians have espresso, which we got into the habit of doing as well. And, we had gelato, usually in between meals.

Chruch in Amalfi

Breakfast in Italy is different as well. The usual breakfast consists of espresso or cappuccino and a croissant. Most Italians drink their coffee standing at a bar. It costs extra in some places if you want to sit down, or in train stations, you can stand at a table. Most of our hotels included breakfast, but each place did it different. Our hotel in Rome had a spread of pastries, cereal and some yogurt. Our hotel in Sorrento gave us coupons to take to a bar for cappuccino and a croissant. Our hotel in Cinque Terre did not have breakfast. Our hotel in Florence brought breakfast to our room (more on that later). Our hotel in Venice was the most extravagant, because it was a Hilton (more on that later too).

Pompeii

Another day, we went to Pompeii. It is a town that was destroyed by a volcano and the ruins are still standing. It's a very touristy place to visit, but it is worth the visit. We opted for an Audioguide to explain some of the things we were looking at. The place is huge, we spent about 2 and 1/2 hours there only to explore 1/3 of the place. You could probably see more if you weren't listening to the Audioguide though.

The weather these 3 days of our trip were mixed. It rained at night while we were at dinner once and a little when we were coming back from Amalfi on the bus. Our warmest day was in Pompeii and I was wearing long sleeves.

All Sorrento pictures are at this link.

Rome, city with lots of history

We arrived in Rome about noon the first day of our trip. We took the train from the airport to the city center, checked into our hotel and headed to the Colosseum. It was only a 15 minute walk from our hotel. We were able to get a lot in that afternoon. After the Colosseum, we walked through the Forum to the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps.

Colosseum

The first night, we had dinner at a family-run restaurant that seemed to be in an alleyway. The streets are very small and narrow, so it always seems that you are walking in an alley. When we first arrived, the server sat us at a table that was so close to another couple, it would seem as though we were there all together. Most of the other tables were empty, so we asked to move. The couple told us that it wouldn't matter where we moved to, but we didn't understand what they meant. Almost immediately, another couple was sat next to us as close as before. We quickly learned that all restaurants in Italy sit people this close.

Pantheon

The second day, we went to the Vatican. There were no Pope sightings while we were there. We walked a lot in Rome (and everywhere else), but we did jump on the Metro subway when we got tired or wanted to go somewhere that was too far from our hotel. The Metro was pretty east to figure out. We also jumped on the bus one evening to go to dinner. The only thing I knew was which bus to get on, but I didn't know what stop to get off. We finally heard some other tourists going to the same place we were and jumped off when they did.

Trevi Fountain

Our third day in Rome, we went to the Borghese Gallery. The museum was really nice, but it was the park that it was located in that was really cool. After going through the museum, we wondered around the park watching all the locals enjoy their Sunday afternoon. I especially got a kick out of the children. There was something about little kids speaking Italian that just fascinated me.

St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City

The last night of our trip, we came across a small Jazz bar. We went in and ordered a bottle of wine and listened to some live music. It was really cool when the singer sang songs in Italian, but she actually sang a lot of popular songs in English.

When talking about this trip, a lot of people were concerned about what sort of weather we'd have visiting Italy this time of year. It only rained once while we were in Rome and it was only an hour or so and we were taking a siesta. We took naps a lot, but we were walking at least 10 miles a day.

All Rome pictures are at this link.

Cinque Terre is the place to be...

We are now in Cinque Terre, which are 5 little towns along the northwest coast. We are staying in Vernazza. This is my favorite place so far. We are going to Venice tomorrrow (Tues), so I might change my mind. The Cinque Terre is a National Park and there are trails connecting each of the towns. We hiked them all the past 2 days. It is very laid back here, which is a huge welcome after visiting so many museums last week. It is just nature, ocean, and Italian culture that we are enjoying.

We did not know very much Italian before we came here. We got an Italian Rosetta Stone program, but did not really stick with it. However, we know how to order food, and that is the most important thing! Really though, most Italians in the restuarants, shops, and train stations know a little English, but we really try to use Italian when we can.

We are off to Venice tomorrow and it is our 2 year anniversary tomorrow as well. What better city to celebrate our anniversary, one of the most romantic places in the world.

Ciao!

Pasta and Pizza and Gelato..oh my!

I'm posting from an internet cafe in Florence. We are half way through our trip already and are having a wonderful time, of course. The weather this first week of our trip has been close to perfect. It has rained a few times, but it has been at night or while we were taking a siesta. I had to buy a scarf today as ít's a little cooler here in Florence, but I love fall weather no matter where I am.

We are managing our way around the country using the train system and the different cities on foot. We've gotten lost a few times, but seem to get lucky and stumble across where we need to be.

The food has been amazing. We are eating lots of pasta, pizza, and gelato! And, drinking wine as well!

Ciao!

Italy, Here We Come

After a year and a half of planning, we are finally leaving for Italy this week, Thurs to be exact. I'm so excited as this will be my first time to Europe.

We are packing as minimal as possible for our trip, which has been recommended by most people and especially Rick Steves. I'm talking 1 carry-on bag each for 2 weeks! I've been following most of Steves' tips for planning this trip. He's all about getting the most out of your trip without spending too much. All of our reserved hotels are tried-and-true recommendations by Steves.

We are flying non-stop from LA to Rome Thurs! I'm hoping the non-stop flight will allow us to sleep most of the way without worrying about a layover, since we get to Rome at noon (their time) on Fri. We plan to check into our hotel and head straight to the Colosseum once we get there. After 3 nights in Rome, we are visiting Sorrento (down by Naples) for 3 nights, Cinque Terre for 3 nights, Florence for 2 nights, and Venice for 3 nights. The weather this time of year is typical fall weather, 60-70 during the day and 40-50 at night with chances of rain.

We'll be back home Nov 7!