Italian Paradise

Cinque Terre

This post is mostly for one of my buds, Jason Ferrer, cause I know it will make him jealous.

You know those pictures you see in travel magazines about Italy’s Mediterranean hotspots?  Well this is one of them.  Cinque Terre means five villages, and four are perched atop the cliffs overlooking the sea, while one (Monterosso), where we stayed, was on the beach.  Connecting each town were hiking trails that lead along cliffs, vineyards, and olive orchards. 

Our first night we ate a brilliant meal at Miky where I had my first taste of good anchovies.  Whoa…….Why don’t we eat these all the time in the states?  For the meal I had the local pasta with pesto (which originated here in Cique Terre), and huge prawns.  Oh and of course loads of amazing local wine!

Friday morning we set out (Megan, Susan, Gary, and myself) on the five-town hike.  The first and second were nearly two hours each, the next was closed due to a landslide, and the last was about 45 minutes.  I think I ate gelato in three of the five towns.  After nearly six hours of hiking, we caught a boat back to Monterosso and prepared ourselves for the best wood fire oven pizza that Monterosso had to offer.  I want a wood fire oven for myself; Christmas is soon, hint… hint.  That night I discovered our shower had nine nozzles that sprayed from the side of the shower wall.  It was like 9 little hobbits sparaying me down with squirt guns. Aaaaaaaaaaaw…..now this is vacation.

The five towns along the coast 

Lifeguard for a day 

Gelato baby!!!!!!!

Megs watching sunset

Sunset 

Saturday we boated past all of the towns, to a port town called Portovenere; great little place with an old castle on the cliffs, and beautiful views.  We spent the morning there, and worked our way back towards Monterosso, half by boat, and the other half hiking.  Once again, we finished off the day with tasty local pastas, wines, and coffee.  Coffee (espresso shots) are served after every meal here; love it!

Castle/Chapel at Portovenere circa. 1113 

Overlooking the town of Portovenere 

The home of Pesto!

town #2 Vernazza

Leaving on a train for Rome

Thanks Susan and Gary for a fantastic weekend in Paradise!  

Firenze (Florence)

Florence had the potential to be my favorite as soon as we arrived, but quickly became a cuisine nightmare.  Not because Florence offers poor food, but because we simply kept choosing the worst places. 

             Hercules                                                                                                    Neptune

Megs mentioned that with my beard I'm beginning to look just like Hercules in this statue

David

The first night we set out to find a good meal, but instead did some light sight seeing and shopping, and eventually, my stomach took command of my mind, and I was swayed by a sign that said LASAGNA, and the owner, who came outside to pressure me to come for dinner, reassured me that it was homemade (whatever that means), and I caved.  The worst part about this place is that it was in the tourist square, and I know not to eat in a tourist square!!!!!  We entered, and Megan looked horrified, and I knew at that moment what I had done.  Shame on me!  I couldn’t talk her into leaving (for embarrassment reasons), so we had to stick it out.  Needless to say, it was the worst lasagna I have ever tasted.  So we speed ate, and decided to wash it down with a good taste of gelato.  How could gelato be bad, especially in its home country?  Well, we found it, the bad gelato; poor Megs was so disappointed, and I was just pissed!

The next morning, we had a free continental breakfast at our hostel, we weren’t expecting too much, especially cause we just ordered eggs, bacon, and toast.  Simple?  Well……… if it were edible.  The eggs were not cooked, so we had toast.  Yum. 

Yep, lunch was another flop!

REDEMPTION didn’t come until about 3pm on day two.  We finally found gelato to sing praises about at a little shop called Neri down a small side street, and the glory shown from heaven after that.  We found another gelato shop, which Megan had been stalking but couldn’t seem to find until she had a sighting of the little cup with “Grom” written on the side of it. She asked the location; our luck was a-changing.   Then we ventured back over to Neri for just one more scoop (yep, 3 in about 2 hours) before finding a little café with homemade beef stew in bread bowls.  I took two and a cold beer and was very satisfied. 

The River Arno in Florence on the Ponte Vecchio bridge

 Redemption gelato from GROM

Redemption gelato from Neri (except this is a super small cone).  Sad!

Neri again

Beef stew and beer 

We left early the next morning with a sense of satisfaction that we had finally found some tasty eats and treats in Florence.  I believe in Florence and it's attractions, so I'll be back.

Cinque Terre here we come!

My new fav.....Italy!

France was great, but it was time for a new country; Italy, my new favorite European country.....so far.

First stop, Venice.  We took an overnight train from Dijon, France to Venice late Saturday night, and arrived at 9:30 Sunday morning.  All transportation on the island is by boat, so we had a water bus shuttle us to our B&B about 40 minutes away, on the southeast side of the island.

Venice was amazing, but a little rainy.  The tide waters crept up early in the day, and brought some good photo opportunities of the flooding of St. Marco square, and the dedicated tourists who didn't relinquish their right to overrun the square.  We walked around much of the city on wooden boards set on scaffolding. 

Besides my two near fatal accidents in Venice, it was amazing!  And by fatal I mean sliding in fresh dog poo, and nearly sliding into the Grand Canal.  The first was a quick shoe slide which required a quick adjustment to catch myself, while the later was a bloopers moment which ended with my hands (camera and all) screeching to a halt on the last brick before plunging head first into the water.  Megan found nothing better to do than stand back and laugh hysterically.  I suppose I would have done the same.

Pizza with hotdogs...oops, my mistake, but it was still great, and the wine was amazing

St. Marco square behind us

This Pretty Girl on one of the canals let me photograph her

Gondolas

More gondolas

Drinking Chocolate - so thick and delish as my expression illustrates 

Megs found her doughnut and hot chocolate 

A storm on the horizon made the color contrasts amazing!

After two awesome days of wandering the streets and shops, it was high time we moved on to Florence.