Day 27: Pisa and Lucca

I got a little bit more sleep today because the coughing girl is gone. It still is too hot to sleep well though. It’s crazy how warm it gets in the bedroom. The hallway is easily ten degrees cooler than the bedroom. Despite the heat, I got enough sleep for the day!

I went into the Duomo this morning. It was actually a little bit disappointing. I’m not used to walking into a church and not seeing a painted ceiling. It’s huge inside, but other than that kind of plain. There is a really nice fresco over the altar though.

After the Duomo, I hopped a train to Pisa. The Leaning Tower is so cool. I’ve seen it before, but it’s still awesome. Also, amazing that it’s still standing. It really looks like it will just fall over on you. 

The Leaning Tower is in a large plaza called the Plaza of Miracles. The duomo and the baptistery are also right next to it, with a lovely grass area where you can sit and have lunch or just relax. Every respectable church has a baptistery next to it. They’re just as impressive as the churches themselves. 

I sat on the steps of the duomo and ate my lunch while watching the countless numbers of children run around. Apparently Pisa is the place to bring the kids. Most of them had a blast just running around the grass and giggling. I was thoroughly entertained.

I wandered around Pisa for a little longer and then caught a train to Lucca. Lucca is a really cool little city surrounded by a wall. 

The church of San Martino has one of the coolest outsides I’ve seen so far. 

There’s also the “remains” of a Roman Amphitheatre. By remains I mean there are buildings in a circular formation around what at one point in time was an amphitheatre. It was still cool. By this time, I was pretty tired so I got on the train back to Florence. An hour later I was walking back to the hostel. I made myself some pasta for dinner and watched Monster’s Inc. It’s nice to have a little touch of home every now and again. I spent a good portion of last night looking through old pictures from high school. It was actually a good cure for home sickness.

Tomorrow, I’m off to Rome to meet up with Tommy G! Later in the week Trent is supposed to be coming to visit too! Hopefully, it all works out.

Day 26: Firenze

I’m thoroughly enjoying my time in Italy, but I am quite excited at the prospect of sleeping in my bed in my nice quiet air conditioned bed when I get back. I didn’t get much sleep last night due to the horribly uncomfortable pillow, the heat, and the girl who coughed all night long. I kind of felt bad for her because she seemed pretty sick, but I’m also going to be really mad if I get sick.

Other than the crazy night, this hostel is particularly nice because it’s right in the city. Today was the first day I didn’t have to get on a train or a bus and travel to where I was trying to get to. It was pretty nice being able to get up and go straight into the city. I found myself with an abundance of extra time.

I started the day by heading towards the duomo. On my way there, I passed the Ponte Vecchio (Old Bridge) which is lined with little jewelry shops. 

I walked for a bit and then I was at the Duomo. It’s EPIC. I couldn’t fit all of it into one picture.

The dome is so high and can be seen from all over. The tower can also be seen. It’s a good way to keep your bearings if you’re lost. It’s really awesome. After that I wandered to the Uffizi and Piazza Vecchia. There’s a replica of the David and a bunch of other statues and fountains and such. 

By this time I was getting hungry, so I headed back to the hostel to make myself some lunch. After lunch I went back to wandering around. There’s so much to see here. There are statues around every corner and random things that you’d never expect to see. For instance, I saw people dismantling a carousel today. It was actually pretty cool to watch. There were also some living statues near the Uffizi that were neat. 

With all of my extra time, I found a nice park and sat and read for a few hours. That’s one of my favorite things to do here. There are so many nice places to just sit and relax. I’ve gotten a lot of reading done on this trip. I love having time and not feeling guilty for not doing a homework assignment. Although, I do have homework that I should be working on…but it’s not due for another two months and I’m on vacation!

I headed back to the hostel to cool off and catch up on blog posts. All caught up now, yay! I had a deliciously un-nutritious dinner of salami, cheese, and bruschetta. There’s even some left over for lunch tomorrow! Tomorrow’s itinerary includes Pisa, Lucca, and if there’s time, Fiesole.

