Photos

Uploaded the photos I took in Rome (just a few; I've already got a lot from my last trip) and Monterosso al Mare, the third and final village I visited in Cinque Terre.

Tuscany

Daytrip 1: Sienna, Montelicino, Piensa, Montelpulciano

I woke up around 7, showered, and made my bleary-eyed, runny-nosed way downstairs, where I met the driver who was taking me to the tour meeting point. Very nice guy. Worked as a jeweler until the economy crashed and wiped out most of Naples jewelry market. As a result, he moved up to Florence and started in the tourism business.

Anyway, he dropped me off at the bus, where my guide Elio took over. Short, squat, and very Italian are words that all applied to Elio, and he was quite friendly and talkative (i.e. Italian). Anyway, me and about 10 other people crammed into the van and were off!

First stop: Sienna, home of the Palio horse race, 17 districts of the city that all hate each other, and the banks that started the banking families of Tuscany (the Medici included) on their way to power. We had a short tour of the town, past a few churches and through a few squares (you can see how much attention I pay to those now), eventually ending up at the main square of Sienna, where the Palio horse race (viewed shortly in the James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace) is held twice a year. It's essentially the Italian version of the Kentucky Derby. People spend weeks getting ready for the event, even though it only lasts about 3 minutes start to finish.

Anyway, after exploring the town, the tour took us to a shop where we tried some Siennese sweets: Panforte (fruitcake with more fruit than cake), Ricetta (cookies made with almonds, honey, and egg yolks), and panepato (spicy fruitcake). I bought some of the Ricetta and a half-bottle of dessert wine, then went exploring. We only had about an hour, so I didn't get far, but I did buy a souvenir map and a breakdown of the 17 districts and flags.

After that we went to Montelcino, where we explored the town for a short while (pretty medieval town, not many tourists) then went to a winery where we tried Brunello, a dry red wine famous in the region (which, much like Chianti, can only be made in one specific region of Tuscany). We crammed into a cellar, drank wine, and ate salami and prociutto for about an hour, learned how to decant old wine (apparently you should decant a bottle of wine older than about 20 years at least 20 hours in advance), then jumped back in the van.

Next up: Pienza, another small medieval town, to try some pecorino cheese, and get lost in a few back alleys. After exploring for a bit, I went back to the meeting point, but only Keikko (a Japanese woman whose Navy husband was stationed in Sicily) was there on time. I was worried they had left us, but the rest of the group showed up 15 minutes late (there was a Brazilian couple that was slooooooow, and they apparently held everyone up).

Last stop of the tour: Montepulciano, another wine making city, this time famous for making Vino Nobile, a slightly sweeter red wine than Brunello, but still very dry for my taste (I love dry whites, but dry reds just make my face pucker). After that, back in the van and back to Florence. The ride back was interesting; the only other Americans on the tour had a son who was just about to start his second year of college in business. His school didn't have a good career department, but he wanted an internship, and wasn't sure how to do about it. I told the couple everything I knew about getting internships, and they just about hugged me.

Anyway, back in Florence, I grabbed some pizza at the train station, walked back to my hostel, grabbed all my things, and dragged it (and me) to my new place. Once I got it all there, I CRASHED. My cold had been dragging on me all day, so I was exhausted.

Daytrip 2: Sienna, Chianti, San Gimignano, Pisa

This probably would've been my favorite trip, except I felt sick for most of it.Thanks to my cold, I didn't get to sleep until around 1-2 am, and I had to be up at 6 to make the tour on time (no pickup at the hotel, so I had to walk to the station). So, a combination of sleep-deprivation and coughing had me feeling a little sluggish.

But: I wasn't about to pass up a chance to see Tuscany, so I just bit the bullet. (Oh, and note to family: I feel fine now)

Anyway, the first stop was Sienna again, and was slightly more informative. The Siennese guide the first day was in a hurry for another apointment, so we didn't see much. This guide walked us through the history of the city and its rivalry with Florence, showed us the original banking offices, walked us through the monastary-turned-hospital, and then let us wander the square. I had some calls to my hostel to make (the bathroom in my hostel was jammed, I didn't know the wifi password, and I wasn't sure if I had to swap rooms for my last night) so I just found a cozy spot in the square.

