Venice// Saying Goodbye to Italy

Our last stop in Italy was Venice. We took a series of trains from Cinque Terre to Venice and spent our last few days taking in the sights of Venice. We allowed ourselves three days in Venice, which was just enough time. <Partially because we were pretty exhausted.>

I will admit that I had not done my fair share of research for Venice.  It was the last stop on our trip, so it was the last city to research, which came up on my to-do list about the time I started packing... meaning, it didn't really happen. As pathetic as it may sound, I did not fully comprehend that Venice was ON THE WATER. Not like, "Oh, I'm at this lake house that overlooks the water." More like "This entire city is on the water and people are puttin' around in WATER TAXIS!!" I have never seen such a thing. We legitimately took a WATER TAXI while in Venice.

As nice as some of our hotels were on the trip, this hotel was definitely in the top three. Hotel Dragomi is where we stayed and although very nice, it was in a pretty crummy piazza. At this point we were so snoody about our piazzas, that we were able to say things like "it's in a crummy piazza." But, it legitimately was.

I digress.

Venice was literally the hardest city to navigate that I have ever been in in my life. I don't know which was more worthless, a GPS or a map. The GPS was so confusing I wanted to smash it against a gondola. The map was better, however, I found it also difficult to read. Not to mention, my brain was overloaded with carbs and not firing on all cylinders.

Regardless of our inability to navigate Venice, it quickly became my second favorite city on this trip. It was just stunning. To break the "city on the water" down for you, there were literal waterways everywhere that you would be a major road in America. There were actual roads and walking paths, but significantly more waterways. The water-road system made the pathways in between them very quaint and picturesque and they had piazzas everywhere. It was truly lovely.

 This is a shot of one section of the "Grand Canal" which is their major waterway there. Its where you will find the majority of the transportation, taxis and gondolas.

 Although its not one of the major things listed to do when you research Venice, the Leonardo Da Vinci museum was one of our favorite things there. I always knew Da Vinci as a painter because of his works in Milan and his major painting of The Last Supper. However, Da Vinci was really more of an engineer and contributed to a ton of things we use in our everyday life like bridges, bikes and lots of other useful tools. This museum was very hands-on and gave you the option to mess around with reproduced models and inventions by Da Vinci. < There was also a 1.5 hour movie on Da Vinci's life, which we watched, in hard chairs, and I didnt even fall asleep>

 This is a shot of the Grand Canal at night. It really was breathtaking.

Now, we had seen our fair share of basilicas on this trip, but this was my second favorite. This is Saint Marks Basilica and one of the major attractions in Italy. This is located in a HUGE piazza by Doge's palace and connects to a prison, which you get to from the Bridge of Sighs. <Also another of my favorites>

This is Doges Palace. We paid for a tour of Doge's Palace and St Marks. Our "english speaking tour guide" , Gabriel, spoke incredibly broken and difficult to understand English. Not to mention, he didnt know how to turn his 1999s flip phone on silent and it RANG CONSTANTLY.

This is taken from inside the Bridge of Sighs. I know you're all thinking what bad photographer I am, however, this picture was taken this way on purpose to show that its inside the bridge and showing the architectural peak of the opening in the bridge. < I know, Im artsy.>

The Bridge of Signs comes from the Palace , where court was held, and over to the Prison. They would take prisoners over this bridge after they had been convicted. You can imagine why it's named the Bridge of Sighs.

This is another shot of some of the smaller water roads near our hotel.

On our last day in Italy we ventured to get a fish pedicure. These unique fish from Turkey eat the dead skin cells off of your feet and ankles.  It felt like a bunch of tiny prickles <is that a word> going into your feet. It was so weird and we literally laughed through the entire thing. About 20 people stopped in the window and asked us what it felt like.

Today we say goodbye to Italy. We had a few hours to burn before heading to the airport so we went back to Saint Marks Square one last time.

This trip was truly like any other. We experienced all the feels on this trip.

The excitement of seeing new things and places..
The discomfort of being away from home..
The happiness of being away from the daily grind..
The thrill of walking in the steps of history..
The deep sadness of losing a loved one while being gone..
The manic feeling of uncontrol not being able to be with my family during this loss..

It was a true roller coaster of emotions.

Life is like that sometimes. And as "punny" as it may sound, we just have to Keep On Rowland.

Until next time, Italy. You have been a peach.

Cinque Terre

After our stay in Florence, we took a series of trains over to our first stop in Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre literally means "five lands" and it is a beautiful rugged area on the Italian Riviera. There is a hiking trail from town to town that goes right along the coast so you can see all of the beautiful sights as you travel from town to town.  As the trail leads into each town, we slightly deviated in order the explore each town or get a snack/meal.

Our first stop in Cinque Terre was in Riomaggiore. We took the subway to this town, which we were staying in that night. This town was one of the smaller ones, but lacked nothing in its quaintness. The subway that took us to this town is right along the coast also. Once we got off the subway, we discovered that there is really only one mail street in Riomaggiore- Via columbo. Our apartment was right in the heart of this main strip and was so adorable.

