Cinque Terre: the five lands

I'm thankful to everyone who ever told me me to go to Cinque Terre... They're these 5 gorgeous towns on the coast, about an hour (by train) northwest of Pisa. In fact, most train rides have a connection in Pisa.

We were able to get direct tickets from Florence to La Spezia, the big town right before the Cinque Terre. From there, we bought a local train ticket to Manarola, the second town, where we were staying. We probably could have gotten that ticket when we bought ours in Florence, but this worked too. The local train goes to all five towns about every 30 minutes, so we didn't wait long.

When we got to Manarola, we went through the tunnel connecting the train station to the town, and walked up “the street". As far as I can tell, there is only one. It's about 3 minutes uphill until you get to our hotel, Ca D'Andrean, recommended in guidebooks. Our room was, again, a step up from the previous ones: a balcony overlooking a lemon garden, and a terrace that you access... through the bathroom? That's fine, when I washed my clothes in the sink, it was super easy to get them to the outside.

We had a late lunch (as we tend to do on travel days) down “the street" at a place called Porticciolo, where the prices were good and we could sit outside. I ordered seafood spaghetti, expecting shrimp and mussels. I got those things, but also tiny (whole) squids and octopus. I think I figured out how to eat most of it? It was tasty, though.

We wandered around Manarola and probably rested for a bit, but I'm not sure where the time went. We asked the guy at our hotel where to go that night, especially because it was the 4th of July. He suggested Riomaggiore (the first town.) I saw online that “the bar" there often does something big for the whole town on the 4th, so we got on a train to Riomaggiore. On the way, we met Rachel, an opera student about to do a program! We ended up walking around Riomaggiore with her and had dinner together up “the street" (yeah, they're all pretty small.) After dinner, the three of us went next door to, I assume, “the bar", which was not doing anything for the 4th but was playing the World Cup game on a huge TV outside. Brazil was playing... I forget who, but we started watching just in time to see the Brazil player get stomped on the back...

We made the last train home that night!

The next morning, we had breakfast in the lemon garden, which was adorable. The man serving breakfast made us cappuccinos. We then went to the Manarola train station to buy our Cinque Terre passes: 12€ that gets you on the path between the fourth and fifth towns (Vernazza and Monterosso) and also gives you access to the trains and buses in between the towns as well as Wi-Fi access in the train stations.

We normally would have taken a train to Riomaggiore to start at the beginning, but there was a rock slide a few years ago and the paths between Riomaggiore and Manarola and between Manarola and Corniglia are closed right now. This was disappointing because we wanted to do all of it, but I was also disappointed because the first leg, with the Via Del'Amore, is the easiest... The recommendation was to start in Manarola, walk up into Volastra, and back down into Corniglia. Great.

That ended up probably being the hardest part. We hiked for 2.5 hours to get to Corniglia. It's important to realize that any time you leave a town, you're going to be going UP. Which direction you walk depends on how much UP you want. Based on my two trips here, I think either way is hard, but going in the direction of Riomaggiore to Monterosso is less extreme of an UP than the opposite direction. Every time we went down, I thought “I'm glad I'm not climbing this."

We stopped in every town for pictures of the buildings and took pictures while we were walking. We got some fruit in Corniglia because, even though it was lunch time, we were too hot to really be hungry.

An hour and a half after leaving Corniglia, (getting to use the coastal path now) we got to Vernazza. There is a small beach here, so we cooled off with a swim. We knew we wanted to do that, so we were walking in our bathing suits, feeling particularly fresh. We each had a slice of pizza, then kept walking.

It was this last leg when fatigue and exhaustion really set in. Had we done this part on a separate day (which a lot of people do) it wouldn't have been nearly as hard. The first half was, of course, uphill, and I had to stop very frequently to rest. I was carrying a backpack with two towels, two pairs of chacos, and a water bottle, so I'm using that as an excuse. Eventually, the climb leveled out some, Emery and I switched bags (since mine had stuff that belonged to us both), and we found a cat guide that all made it easier. (Really, a cat started walking in front of us and would wait for us when we stopped!) We passed a limoncello stand on the way down and obviously got some, and finished that when we got to Monterosso.