Next, lunch at an organic farm in Chianti. 'Twas very tasty, and the cows they kept were adorable (including the one that looked like it was about to explode it was so pregnant). Why they walked us through there before feeding us beef ragu (made from those cows' colleagues) is beyond me. It was tasty, though. As was the rest of the meal (another post). The white wine (Vernaccia) was particularly good; it reminded me of vinho verde in Portugal. After lunch (where I talked with a design student from Kansas and a couple from Singapore), we took some photos in the Tuscan contryside and crammed on the bus.

Next up was San Gimagnano (San-Jimmy-Nyan-Oh), a medieval town famous for its towers. The town was gorgeous but, unfortunately, I have no real thoughts on it. By this point, I was EXHAUSTED from lack of sleep, so I grabbed a soda and sat on some church steps for most of the time there. I did some shopping towards the end too (they're famous for their alabaster and wine), but that's about it. It didn't help that there was a medieval festival going on, so the main square was shut down (otherwise I would have tried to climb one of the towers). Anyway, coke, sit, shop, BACK ON THE BUS!!!

Next up was Pisa. Thankfully, it was an hour and a half away. The tour guide managed to say this and "Feel free to take a-" before I was asleep. I woke up ten minutes outside of Pisa and felt like I could run a mile. Take the sleep deprivation out of a cold, and it gets much better, apparently. Who knew?

Anyway, we got to Pisa and hopped on a tourist train to take us to the Cathedral Square (saving us 20 minutes of walking in 85 degree heat. I felt like kissing the driver. Despite the fact he was a hairy, 40-year old, Italian man). Once on the square, our guide showed us how to take the typical cheesy picture (I refrained, and I have several photos showing WHY I refrained), but I did take a picture with the tower. Afterwards I went to the Campo Santo (the burial ground there, where Fibonacci is buried, and where Galileo WOULD have been buried if Florentines hadn't claimed his remains). Next, I went to the Baptistery, just in time to hear a demonstration of the acoustics of the room. Well. Demonstrations. One official one and about a half-dozen unofficial ones. Bring a 4-year old into a room with an echo and tell him to be quiet. See how well that goes. (The kids who would stomp around then protest, "But I didn't say anything!" were my favorite). After that, a few last minute photos of the tower (and accidentally crashing an impromptu photoshoot where a spanish teenager laid in the grass and umm...strategically placed the tower to mimic a certain part of his anatomy. Nice to see all teenagers are stupid, and not just the American ones) then back on the bus.

Officially, the tour ended here, though it was another 2.5 hours back to Florence. It normally took 1-1.5, but there was a ton of traffic from the beach, too. So, I sat and listened to the lady behind me smack her gum for 2 hours and her daughter complain about how her water wasn't cold anymore (try not leaving it in the sun, sugar). I was quite happy to scamper off the bus by the time we were home. Once there, I tried to grab a cab, couldn't find one, so I just walked home, skyped my dad (who suspiciously had video turned off. Can't imagine why), and went to bed.

Daytrip 3: Chianti

I got a much better night's sleep that night and REALLY felt the difference the next morning. I strolled down to the Florence Town office (the company leading the tour) and hopped on the bus with our guide, Matteo, a Tuscan sommelier. He drove us through Chianti for a bit, then up to the Castello Sonnino winery in Montespertoli, which he thought to be the finest wine-making town in the world. It WAS very good, I'll give him that. Anyway, he gave us a tour of the whole process, from growing to harvesting to fermentation to three kinds of aging (including opening up one of the casks, which he was NOT supposed to do). Afterwards, he showed us how they made Vino Santo, a VERY sweet dessert wine made by basically drying the grapes to raisins before fermenting them (more sugar percentage at the start means more sugar left over when the yeast get killed by the alcohol percentage). They don't actually sell much of the stuff outside the vineyard. It's so expensive to make that no one would buy it after shipping and markup, so you have to get it at the winery. Even then they sell it at a loss; most wineries just use it to try and get people to come try their other wines, too.

Oh, also. I'm a bit of a troll, if you don't know, and when I see an opportunity to troll someone, I take it. Out of curiosity, I asked how an average Chianti wine differented in taste from an average Napa Valley wine (meaing drier, sweeter, oakier, etc.). Matteo just looked horrified and said, "It's better. There's no comparison there." So, sensing an opening, I asked, "If I wasnted to get, say, a bottle of Merlot from California, could I get that in Florence?" Matteo just kind of paled and said, "I don't know. Yes? Why would you do such a thing. You're in Tuscany." I couldn't help but poke at his overdeveloped ego. So sue me.