Day 25: Traveling (date: 6/28/2011)

My sunglasses have been successfully retrieved!!! Hooray! I spent most of today on various different trains. Christine has to be in Milan by 8:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays so we got up bright and early to so we could catch the 5:40 train into Brescia. Well it was just our luck that the 5:40 train had some sort of problem with it so we ended up taking the 6:40 bus and Christine ended up missing most of her class. It all worked out in the end though.

I had to take one of the faster, more expensive trains in order to end up in Florence at a decent hour. For whatever reason, my ticket didn’t have a seat assignment so when I got the train I just found an empty car and sat down. About 45 minutes into the trip one of the ticket checkers came in stamped my ticket, rambled something off in lightning fast Italian and then walked out. About 30 seconds later she came back in and yelled at me. I told her I didn’t speak English and she said I had to get out of that car because the train was full and I didn’t have a seat so I had to move. I was thoroughly confused as the train was clearly not full because I was surrounded by 5 empty seats, but it seems she cleared a whole bunch of people out and then locked the doors behind her. I wandered down the train until I found a car with people in it and an empty seat and sat down. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to do that, but she didn’t come back and yell at me so I figured I was in the clear.

Despite the train madness, I got to Genova around 11:30 and headed to the restaurant to get my sunglasses back. The guy was very nice and I thanked him profusely for holding on to them for me. I then went to the station to hop the train to La Spezia and then on to Florence. Hours and hours on the train. I slept for most of it given I only got about 3 hours of sleep the night before.

I got to Florence and, as is my wont, got lost trying to find the hostel. I literally walked right past it in my attempt to find it. I ended up calling Christine because everyone I asked seemed to have no idea where it was. I checked in and settled down for the night, trying to keep cool. The hostel is very warm and there’s no AC so it’s kind of like being back in Troy in August. Tomorrow, I will explore Florence (or Firenze as it’s called in Italian) more thoroughly.

Day 24: Laggo d’Idro (date of visit: 6/27/2011)

Today we slept in. It was glorious. It’s funny that sleeping in for me is now 8:30. I’ve gotten so used to getting up between 6 and 7 that actually staying asleep until 8 or 9 is proving difficult. Despite being so awake it’s still a challenge to actually get myself out of bed. Anyway, we took the bus into Brescia and had some time so we grabbed breakfast at a Sicilian bakery. I had oh-so nutritious cannolis. Super delicious cannolis I might add. Christine had a rather large donut that looked quite tasty.

We got on the bus towards Idro and this time correctly made the change! We were successful in our quest! Idro is gorgeous and not really on any tourist’s map so it was quiet and peaceful. 

We walked around the lake a bit and then went in search for somewhere to eat lunch. The place we ended up had a country radio station playing, which was incredibly strange. I honestly thought I was back in Texas for a minute. It was a little unsettling eating my sandwich to Tim McGraw in Italy. We left the land of country music and headed around to a different side of the lake.

We plopped ourselves down on a lovely bench and enjoyed the view of the lake and the beautiful day. Eventually, Christine asked when the bus came and of course it drove around the corner right as she said it. We ran to the stop, but we were too far away. It was also the last bus at that stop for the day. We have really good luck like that.

We went back into what I guess you would call the center of town, and found another stop to get back. After an hour wait, we were on our way back to Brescia and then to Manerbio. For my farewell dinner, Christine took me back to Regina Major, currently my favorite pizza place and we had delicious pizzas for dinner. 

On our walk back, I was delighted to find an Italian “pick-up truck”. I’ve been trying to take a picture of one since I first saw one but usually they’re driving down the road so I don’t have time. But I finally saw one parked! They’re the most adorable little trucks I’ve ever seen. And only three wheels! 

We continued on home and relaxed for the rest of the night. Tomorrow, I have to get up at 4:45AM so I can stop in Genova to get my sunglasses and then head to Florence. I’m going to miss my time with Christine. It was great fun exploring with her. I’ll see her again this weekend in Rome and then when I get back to Texas, so it’s not goodbye forever. I’ll be in Florence the next three days and then I’ll head down to Rome!

Day 23: Cinque Terre (date of visit: 6/26/2011)

Today was completely amazing; although we had a bit of a rocky start. We woke up around 5:30 so we’d be able to make the 6:20 bus to the train station. When we got up we discovered that neither of us had gotten much sleep. The window was open because it was hot and it was noisy outside, but if we’d closed the window the room would have been stuffy. Also, one of the other girls’ noses was whistling and another was snoring. Needless to say, it did not make for a good night’s rest.