It was 8pm and we had been walking since 11am, so we didn't stay there long. Monterosso is normally where people spend their beach time, but it was late enough that not many people were there anymore.

We showered, had dinner in Manarola, and went to bed to rest for our day of traveling to Madrid the next day!

Dear Florence...

I could spend forever there! It was so nice to be in a place that I was familiar with (for the first time this trip) and that is just the perfect size- big enough to have lots to explore but not too big that you get swallowed up.

When we first got to Florence, we had to walk to our hostel, Mia Palace. It was probably a 15-minute walk from the train station and the directions provided by the hotel on the booking site were pretty helpful. I had also printed walking directions from Google maps before we left, so we had no problem. The hostel is basically on the Arno River, just down away from the center of town. Our room was spacious, air conditioned, and had good Wi-Fi! We've also noticed that the bathrooms we've had have gotten bigger and nicer as we've progressed through our trip.

The first night, we wandered. First stop: gelato. We got it at a place by one of the bridges, La Carraia. I had it last time I was in Florence and it is still just as popular. And cheap! Next, I wanted to show Emery Piazza Michelangelo because it has a gorgeous view of all of Florence. We went there, took pictures, and walked back into town. We had dinner in Piazza della Signoria next to the Palazzo Vecchio, which was lovely. I was going through Florence in my head, thinking of places I ate last time, and hoped we'd make it to one the next day. We crossed the river, got gelato, and headed back to the hotel.

The next day was probably my favorite of the trip so far. Even though we were in Florence, we did something new to me. I had been in the cathedral in Florence, Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, which is free (as it should be). However, for €10, you can climb the inside of the dome, climb the bell tower, go into the baptistry, and the crypt below. We did all of that, got great pictures, and loved it! It also started training our legs for the climb to come in Cinque Terre...

We had a quick lunch in Piazza della Signoria, got gelato by the Ponte Vecchio (golden bridge) and made our way to the Bargello Museum. We had seen online about a dance festival in Florence with different performances throughout July. That night, stars of the American ballet were performing! We wanted to go ahead and get tickets while it was convenient.

We went to the Uffizi Museum next (€11). It's a large, impressive collection of primarily paintings and some statues. “Uffizi" means “offices", and the rooms were used by the Medici family. We had a Rick Steves podcast, but that's hard to follow in a museum where things get moved and shared around. It was still very enjoyable, though I was very ready for a rest back at the hostel after all of that.

Our goal was to rest, go to an appertivo someplace, and then go to the ballet. An appertivo is often a drink and buffet before dinner, and a lot of places by the river host these. Well, apparently the rest we needed was more than we anticipated, because we ended up only having enough time to get gelato to hold us over to after the ballet.
*let's review: that's 4 times we had gelato in Florence!

The ballet was in a museum where I actually saw a ballet last time. The central area is an open-air space where they set up seats and a stage. The ballet started at 9:30, so true to Italian form, we got let in at 9:35. The performances were by the principal dancers from the New York, Boston, and Miami ballets, a total of 6 people. It was a combination of group, partner, and solo dances that we enjoyed a lot. I liked that every number was very different.

After the ballet, we finally went looking for dinner at midnight. Nothing in the main, touristy part was open anymore, and we were beginning to think we'd be having gelato a third time that day. I remembered a couple of restaurants behind the Bargello that I had been to, and hoped that we'd find them quickly. They were actually a lot closer than we thought, and one of them, Acqua al Due, was open! We split two dishes, wine, and tiramisu, and the best part was that the ballet dancers went there too! Before they got their food, we went to tell them that we enjoyed their performance (so glad they'd understand us) and they were appreciative.

Very happy with our evening, we walked back to the hostel!

The next morning, we packed, had breakfast at the hostel, and accomplished a few things before we went to the train station. We walked towards the Pitti Palace to get cheap postcards, hit up the ATM, and stopped by the street market next to the bronze boar for Emery to shop some. I parked myself with our stuff in a plazza and finished writing my Rome post :)

The train station was easy for me to find,  being the Florence expert that I am (haha) and we bought our tickets to La Spezia just fine. We got tickets that did not require a transfer in Pisa. It stopped there, but we got to stay on the train. When we got to La Spezia, we had to get on a local train to get to the second town, Manarola, where we were staying in Cinque Terre.