This is the view from the back steps of our apartment. It was so sweet, I just wanted to sit out there and read a book all afternoon. 

After we got our bearings, we went out to explore a little bit. Since this was one of the smaller towns, there was not a whole lot to see. We initially went to the beach, which was very close to our apartment, however, this beach was unlike any beach that either of us had seen before. It was a rock beach, literally. And I'm not talking small pebbles- it was very large boulder rocks in some areas and medium rocks in other areas. It was very uncomfortable to walk around on or lay around on and getting into the water was even more uncomfortable. But, it was pretty!

All the men wore speedos and it was w-e-i-r-d.  I tried to talk David into partaking in that little tid-bit (when in Rome, right?) but he didn't buy into it.

 This was our view of Riomaggiore- simply breathtaking. You see all of these pictures online of this area, but theres just nothing like seeing it. And it truly is a pile of houses on top of each other as far as the eye can see.

Riomaggiore is known for its pesto, which works out because I LOVE pesto. The first meal I had here was pesto lasagna- it was fantastic.

After our nights stay in Riomaggiore, we took the trail to the next few towns, with our final stop being in Monterosso. Two of the easiest sections of the trail were closed , so we were forced to take the subway to the third town and then only hike to the fourth and fifth- however, this section was plenty difficult.

We made a wise decision and paid a guy 55 euros to take our bags to our final destination- with the bags weighing in around 40 lbs each, we were just afraid it was going to be too difficult. I am so glad we didn't bring our bags, because a couple sections of the trail were ROUGH.

This is one section of the trail to Monterosso. It was very steep! A person in good to average shape could make this trek, but I certainly wouldnt suggest carrying much baggage. Plus, the trail is right along the coast and alot of areas have very little to no safety rails. I could definitely see myself losing balance and falling to my untimely death if I had carried my bag.

Here are several pictures from our views along the way of the trail.

Once we made it to our final destination in Monterosso, we went to a beach there, which was very different. This beach, as odd as it sounds, was more like the texture of kitty litter.  It was much more pleasant to lay around on- and that we did! We were exhausted from our hike (which ended up being about 4.5 hours) so we lounged on the beach for a few hours before getting a shower and getting ready for dinner.

The hot thing in Monterosso were these huge terracotta pots full of rossotto and all the seafood you can think of--just piled high in a pot! Even though I think I cracked a tooth or two, it was delicious.

Florence

After our time in Capri we took the ferry back over to Naples and then the Eurotrain over to Florence.
Florence was an interesting city to visit because it seemed alot less touristy to me.  It seemed like more of a liveable city but yet still had so many gorgeous things to see.

This is Santa Maria Novella Piazza, This is where our hotel was located. It's very close to the train station and very centrally located. In the evenings, when the temperature got cooler, there would be musicians outside playing and singing. It was so nice.

I love this shot of Florence. I took this on our first day there- I love how you can see the river and the beautiful bridge. The water was so calm and nice this day. The beautiful color of he building is just so stunning.

No trip to Florence would be complete without seeing the David statue. We bought tickets online about a month in advance. It doesn't save any money, but it saves tons of time waiting in line.

We have heard of the David statue our entire lives but honestly didnt know that it was a statue of David after conquering Goliath. It all makes perfect sense now as you see his slingshot in hand. It was such a great statue. Unfortunately, it was just about the only thing in that particular museum that was worth spending that much time on. It was still worth it though.

We took a private car to Siena while we were in Florence. Siena is very small and we had researched a little about it prior to our trip. While researching, we didn't feel like it was somewhere we wanted to spent the night. The private car was an excellent option for us. It took about an hour to get there and we got to see beautiful countrysides and wineries of Tuscany on the way.

Although we saw a ton or gorgeous churches while in Italy, I think this one was my favorite. This church in Siena had very unique dark green marble that looked almost black. It was very gothic looking and just very different from most of the other ones we had seen.

We got to go inside and tour and it was definitely very impressive. Also, it was originally intended to be much larger but construction was ceased when the plague hit. You can still see where a large section of it was started but never completed.

 For some reason, we were all about climbing watch towers on this trip. Piazza del Compo was probably one of the best one we climbed. This piazza was very different-- shell shaped and sloping. it had lots of gorgeous (and expensive) restaurants around the Piazza. All of the buildings in Siena were this nice terra cota color so when we climbed the tower and looked out over the city it was like a sea of this color as far as you could see. Siena is very hilly- it seemed like everywhere we went was on top of a hill.

Once we returned from Siena, we had our drive drop us off at Piazza Michaelangelo. The David statue here is only a replica and not that impressive but the view is wonderful. You can see all of Florence from here and you can also see the old city walls which have been mostly torn down at this point.

Florence is definitely a must see while in Italy.

XOXO