Venice (Part One)

This entry is a continuation of the previous four posts documenting our 2 weeks in Italy and the Mediterranean. To get a feel for the whole trip, you should start at the beginning.

Friday, May 8th

We took another early train from Florence to Venice (about a 2.5 hour ride). We walked out of the station and within about 30 seconds Jenna concluded that she "was going to love Venice". We checked into our room at the Hotel Santa Croce (very nice) and headed off right away. The first thing we did to help get a good view of the city was to take a "grand canal tour", which is nothing more than taking a ride on the local public transportation - the water bus - through the main canal in the city. We got views of the Rialto Bridge, St. Mark's Square, and all of the other main sites, from afar (we'd go back to visit all of these later).

We continued onto another boat out to the islands of Murano and Burano. Both are a bit of a tourist trap, but with good reason. Murano became well known for its artisan glass blowers. The place is now full of small shops selling various glassware, ranging from small ornaments all the way up to elaborate chandeliers. We wandered around for a while looking for the perfect souvenir and an elusive glass blowing demonstration. We ended up with a tree ornament of a gondolier, but the only demonstration we could find had a 5 euro cover charge, so we passed on that.

Burano is another nearby island that is known for its lace making and for its colorful houses. We weren't too interested in the lace - mostly doilies and fancy parasols, but we'd heard the place was nice so we just walked around a bit. We ended up wandering in through some of the side streets and away from the tourist shops and it was very peaceful when we found the more residential areas. The houses there are all painted different colors, something that dates back to the city's seafaring past, where sailors knew which house was theirs based on the color (so that they wouldn't come back to the wrong house after a night of drinking). It was nice to walk through the area among the canals and colorful homes and the locals.

After spending most of the afternoon on the islands, we headed back into town to the hotel, where we freshened up and headed back out for dinner. Rick suggested a couple of canal-side places, but after looking at their menus we decided they didn't look too good, and were way over-priced. We ended up winding through the mess of small alley-streets and canals to another suggested place and enjoyed a nice, reasonably priced meal on a patio overlooking a small square. After dinner we headed to the Rialto Bridge to enjoy the sights of the Grand Canal from the best vantage point of the city.

After sight seeing and people watching from the bridge we made our way down to the canal to check a big item off our list - a night-time gondola ride. We were really glad we did it at night (which comes at a slight premium). During the day, most of the canals are crowded with loud boats, and the back canals are crowded with tons of other gondolas and thousands of tourists on the streets above. On our ride, there was hardly another person in site. We got a lot of good history from our guy, and it was nice to just take this moonlit ride through the romantic city.

Saturday, May 9th

We only had half a day to spend touristing before we needed to get to the Venice port to catch our cruise (more info on that in the next post), so we didn't plan a lot to do this day. We started with a trip to St Mark's Square (home of the city's main church of the same name) and the Doge's Palace.

The Doge (or duke) was the ruler of Venice. He was elected from the aristocracy, and once put in power he kept the title for life. This was a huge honor, of course, but came at a price, as the Doge was only allowed to leave the palace if he had an entourage of other aristocrats with him, and in order to ever leave the city, he had to request a pass from the lower rulers, which was only given rarely and only for a few days at the maximum. Also interesting is the fact that each new Doge furnished the palace himself, so when one died, the family had to go in and remove all the furniture to make way for the next guy. When the last Doge was ousted from power by Napoleon, he left and took all his stuff with him, so there is now nothing in there!

We toured through the palace, seeing the bedrooms (with no beds), the various meeting rooms where the important state matters were discussed, the armory, and the prison which is connected by the famous Bridge of Sighs. This small bridge spans a canal between the palace and the prison, and got its name because as the prisoners walked across it after being sentenced, they would sigh as they got their last look of the city through the small windows.

After leaving the palace, we didn't have enough time to do anything major or see any sites, so we just meandered through the streets and along the canals back toward the hotel. We grabbed a slice of amazing pizza from a small shop and then a little later enjoyed some afternoon delight (gelato of course!). Venice's streets are interesting, because for one, they are all very narrow and generally short, being cut off by the various canals that run throughout the city. Also, although they have names, they are only displayed on the most important streets. As such, finding your way around can be difficult. The only help is that every couple of blocks there are signs with arrows to the major sites (like St Mark's or the train station). We followed these signs, getting lost once or twice, but made it back to the hotel, where we'd left our luggage, by about 2:00.

At this point, it was time to head off to the port to hop on our cruise ship and head out into the Mediterranean...(to be continued).

Pisa and Florence

This is a continuation of the chronicle of our 2 week trip through Italy and the Mediterranean. If you haven't read the previous Italy posts, you should start with the previous three...