That will be my next post!

Rome in less than a day

I think we did a <24 hr Rome trip pretty well!

When we landed from our flight from Mykonos in the Fumicino airport (outside the city) we had a driver waiting for us. After Athens, we weren't ready to navigate a big city on our own. Even with the driver speeding through in his fancy Mercedes, the drive still took 30 minutes. It was a nice ride, but definitely awkward considering the driver literally said 5 words the whole time.

We checked in at the hotel (Hotel Sant Angelo) and had the assistance of a porter who took us down the street to the annex of the hotel. The building reminded me of my apartment in Florence: gate to get in, small elevator, and big, stone staircase.  We squeezed our packs into the elevator and rode to the forth floor. From there, we went through a door to a hall of hotel rooms, where we found ours. The room had neat, old furniture and a big bed, so we promptly threw our stuff down and collapsed from exhaustion (like we have done in all of the hotels so far).

When we ventured out, we went looking for a bit to eat to tie us over until happy hour at the hotel. We made our way to the Trevi Fountain and... it was under construction! Emery and I had been there before so we weren't devastated, but it was disappointing. The water was not running or anything. Totally under construction. They did have a little pool of water for wish-making though.

We did find some food and then find the Pantheon, up the street from the Trevi Fountain. We had already planned to go back to the Pantheon the next day with a Rick Steves podcast tour, but I couldn't stop myself from going in... wow.

We went back to the hotel for “happy hour" which ended up being a carafe of wine, some water, and little things to eat. It was free so we obviously had some, but didn't stay long because there were only two other people there.

We looked online for things going on that night and Emery saw that a theater was hosting La Traviatta. We ran to the theater to find that it was the next night, even though online it said it was on Tuesdays (and it was Tuesday.)

We needed another plan! We wandered down the streets and ended up on some steps... the Spanish Steps! Looking at another fountain (Neptune), also under construction. We sat for a bit, heard a large group of maybe study abroad students sing the Canadian national anthem loudly (it wasn't the Americans!) And decided to get on the metro to the Colosseum.

We found it! It's really prominent when you get off the metro, so we talked across the street and took some pictures. It was probably 9:00 at the time, so the Colosseum was lit, which was gorgeous. We had both been to the Colosseum before and had a tour, so leisurely taking pictures was exactly what we wanted.  We thought we'd find someplace fun with the U.S. v. Belgium game (too soon?) around there, but we got back on the metro to get close to our hotel instead. Emery had seen a pub that publicized that it was playing the game that night, so we headed there and had a great meal!

The next morning, we packed, checked out, went to breakfast, and asked the hotel to store our luggage. We weren't done with Rome! Emery had downloaded Rick Steves podcast tours for St. Peter's Basilica and the Pantheon. We went to St. Peter's first because the line to get in would only be getting longer. Rick Steves does a good job of telling you where to go and how to get in and also reminds you that your shoulders (and knees, I think?) must be covered. The Basilica is obviously amazing and the podcast tour was perfect.

We walked towards the Pantheon, only using the map a few times (because we're experts...) and stopped for lunch at a place with Wi-Fi. A pigeon joined us inside for lunch and our waitress asked if we wanted it with fries or not. We chose pasta instead.

We made it to the Pantheon and listened to the 20 minute podcast tour. It was neat to hear about the inspiration for the design of the building as well as the combination of pagan and Christian decorations.

We went and picked up our bags, walked to the nearest metro stop, rode it to the train station, and got tickets for a high-speed train to Florence, only an hour and a half. (Note to self and other travelers: don't accept help from a stranger in the train station. They're not being nice, they want you to pay them.)

I'm currently sitting in a plazza while Emery shops at street markets before we leave Florence. I will post about Florence as soon as I can! We are headed to Cinque Terre very soon!

I will press “post" as soon as I have WiFi. Follow my twitter feed for more immediate updates!

On to the next part...