Anyway, after the tour, the winery fed us lunch and let us try some wine. The wine was good (the chianti especially, obviously) as was pretty much everything else. I felt like I was in some kind of movie, though, when the door to the courtyard opened and the matron of the vineyard came in carrying a basket of fruit, dog glued to her side, and said, "I have some fresh-picked fruit for you, here. Let me go wash it and I'll be right back with it." Seriously? How 'Under the Tuscan Sun' can you get?

After lunch, some shopping at the vineyard store (I was pretty much the only one who didn't stock up), then off to another vineyard. Can't remember the name of this one, but it was a bit bigger. They had some gorgeous gardens with a lot of Lavender (which was actually blooming. Didn't see that in Provence). Also had a chat with a fellow touree, who was originally from Quebec, but retired to Thailand. He was planning on stocking up as much as possible, since the Thai government taxes foreign wine imports something like 150%. After seeing the gardens, Matteo explained how olive oil was made (the winery was also an organic olive farm), then we headed up for a wine and cheese tasting. I didn't like this wine as much (it had a more industrial-size feel to it; the other winery was TINY compared to this one), but the cheese was excellent. The conversation was also good, too. Six glasses of wine over the course of an afternoon works wonders with turning strangers into new friends. We talked about politics, travels, technology, and a couple other things, then crammed back in the van and headed home. Thankfully, we got back mid afternoon instead of late at night, so I had time for a nap before dinner.

Florence

Day 1

Turns out, there was a regional train to Florence from La Spezia, so I didn't need a seat reservation. I just hopped on, and we were off.

I was incredibly sedentary my first day, and sat around the hostel. Not because I was lazy, but because I had grabbed a STACK of brochures from the front desk, and was trying to figure out which daytrips I wanted to take. I eventually settled on three (described below), bit the bullet, and made around 250 euro of charges to my card. I just about melted.

Anyway, after I made the decisions, I wandered the city a bit, then crossed the Arno to eat dinner at Piazza Pitti. On the way back, I stopped to grab some shots of the sun setting over the Arno.

Day 2

OH LORD THE RUNNING.

I spent pretty much this entire day running around doing errands. First I ran to the train station to reserve a seat to Rome, but the computers were down, so they couldn't. Next, I ran to the tourist office next door to have the tour pick me up at my hostel (otherwise, I'd have to be up at 6 to make it to the departure point near the train station in time). Thankfully, that wasn't a problem.

Next, hostels. I had to split my time in Florence between two hostels, but since the desk at the second hostel was only open while I was on my tour, I had to run and grab my key and check in early. So, I booked it across town to my hostel (funnily enough, it was next door to where I had eaten the night before), grabbed the keys, paid up, and left.

After that, I swung by the hostel I had been staying in and made sure they wouldn't throw my stuff away if I left it after check out (so I didn't have to take it on the tour with me the following morning). They said 'no problem,' so I ran back to the train station. Thankfully, it was up and running again, so I grabbed my ticket.

By this point, it was around dinner time, so I grabbed dinner and headed home. I didn't get to see many sights in Florence, but, then again, I've seen them all already. Only thing I still haven't seen was the Uffizi, which wasn't high on my list anyway.

Cinque Terre

Day 1

The next day, Sean and I bid each other a tearful farewell and hopped on trains heading different directions. Sean went to Genova for a daytrip, and I left for the next city on my list: Riomaggiore, one of the five villages in Cinque Terre. The trip was pretty uneventful. Met two couples (one Brazilian and one Australian) that were headed the same way. (Sidenote: I ended up accidentally stalking the Brazilian couple all through Cinque Terre. They passed me on a hike, then I bumped into them at a restaurant in Monterosso, then walked past them on the beach). Once in Riomaggiore, I had to walk down a tunnel from the station to the main street, which was lined with all sorts of colorful mosaics and tiles. When I got to my hostel, I found out I wasn't quite done lugging stuff around. Turns out, the front desk of my hostel was on the main street, but the room itself was a ways down the road, then up 6 flights of stairs. Blech.