Thursday, May 7th

This was a whirlwind day. From the time we arrived in Pisa until we left Florence was only about 22 hours, and in that time we did a ton...

We jumped on a morning train from Cinque Terre to Florence, which stops in Pisa. The guidebooks give you a few things to do in Pisa, but when it comes down to it, all anybody wants to do is go see the Leaning Tower. Conveniently, they have a city bus that runs between the station and the Plaza of Miracles (where the tower is) every 15 minutes or so. The plaza is a large grassy square that includes the city's main church, an enormous baptistry, and the leaning bell tower. It is actually quite impressive, and would possibly be worth the visit even if the tower were straight, but sadly everything else basically just gets ignored.

At the top, the tower is leaning about 12 feet from where it should be. The builders realized it was starting to lean even during construction, and tried to find ways to straighten it during the construction process. If you look closely, the 4th story is not straight, as the right side is taller than the left. This is even more obvious in the belfry, which looks like it is actually pointed directly upward (unlike the rest which points to the right). In order to redesign and build it to what it is took several hundred years. Obviously none of the great plans worked, and they've done tons of things to try and keep it from toppling ever since. The only thing that has been mildly successful was about a decade ago they started removing soil from the left side, thereby causing the tower to lean back the other way a bit. They think that it is stabilized for now, but secretly I think Jenna and I hope it tumbles sometime in the near future, so we can tell our kids "we saw the Leaning Tower before it fell over".

In total we spent about 90 minutes in Pisa, snapped the obligatory "prop up the tower pictures", and headed off for Florence.

After getting checked in at the hostel in Florence (Plus Florence, which really reminded us of a health club, which was weird), we headed off for the Accademia Museum. We had read everywhere that lines could be really bad at this museum, so we had booked tickets ahead (including payment of the €8 booking fee, when the entrance was only €6.50). When we arrived, there was literally one person in line, so we were very disappointed about that, but got over it relatively soon when we got into the museum.

The Accademia was built for one purpose - to hold Michelangelo's David statue. There are a few other things there, but none of them were really mentionable. Just the David. There is apparently a lot of symbolism in the statue related to the city of Florence during the time it was made, but all that is probably pretty boring. The summary - it is a 17 foot tall naked man that is impressively detailed and deserving of the fame it has received. We were rightfully impressed and very glad we got to see "David".

 You were allowed to take pictures of anything in the museum other that David, but I snapped the above photos "from the hip" when the guard wasn't looking.  Turned out pretty good!

After leaving the museum, we headed through the main square of the city, including the main church (Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, nicknamed the Duomo for its large dome). The church was pretty interesting due to the fact that it was made from a mix of white, pink, and green marble, which gave the outside a nice look.

We had prebooked tickets to another museum in town, but we had a little time before we needed to be there. We toured quickly through the church (much less impressive having been in St Peter's 3 days earlier, though the painting under the dome was interesting), and hung around the square for a while.

Florence is supposed to have the best gelato in all of Italy (and since Italy has the best ice cream in the world, supposedly, this would in theory be the best place for ice cream on the planet). As such, we decided that an afternoon treat was in order, and we went to what was supposed to be the best gelato place in town. It definitely lived up to its hype.  Jenna's combo of Strawberry and Coconut turned out to be a big hit.

We next headed down to the Uffizi Gallery - Florence's main museum which holds a lot of apparently important artwork. It was a nice museum, and it does contain the Birth of Venus painting, which is pretty famous.

After the museum we sat for a while on the Ponte Vecchio bridge, which is fairly famous, and listened to a street performer while watching the sun begin to set and waiting for dinner. We ate at a small family run place (where we saw no less than 3 other Rick Steves' books) that was really good and amazingly priced (three courses for €12). Even though we came out stuffed, we still made our way to another gelateria for dessert, arguing that it was okay to have two within a 5 hour span because 1) Florence is supposed to have the best, so we needed to take advantage, 2) 2 scoops only cost €1.50, and 3) the classic "We're on vacation".

We savored our treat while casually strolling back through the main squares to the hotel, where we went to sleep with visions of canals...(to be continued).

Cinque Terre, Italy

This is a continuation of the chronicle of our 2 week trip through Italy and the Mediterranean. If you haven't read the previous Italy posts, you should start with the previous two...

The Cinque Terre, or Five Towns, is on the coast of Northwest Italy, north of Rome and south of Milan. It is (surprise, surprise) a set of five small towns built along the cliffs, and from the first town to the fifth is just about five miles. This was our third major stop in Italy.