Our time in Mykonos has been so relaxing. I think Emery would agree with me when I say we needed relaxing after our first day in Athens... We didn't really slow down while we were there because we had too much to see. However, in Mykonos, our priorities were to see beautiful things! Check!

We leave in about 30 minutes to go to the airport (and again, we have a free ride from our hotel!) and then we'll be on our way to Rome! We're both excited to go there again, but we're only staying one night because we're even more excited to move on to Florence after that!

Ahhh... :)

This is how today has gone:

Tour of Athens post updated

For those who are getting email updates when I post, I'm not sure if you get an email when I update them. If not, this is to let you know that I have added the filling to the quick post I made about our day in Athens! I will continue to add pictures.

Feel free to comment on posts, too! I'd love to hear from people back home!

Two tickets to paradise

We went to Paradise Beach! It was gorgeous but crowded. Our hotel is right at a bus stop so we paid 1.60€ to get there, which is great!

The party was getting started when we got there at 3 and was in full swing wren we left at 6. We got flyers for a couple of parties at clubs but we're looking forward to dinner in Mykonos Town... And we also don't want to do the parties... it was already crazy.

There was also a clothing optional section... and very confident men... getting massages.

Yay Mykonos!

We've made it here! It's gorgeous!

We left our hostel in Athens at 5:50. We walked to Monastiraki Square and took the green line metro to Piraeus. We bought our Blue Star ferry tickets as we got off and then proceeded to the ferry. It left at 7:30, had two stops before Mykonos, and got here at 7:45.

A car from our hostel, Hotel Milena, was waiting for us at the port, which was just so nice (and free!) When we got to the hostel, the lady at the front (I'll need to see her name written down before I remember it) brought us orange juice and sat down with a map to show us how to get places and where she recommends us go. In the meantime, the guy who drove us here took our bags to our room. The hospitality just makes it that much more exciting!

Soon, we'll go to Mykonos town and Paradise Beach. For now, we're just so relaxed that it went this well!

Tour of Athens

Today we got to see a lot of Athens! We did a city sightseeing bus tour where you can get off at the stops, tour around, and get on a later bus. We got off and toured the New Acropolis Museum, Acropolis (Pantheon, Theater of Dionysus, Temple of Hephaestus), and the National Archaeological Museum.

I'll have to post about them later because we are getting up very early to get to Piraeus to take a ferry to Mykonos!

Goodnight! 

Update: June 29

The New Archaeological Museum was very extensive and impressive. We met someone later that day who was so excited that there was this new (around 2009) museum that really shows off how impressive the artifacts are. The first pictures below are at this museum; it's very cool that there are glass floors through which you can see some of the ruins. Apparently they're going to let people start walking under there in a few months!  We spent a good amount of time there (about 2 hours) and 5€ before we left to get back on the bus to get to the walking tour of the Acropolis.

The (free) walking tour definitely wasn't what we thought it would be: a tour through the Acropolis. It was a tour outside of the Acropolis and nearby sites that showed us “when you buy a ticket later, you'll see that." As disappointing as that was, it ended up being helpful when we were navigating later.

The walking tour ended up taking us far from the entrance to the Acropolis, so we got on the tour bus near where we were, went through the end of the tour, and started it over. I just liked riding the bus and seeing the city from a double decker open air bus, so I thought that was neat. We got back off at the Acropolis.

A 12€ ticket got us in. We started at the Parthenon, which was awesomely impressive. It was, of course, under construction, so it was hard to get a picture without scaffolding. The view of Athens up there, with the mountains in the background, was beautiful. Not the Athens we saw on our first day! There is another monument up with the Parthenon, the Propylaia, the sanctuary of the Acropolis. It's much smaller, just as impressive, and much less crowded. (*things to consider: many of the stores are smooth and slippery. Definitely wear shoes with traction.)

On the way down, we saw the Theater of Dionysus. This is also accessible from the road beside it (across from the Temple of Olympian Zeus) and, if you want to visit separately, you don't have to climb the stairs back towards the Parthenon.

Well we hiked back up (guzzling water) and headed for the Ancient Agora and Temple of Hephaestus. This temple is so well-preserved and is definitely worth seeing.