Anyway, I spent day 1 just exploring Riomaggiore. I wandered down to the 'beach' (a stretch of about 10 feet of rocks along the water), up to the main street, up just a bastard of a hill, to a little castle overlooking the town and the water. I sat there and read for a bit and texted with my family, then went down for dinner. 

On the way back to the hostel, I passed my roommates, who were all watching a soccer game on TV outside a bar, so I joined them. That actually became the theme of Cinque Terre. Euro 2012 was going on while I was there, so every night there was a different game on. None of us were huge soccer fans, but we all headed down and watched anyways. Good excuse to chat.

Anyway, everyone had about a glass of wine, and the guys were ready to call it a night...then the girls decided they wanted more. So they ran up, grabbed the 1.50 euro cartons of wine (yes, cartons. Real quality stuff there) they had bought earlier, and started refilling their glasses. They each had about 5 glasses apiece and were...solidly not sober by the end of the night. This led to one of them giving me a lecture on the dangers of Romney's Mormonism. I just nodded solemnly and promised to take her warnings to heart.

Day 2

The girls woke up nursing some rather nasty hangovers, and me and the other guys tried (with very little success) to not smile too obnoxiously. Anyway, the room pretty much cleared out except for me and the two girls from Vancouver. I spent the day walking the Via dell'Amore, a paved section of trail between Manarola and Riomaggiore. I laughed at what some creative people used when they realized they had forgotten a lock to lock to the railing (some romantic tradition); some people tied bags and food wrappers around it, which was just funny to see. When I got to Manorola, I walked a ways up the main street, saw how steep it was, and walked right back down. After that, I grabbed some tasty lunch and kept walking the Cinque Terre trail.

Normally, you can walk straight through all five towns, but a mudslide this winter knocked out the one between Manorola and Corniglia, so I could only go a little ways. Still, it was enough to get a really pretty photo of Manorola, so I was happy. I even bumped into two of the girls from the hostel. After that, I walked back home.

That night, my roomates and I did a repeat performance of going to the bar to watch soccer. This time, it was me, the two girls from Vancouver, and two girls from the UK (one from Shropshire and the other from Manchester). No, I don't know why so many of my roommates have been pretty girls. No, I'm not bribing the front desk. Whyever would you think that? Anyway, when the game finished, we headed upstairs, met our two new Norweigan roommates, Tina and Tonya, and three new female Australian roommates (Dear world, Please send some of this surplus of women on the road to Tech. Love, Chris), planned the next day, went go to bed. By the way, if you're keeping count, that's me as the only male in a full 8-bed hostel room. I haven't felt that outnumbered since the last time I went to one of John Zelek's acapella concerts.

Day 3

I woke up with a nasty cold, and my throat in particular was not happy with me. I wheezed a bit, then got up and decided to go on with my plans. I caught the train to Monterosso al Mare, the largest of the five villages, and the only one with an actual beach (unless you count the nude beach near Vernazza. Which I certainly don't). I got there, sat watching the waves for a bit, then grabbed lunch, where I met two girls from Florida, who were studying in Florence and had taken a day trip to Cinque Terre. We chatted a bit, and when I ordered, the waiter poured me a shot of limoncello. I don't know why. He didn't say anything either, just plunked it down, smiled, and left. Then again, I'm not complaining.

With a great stroke of timing, I left the restaurant right as my two new british friends were walking past. We wandered for a bit, then grabbed some gelato, ate it near the beach, and mocked Suzanne for her inability to keep the chocolate ice cream off her hands. The mockery only intensified when she started licking it off, realizing that she still had sunscreen on her hands.

Anyway, after ice cream, the girls went back home, and I wandered up the hill aways, intending to kill 20 minutes while waiting for a train. I ended up finding the other half of Monterosso hiding behind the mountain, and spent about an hour and a half exploring (and watching the end of a game of petanque).

Afterwards, I headed back to Riomaggiore, tried a glass of the girls' 2 euro white wine, made a face, and poured them a glass of some 12 euro wine (which, after tax and shipping, would go for about $40 in the States). Lydia now hates me, because she can't drink the 2 euro stuff. Then, dinner (at Ripa del Sole, a swanky slow-food seafood place at the top of Riomaggiore), watching the tail end of the soccer game, then bed.