I managed to get a little snooze in on the train before our hike. It’s an eight mile hike from start to finish, but one of the four trails was closed for some reason so I think we only ended up doing six miles. It was, by far, the most beautiful hike I’ve ever been on. It was also pretty difficult, but that kind of made it more fun and exciting. This picture is from the very beginning before things got rough. The ocean is in view for almost the entire hike and it’s absolutely stunning. 

There are also vineyards all up and down the mountain. We probably passed about 50 different ones with the grapes looking quite delicious. 

This next one is the view of Monterosso from a point beyond it. We started at Monterosso heading towards Vernazzo. At this point I think we were getting pretty close to Vernazzo. 

The first trail is 3km (about a mile and a half) and is supposed to take about two hours. It’s also all uphill. The trail has stairs all over it, but the stairs actually seemed more daunting than just a steep hill, mostly because the stairs were very steep and much taller than I would have liked. I didn’t think to get a picture of the staircases but some of them just seemed to go on for forever. Obviously they didn’t, but at times we were thinking we might fall over. It was quite a relief when we’d hit a brief patch of semi-flat land.

In this picture you can see Vernazzo peaking out around the mountain. We’re getting close!

After many more stairs, a couple of trips (but no falls!), and couple of brief rests Vernazzo was just around the bend. 

While we were hiking the trail, I was surprised that we passed mostly Americans. There were some English and Australian people as well, but very few Italians. I almost felt like I was hiking a trail in America. It only took us an hour and a half to get to Vernazzo! It didn’t seem like we were moving that fast, but we decided to take the rest of the trail a bit slower. We stopped in the town briefly and had some focaccia bread. I LOVE focaccia bread. I’ve had a lot of it on this trip and this was so much better than any I’d had so far. Mmmm mmmm. The brief rest and the carbs were just what I needed to continue on!

With Vernazzo behind us, we headed to Corniglia. This portion is 4km but was only supposed to take an hour and half. We had been hiking for a while and then we came around a bend to see both Corniglia and Manarola.

With our slower pace, this one did take us and hour and a half. It was pretty hilly as well, with kind of a tease in the middle because it gets flat for a long while before you start going up again. The trail was also covered in lizards that would dart in front of you so you had to make sure to avoid those guys too. Every now and then we’d just stop to rest and take in the amazing view in front of us. The whole hike has a bit of a surreal feel for me now because it was just so incredible. I also ran into my roommates from the hostel in Venice. It was random, but nice to see them again for a brief moment.

We made it to Corniglia and stopped to get some cold water. Christine also got this strawberry juice thing that was really good. It tasted like liquid strawberries. There was also a lovely church that we stopped in to see. It wasn’t long before we were back on our journey! But this time to the train station, because this branch of the hike was closed. I was kind of disappointed that we didn’t get to hike that part. Although we got to do part of it because you walk right past the train station on your way to the actual trail. There’s a very windy staircase that has about 10,000 steps that we were most fortunately walking down to the station. We passed quite a few people going up who were grumbling a bit.

The train to the next town took all of 30 seconds and then we were on the last part of the walk to Riomaggiore. The last walk is paved and flat and the perfect end to the afternoon. The view is lovely and we just enjoyed the view. It took about 20 minutes to walk to the last town and then back to the train station.

From the train station it took us the rest of the afternoon to get back to Manerbio. We left Cinque Terre a little after 1PM and got back to Manerbio sometime just before dark. I think it was around 8ish. As we were walking back from the train station, covered in dirt from our hike, we passed some sort of procession where a priest of some sort was being carried through the town and everyone in the line was singing. Of course, we were walking the wrong direction and looked extremely out of place, but we passed by as quick as we could to get back to the apartment.

We ate a small dinner and decided to call it an early night. Tomorrow, we’re going to attempt to get to Lake Idro again!