We found an outside-the-Acropolis road that led us back to the bus. We got on and enjoyed a good number of sites from the bus before we got off at the National Archaeological Museum (7€). We stayed there until closing (8pm) and saw prehistoric, bronze, sculpture, and Egyptian exhibits as well as a special exhibit of a shipwreck. We caught the last bus back.

We saw a lot of Athens and took the whole day doing it! 

Pictures aren't posting...

They're uploading to Facebook but not to the blog, something related to the Wi-Fi here. I'll get them up later!

And please excuse any typos, I'm doing all of this from my phone!

All the way to Athens!

I will have to come back and actually write this post later, but we have made it to our hostel in Athens! I think I need a nap now.

10:00pm: after a nap and dinner, I'm feeling much better! Still exhausted, though, but that's probably because we definitely didn't get to the hostel correctly today...

We got on a bus straight out of the airport and made our way through Athens, very proud of ourselves. €10 for two bus tickets is way better than €45 for a car! Well I actually got a call while we were on the bus from the hostel manager saying that there was a car at the airport to get us... I had emailed her that we were going by bus, but anyway... it's great to add on some stress in a new situation, right? on top of that, the view of Athens coming in is kind of depressing... very run-down.  Well we got off the bus when we saw signs for Syntagma Square, our destination. Turns out we got off way too early! We tried navigating the nearby streets for 2 hours before we found out that we needed to get much farther down the road... We were using a map provided in Emery's Lonely Planet guide book, and we weren't even on the map. The next hour was walking in the right direction and then getting tired enough that we rode the metro the rest of the way. If you're planning on getting yourself to a hotel in Athens, just RIDE THE METRO. It announces the next stop. So helpful.

So anyway, we made it to the hostel (Hotel Acropolis), checked in with kind Emmanuella, and I immediately took a shower. Our hostel is in the Plaka area, which is a lot nicer and more charming.

We went on a walk and ended up at the Temple of Olympian Zeus. This is the kind of stuff we came to see! (The rest of Athens is pretty ugly...) It's €2 to get in, but we could have paid €12 for all of the Acropolis area access. We're planning on doing the rest tomorrow and thought we might want to pay for a tour... We may do an open air bus tour (city sightseeing), as long as we can spend as much time at the things as we want and just get on the next bus. Having someone determine my route for me sounds nice!

We had dinner outside at Oasis cafe. We split a Greek salad and Greek spaghetti. I liked it, but I told Emery I won't be changing my order at Mythos!

We're planning on going back out later to find dessert :)

Thanks for following along!

Pictures below are at the Temple of Olympian Zeus. The third one has the Acropolis in the background. The forth is an example of the view in Athens... not very cute.

Leaving soon!

We are at our gate at the Charlotte airport! Want to say a big THANK YOU to MeeMaw for making this trip possible, our parents for getting us here (literally, they drove us!) and Curtis for helping making the trip even better! We love you and will miss you!

-Ann and Emery

My pack weighs 22lbs!

That's shoes, clothes, hat, sunscreen, toiletries... and not much else! I'm able to take my phone, camera, kindle, jacket, and paperwork in my small backpack. That's all I'm taking, and I just hope that we'll have a couple of opportunities to do laundry while we're there.

We're leaving soon!

Emery and I are leaving in three days for #BencinisDoEurope !! We now officially have all of our hostels booked, so it's great that we won't be homeless at any point! We have a couple of little flights booked, too, but the rest of our traveling will be purchasing train tickets as we go.

Our flight leaves Charlotte, NC at 9am on Thursday, June 26 and I will be gone for two weeks. Emery will stay behind after that for her archaeological dig in Spain (cool, right?!) and tour of Rome and Pompeii! How cool! Follow her blog here. 

We will be going to Athens, Mikonos, Rome, Florence, Cinque Terre, Madrid, and Barcelona. We are fortunate that all of our hostels have wifi, so that is what I will be relying on to post here. I am not bringing a computer, just my phone, so if any of the formatting gets messed up, I'll fix it when I get back. I am going to try to post just as much about the things that we see as the food that we eat... Let the adventure begin!