Tuesday, May 5th

We left Rome on a not-too-early train, and arrived in Manarola, Italy around 3pm. Counting from south to north, Manarola is the 2nd town of the five. All of the towns are very small, and there are not many hotels. Most of the places to stay within the towns are rooms for rent that are owned by locals, and pre-booking is pretty difficult. Since we like to travel with some amount of surety, we made a booking at one of few places that we could - the only hostel in the area (boringly named Hostel 5 Terre). The place was nice enough (though somewhat dorm-ish), but what we weren't told was that getting there required a hike up an outrageous hill. By the time we finally got to the top with our 40 pound backpacks, we were dripping with sweat and completely worn out. This might have been okay if it weren't for the fact that the whole reason people come to the Cinque Terre is to complete the semi-strenuous hiking trails that lie between them.

There are 4 trails connecting the towns. They wind through lemon and olive groves and along cliff ledges looking over the sea, and are one of the most beautiful places we've set our eyes on. The trails range in difficulty from an easy 20 minute stroll to a 2 hour hike that includes several hundred rugged steps.

After getting into our room and freshening up a bit, we headed out to complete the easy stroll to the southernmost town, Riomaggiore. The trail is called the Via Dell'Amore (I've seen several translations, but my favorite is Lover's Trail). Many decades ago, people tended to spend most of their lives in their village, even though the other villages were so close (due to the treacherous cliffs getting between towns was difficult). They were born there, had jobs there, and generally found their spouse there. When this path was built, it made for easy access between these two towns, and quickly became a meeting point for young lovers living in separate towns, hence the name.

We lazily strolled along the trail and took in the amazing scenery, stopping to sit on some rocks down by the water. When we got to Riomaggiore, we took Rick's advice and took a walk around the town, getting a nice view of the area, which was very enjoyable. Afterward, we headed back to our town, Manarola, and completed Rick's walk there as well. This was very nice, as it included a walk up into the hills above the city that was full of vineyards, olive and lemon trees, and great views of the town.

By the time we finished these short walks, it was dinner time, and we took more of Rick's advice and headed for Vernazza, the 4th town, by train. This is probably a good time to mention that the Cinque Terre is the birthplace of pesto, one of Jenna's favorite pasta sauces. Apparently the climate is very friendly to basil, the main ingredient. There is a restaurant in Vernazza that was supposed to have good pesto lasagna, so we headed over there. To say that Jenna enjoyed the dish would be a terrible understatement. In fact, the first bite resulted in her declaring "This is the best thing I have ever put in my mouth". After talking her into not ordering a second piece (which she now regrets), we grabbed a quick treat to "make Jenna's gelato mouth happy" and headed back to the hotel.

Wednesday, May 6th

This was our hiking day. We got up pretty early, packed up a backpack with the essentials (water, some trail mix, and the camera) and headed off.

The first walk was north to Corniglia, about an hour long and not too hilly. It was a good way to get our feet wet. Once we got to Corniglia, we were disappointed to find out that the next trail was closed for repair work for a few days, so we wouldn't be able to do it. So, unfortunately we had to hop on the train and head to Vernazza, skipping a 90 minute hike (but giving us 90 extra beach minutes later).

After walking through the town of Vernazza, we started off on the hardest hike to Monterosso al Mare. This was tough but well worth the effort (and helped offset some of the week's gelato!). It involved a very hefty climb, then lots of zig-zagging and short ups and downs along the coastal cliffs. In all it did take us about 2 hours, and now looking back, it was definitely an experience of a lifetime.

We arrived in Monterosso at around 2pm, so we went to the beach (this town has the nicest beaches in Cinque Terre) and hung out for the rest of the afternoon. It was funny because about every 30 minutes, school groups ranging from early middle school through high school would come down from the hills, presumably from some hike, hang out on the beach for a while, then get herded off by their chaperon's only to be replaced by the next group. It was a little annoying as we tried to relax/sleep/read on the beach, but at the same time it provided some good people-watching (nothing like seeing 10 retarded teenagers run fully clothed into the 55 degree water and watch them try to act like they don't mind the cold).

The rest of the day was pretty relaxed, spent hanging out on the beach, walking around the town, and enjoying the amazing scenery of the area. We grabbed dinner from another of Rick's suggested restaurants (where I had my favorite meal of the trip - seafood ravioli), and then headed back to the hostel to get packed up and prepare for our whirlwind day through Pisa and Florence. We loved Cinque Terre, the hiking, the beautiful scenery, and the fabulous beaches/views of the water. We hope to come back someday and finish the part of the hike that was closed.

(to be continued)