Day 22: Genova (date of visit: 6/25/2011)

Today, I traveled to Genova, home of the second largest aquarium in the world! Getting to Genova from Manerbio is no easy feat. There were buses and trains, and long waits, and more trains and then more waits and trains. When all was said and done I got to Genova around 2PM after leaving Manerbio around 6:40AM. While I was waiting in Milan I sat in a bookstore reading a kids book in Italian with a children’s dictionary in my lap trying to translate it. It was a good way to pass the time.

When I finally got to Genova, I headed straight towards the aquarium. Genova is a port city (and a very stinky one at that) with all kinds of museums and things to do around the harbor. The coolest thing I saw right off the bat was the giant ship.

It was very impressive to see. I continued past the ship and to the aquarium. It was expensive (18€) but totally worth it—mostly because of the dolphins. There were so many different sea critters. Dolphins and sharks and turtles and seals. I even got to pet a sting ray! They’re slimy, but it was cool. 

I thoroughly enjoyed my time there. I have tons more pictures that will eventually be posted on facebook. I headed into the actual town after I finished at the aquarium. I walked into a couple of pretty churches and wandered into a palazzo where a lovely concert was going on. It was a symphonic band and I got very nostalgic for high school and our concerts. (Top picture is a church and the bottom is the outside of the Palazzo Ducale.)

There’s a really pretty fountain in the Piazza de Ferari, which is where the Palazzo Ducale is and one of the main squares in Genova. 

I continued to wander and in my attempt to find one place, found another that I was looking for. It’s a pretty famous arch with two tours on the sides. Legend has it that Christopher Columbus’s dad used to stand guard at this archway. 

It was getting close to time to meet Christine at the train station so I headed in that direction. We met up and headed to the hostel to drop off our things before dinner. We’re staying in Genova tonight because we’re hiking Cinque Terre tomorrow. We found a nice little restaurant for dinner on a little side street. The food was delicious and there was a nice American couple sitting next to us that we talked to throughout dinner. We had an appetizer of some sort of cheese filled bread pillow that was amazing and then a main dish of pasta with pesto, mmmmmmmmmmmm yummy! I do love the food here. Unfortunately, I eventually realized (too late) that I had left my sunglasses on the table. I’ll have to get back there later to pick them up.

We walked around the town a bit before heading back to the hostel. I got a pretty nice picture in front of the lovely fountain. 

We were pretty beat by this point so we went back to the hostel (on an extremely crowded bus). The other girls in the room were very nice; all from California. Tomorrow we’ll be hiking the trail at Cinque Terre. I’m super excited because it’s supposed to be beautiful!!!

Day 21: Gargnano

I would call today a successful failure. Christine and I originally intended to go to Idro today, which is a little town on a tiny lake. In our attempt to get there, we ended up missing the place to change buses and went to Gargnano instead, what I assume is an equally nice town on Lake Garda. It’s certainly very beautiful with the mountains right next to the lake.

From Manerbio, it took almost three hours to get there so we were hungry and ready for lunch. We ate a little café literally on the lake. We were on a deck that was over the water, which was awesome. This was the view from our table:

So we had a lovely lunch and went exploring around the town. We soon found out that it’s quite small and there isn’t a whole lot to do; although, we did find a little beach area where we dipped our feet in. The water was freezing though and “beaches” are really just areas with lots of rocks. It was still a nice little place to cool off.

We headed back to the bus stop and back to Brescia. There were still some parts of Brescia I hadn’t seen so we wandered around there until dinner time. Our first stop was Piazza Arnoldo. I think he looks more like a wizard than anything else, but here is his statue:

On our way to the ruins of an old forum we passed by a little hobby shop that had trains in the window. They reminded me of my childhood even though they were cheap plastic trains, not like the fancy metal electric ones I got to play with growing up.

Eventually, we made it to the ruins. I really like seeing ruins and imagining what they might once have been. This little arch is pretty much all that’s left of these particular ruins. 

We still had some time before the restaurant opened for dinner so we went into a super fancy grocery store. It had four stories!!! Definitely the biggest grocery store I’ve ever been in. All the food looked really fancy too. Especially the GIANT shell pastas. 