Milan

Okay, catching up on all my posts up to Rome:

Day 1

Got in, got a set of metro tickets (with some unasked for help at the metro station) and checked into our (rather swanky) hotel. Not sure why that place was only 35 euro a piece per night, but I'm not complaining. It was a rather long train ride, so we got in right before dinner time. We planned a bit, thumbing through travel guides and whatnot, then headed to Dinner at a little place down the street, where the Italians began their ongoing campaign to feed me to death. That night, I bought an hour of internet, and caught up on posts and such, then bed.

Day 2

The next morning, we realized two things, in the following order:

1. Hey! Da Vinci's "Last Supper" is here!
2. Hey, we're NOT getting to see Da Vinci's "Last Supper!"

Apparently, you have to book 2-3 weeks in advance, and the booking fee is 15 euro. To see one painting. Then, apparently, it's often sold completely out, WEEKS in advance, because scalpers buy all the tickets, then sell them for upwards of FIFTY EURO outside the church where the painting is.

Needless to say, we didn't go.

Instead, we went to the Duomo of Milan (apparently, the second biggest cathedral in the world), where we were kinda bowled over by the sheer size of it. St. Peter's has it beat on both size and quality, but the cathedral in Milan just FEELS massive. After that, we went to the Galleria, the first "shopping mall" in the world. It's basically two intersecting covered walkway full of (really really pricey) shops. I did find it HILARIOUS however that the four stores on the intersection are Gucci, Prada, a ritzy antiques store, and...McDonalds. 'murica. After that, we headed over to the Parco Sempione to wander a bit. They were setting up for a local music festival, so it was fun to just wander and listen for a bit. There was a roving brass band that was HYSTERICAL. They were playing in a clearing when the bandleader spotted a couple making out in the grass. They snuck over and surrounded them (everyone following them of course), then started playing while standing all around the (now very embarrassed) couple.

After that, dinner (we were boring and went to the same place), avoiding a huge thunderstorm by a few minutes, then bed.

Day 3

The next day, we realized that we missed one of the main draws of the Duomo: going on the roof. So, we got our lift tickets, went up, and were massively underwhelmed by how small the section we could walk on was. Then we realized that that little square was about 1/10 of where we could go, so we wandered about, much more satisfied.

Afterwards, we went into a ten-story shopping mall full of NOTHING but Armani, Gucci, Prada, Versacce, Burberry, etc. etc. etc. ... and one tiny electronics store. I'm not complaining, that's what got me my baby back! Anyway, after that, we wandered through an electronics/games/movie/musical supply store in the Galleria and headed home.

Ah, Roma!

In Rome, after what was probably the most uneventful train trip of the summer.

Good to be back, even if it is hot as all hell here!

Uploading photos

Doing things a bit out of order. Uploading my Cinque Terre photos before Nice, Monaco, or Milan, for no other reason than I like them better.

Hope you enjoy!

In Cinque Terre, Headed to Florence today!

Hi all,

Sorry for being so behind. I've been in Cinque Terre (a series of five villages on the west coast of Italy, near La Spezia) for the past three days, and am headed to Florence in about 4 hours. Cinque Terre was one of my favorite places so far, so I'll definitely be uploading some posts about it, but for now, just a quick update.

Left Sean in Milan (he's back in the states by now), and caught the train to La Spezia, then a regional train from La Spezia to Riomaggiore, where I stayed all three nights. It's actually one of the smaller villages, which made finding a place to stay tricky (very few places would rent a room to just one person; most would require me to pay for two), but was really cool, as it meant I got to know the village pretty well, even though I visited two others as well. Anyway, it's absolutely beautiful here, so I got a ton of photos I'm really happy with.

Now, I'm off to Florence, which I'm going to use as a base to explore Tuscany for five days. Don't have any particular plans for what to see, though I'd like to go on a vineyard tour in Chianti. I figure I'll just head to the tourism office as soon as I get there and see what day trips I can book.

Anyway, off to catch a train!

My baby's back!

Laptop's working again. Thank you random electronics store in Milan.

Now: I have a week's worth of photos and posts to get started on. Ciao for a bit!

And so I'm back!

(from outer space)

So, our hotel in Milan (oh, got here in one piece, by the way!) has free computers and cheap wifi, so I can blog again!

No photos, though. The USB ports are inaccesible, so I can't plug in my camera.

But, I have a few quick posts to make at least! I'll get them up asap.