After the grocery store, we went to the 9/11 memorial park. Italy seems to be very sympathetic to that even. It was a lovely park. Then it was time for food!!! We went to a little pizzeria that Christine really likes and I soon found out why. I’m slowly coming to the conclusion that I will never be able to eat pizza again after I leave this country. It’s very sad, but definitely worth it. The pizza is indescribably delicious. 

Tomorrow, I’m off to Genoa and then Cinque Terre on Sunday. I won’t have my computer until Monday so no posts ‘til then! Have a good weekend everyone!

Day 20: Iseo

So 4AM came and went and guess who didn’t get up. I actually woke up and thought about getting off the couch and then decided I wanted more than four hours of sleep for the day so I went back to bed. I got up around 8 and decided to go back to Iseo and enjoy the lake.

Unfortunately, today was quite cloudy and it started to drizzle a bit so I only spent a few hours there. I came back to Manerbio and met up with Christine in the center of town. My adventure in the north of Italy is pretty much winding down. This weekend I’m going to Genova and Cinque Terre and then heading south to see what trouble I can get into down there.

Day 19: A More Successful Day in Parma (date of visit: 6/22/2011)

Christine and I decided that we had to go back to that restaurant and eat delicious food in Parma, so today we got an earlier start and made it in time to eat. We started our morning walking to a pre-elementary school so Christine could pick up a little publication with an article she had written. Walking through the school made me seriously miss being a little kid. Everything was brightly colored with all the kids’ artwork hanging everywhere. There were also tons of little kids running around playing with their friends. It was a very happy atmosphere.

We went to the little café in the square to get breakfast before we journeyed to Parma. We were quite hungry when we got to Parma and went straight to the restaurant. Then we feasted! We started with torta fritta, parma ham, and cantaloupe. Torta fritta is like a pillow of delicious fried bread. It’s so good with the ham and cantaloupe. Incredibly delicious start. 

For the main course, we both got the ravioli sampler. There were three raviolis each of pumpkin, spinach and ricotta, and ham and cheese. Also, amazingly delicious.

By the end of lunch I was completely stuffed, but very content. Parma is definitely the place to have a crazy awesome meal. After eating all that food we had to walk around so we wouldn’t feel so full. We went into the book store and, both of us being former BN employees, were appalled at the way the books were shelved. I had to take a picture to show how terrible it was! Books were double-stacked and rubber banded together! It was crazy. 

We also found Harry Potter in Russian which I thought was interesting. 

We continued to walk around and window shop for a few more hours until we took the train home. There was a very strange poster by the train station that neither of us could figure out. If anyone has any ideas as to what this could possibly be, let me know because I’m clueless. 

We took the train back to Manerbio and now I must mention the horrible smells of rural Italy. There are lots of farms around here and they fertilize with manure and it is an awful smell. The mulch and stinky trees at RPI have got nothing and the monstrous smells of fields full of manure. It’s a very pervasive smell. It hasn’t been too bad, but they obviously just fertilized today and it was awful! Ah well, beautiful area, terrible smell. Can’t have everything, right?

I also finally got a picture of an Italian “billboard”. They absolutely crack me up. Every once in a while you’ll see a truck with those advertisement things on them. They’re certainly not as prevalent as they are in America. 

The rest of the night was just relaxing. I’m trying to decide where to go tomorrow. I could go somewhere a little further, but that requires me getting up at 4:30AM. Somehow I don’t think that will happen, but we’ll see!

Day 18: Pavia (date of visit: 6/21/2011)

I spent more time traveling today than I did actually in Pavia, but it was still a nice day. The weather has become wonderful and sunny so any day I get to spend outside I consider a success. I got up insanely early so I could catch buses and trains to get to Pavia around 9AM.

I would describe Pavia as under construction, or rather restoration. Most of Italy has some form of restoration going on, but all I saw in Pavia was scaffolding. I couldn’t even go in the big cathedral there because it was all covered in scaffolding. Mostly I just wandered amongst the different shops. Each city is like a tiny mall with tons and tons of shops along the streets. And all of the shops have awesome stuff in them, I’m just too broke to be able to buy anything.

I took some random pictures of all over Pavia, but for the most part I just wandered around. This is the church that’s under construction.

I found a bench in an open square to eat my lunch and enjoy the day. After lunch I continued to wander around until my train. It took me almost three hours to get back to Manerbio! I had to wait for a while at Milano and was hoping to run into Christine but she had caught an earlier train.

By the time I made it back we were both hungry for dinner. We had all’amatricia which is basically just tomato sauce with pancetta, onions, and peppers. It was quite tasty. It turned out to be a pretty quiet night. Despite Christine’s yelling at me, I did get started on some of my homework for school. There’s so much of it, it’s probably going to take me all summer to conquer. Tomorrow, Christine and I are going back to Parma to get that meal we missed out on yesterday!

Day 17: Parma

Today was kind of an epic failure. Christine and I had planned to go into Parma early in the morning, but through a series of random complications (broken doors, car keys, and crazy train schedules) didn’t end up getting there until around 3PM.

By the time we finally made it we were starving! A friend of hers had recommended a restaurant to her so we went in search for it. It took us almost forty minutes to find it only to see that it was closed until dinner time. Apparently Mondays in Italy are kind of like an extra holiday. Things don’t open until way late or they just don’t open at all.

We eventually found a little café to eat it, which was a little disappointing because we had both been looking forward to a nice delicious meal in Parma. After eating lunch it was already almost 5PM and we had to catch the train at 6PM. We walked around for a little bit and found the famous cathedral. It was quite lovely inside.

Next to the cathedral there’s the baptistery which I liked because it had little animals sculpted all around the outside. 

By that point we had just enough time to grab a gelato and head back to the train station. The whole time Christine kept saying that something needed to happen to have made the trip worth it. I still enjoyed my day in Parma even if it was cut short by a crazy train schedule. The day had been pretty warm and we were both tired from the heat. We got back to the apartment where I made myself a little salad for dinner and tried to figure out what I’m doing tomorrow. I think I’m going to go to Pavia, which means super early morning for me (5:40AM)! So I must get to bed!

Day 16: Salo (date of visit: 6/19/2011)

Today was another prettyful day at Lake Garda. This time Christine came with me and we went to Salo. We started our morning early-ish so we could get a pastry at the café before the church rush started but we ended up being a little too late. We sat and sat and sat, but the girl behind the counter ignored us even after Christine went up there and asked for our order. So we got up and left. I ended up getting another cream horn from the bakery in the train station (soooooo good)!

On our train into Brescia there were these two young kids that were overtly making out in the seat next to us. It was very strange. Anyway, we made it Lake Garda and took a bus to Salo, another little town on the lake. At the bus stop they had the coolest little tour train that I thought was completely adorable.

We walked into the town itself and the view is gorgeous, just like Sirmione.

We were really hungry by the time we go there so we went in search of lunch. We stopped at a little restaurant and had yummy sandwiches; although, don’t get anything with mayonnaise on it because they put globs and globs on there. While we were eating, a guy rode by on his bike and completely wiped out. I’m still not sure how he did it, but one second he was upright and the next he was on the ground. He seemed alright though.

We walked around the lake for a bit and window shopped. There was a little bakery that had the cutest little marzipan animals. I was really tempted to buy one because I love marzipan, but they were so cute I wouldn’t have been able to eat it too!

After all of our wandering we sat down on a bench and just watched the boats on the lake relaxing and enjoying the view.

We also saw another person wipe out on a bike, but this time it was a little boy who was extremely amused by his falling over. He even had training wheels and still managed to hit the ground. He had a huge smile on his face though, so he seemed to appreciate the humor of the situation as much as we did.

After our brief rest we headed back to the bus stop to get back to Brescia. We just barely missed our train so we went to get some gelato to kill some time. We also went into a grocery store to get some water and they had the coolest digital price tags. I was completely fascinated by them. 

As we continued to kill time in Brescia we came across a cake shop that had the cutest little cakes. I especially loved the teapot cake. It was so pretty!

We finally made it home and had a really late dinner of pumpkin filled ravioli; something I’ve been dying to try since I found out they existed. They were yummy! I checked my email only to find an assignment from one of my professors next year. I was so upset, but when I started looking into it Christine yelled at me and told me I wasn’t allowed to do homework on my Italian vacation. So I guess I’ll just save it for later. Tomorrow, we’re going to Parma!