Month: March 2017

Florence is a beautiful city. This morning we walked to the Accademia Gallery and saw some of Michelangelo’s sculptures including his statue of David. 

On the way back to our hotel I did some shopping. I didn’t buy anything at these stores although I was tempted. 

In the afternoon we went to the Uffizi Gallery. The building itself which is a Medici palace overlooking the Arno River is worth seeing but it also contains some magnificent sculptures and Da Vinci paintings. 

On our way to dinner I window shopped at some of the designer stores. This is Prada. 

Dinner started with fregula pasta and crustaceans. Duke had spaghetti and clams. Although I forgot to take pictures my second course was pistachio crusted tuna and Duke had beef. We ended with coffee. It was all wonderful. 

This morning before leaving Manarola we had a good talk with the owner of our hotel. His great grandfather owned the building in the early 1900s. The ground floor of the building had a wine press and a olive oil press. He said that back then the hills were covered with grape vines from the ocean to the top of the hills.  Now he said that people who make wine in Cinque Terre do it more as a hobby. The name of the Hotel C’D’Andrean is for his Great Grandfather. It means house of Andrean. We really liked staying there.  I hope we can visit again someday. 

From Manarola we took the train to La Spezia and then to Pisa. We left our bags at the train station and walked about twenty minutes to the leaning tower.  It was all beautiful and fun. 

From Pisa we caught the train to Florence and walked to our hotel which is right next to the Punte Veccio. The bridge is the only bridge in Florence that wasn’t destroyed during World War Two. Today all the stores on the bridge seemed to be jewelry stores. 

We went out for a walk. Florence is so beautiful. It feels like what I think of when I think of Italy. 

I especially liked the wood carvers store. 

I forgot to take my phone to dinner so I didn’t get any pictures. We ate near the hotel at Osteria I’ll Barroccio. The owner was very friendly. We had a great conversation about the joys of travel. 

 Today is our last full day in Manarola and Cinque Terre. It is another beautiful day. During the summer you can take a boat ride along the coast from one town to another. But because it is winter, and I assume because of storms, all the boats are out of the water right now. 

One of the fun things about travel is being surprised by what is delivered to your table. I ordered caffèlatte and toast with jam this morning and this is what I received. The coffee was hot and the pastry was a surprise but it was good. 

Today we took the train to Corniglia the middle of the five Cinque Terre towns and hiked north from there to Vernazza. The route still had ups and downs but it was more along the coast than our other two hikes. In the picture below you can just see Corniglia and behind it on the next point Manarola where we are staying. 

This is our destination, Vernazza. 

When we reached Vernazza we shared a  gelato and then took the train back to Manarola. 

We had a wonderful dinner. We started with octopus and potatoes. 

We then had fresh fish followed by walnut cake for desert. 

As we walked back up the hill to our hotel it was cool and there was no one else around. It is great to be here in the off season. 

We are spending three nights in Manarola, Italy.  It is the second from the south of the five Cinque Terre towns. Today we hiked from Manarola to Corniglia, the middle town. It was an absolutely perfect day, temp about 70, sunny and no wind. 

Yesterday I included a picture of our view from the window of Ca’ D’ Andrean Hotel where we are staying. This is a picture of that window. I really like this hotel. 

We saw lots of wine grape vines and olive trees along the trail. According to the brochure/map for Cinque Terre the terraces and walls on all the hills here where built about 1000 years ago. A lot of them are still being farmed. 

Both yesterday and today we have seen what I would call cog lines going up the hills. We weren’t sure how they were used but then today we saw a film crew being transported on one of the cog lines. 

This is a guy repairing a line. 

This is Corniglia our destination today. You can see the train station in the bottom of the picture. 

The trail today was much better than yesterday but it was longer and my knees are a bit sore tonight. We were told that train service might be disrupted today because of a country wide strike for National Women’s day. I was not looking forward to hiking back the way we had come and climbing up the hills we had just come down. But luckily the trains were running and we were able to take the very short train ride through a long tunnel back to Manarola. 

For dinner we started with mussels. 

Then I had ravioli with a walnut sauce and Duke had potatoes, anchovies, and tomatoes. 

When we were planning our trip Allison highly recommended that we visit Cinque Terre. So that’s where our travels took us today. It is stunningly beautiful. Cinque Terre is a string of five villages on the cliffs of the Mediterranean. You can hike between them or take a train that connects the town via tunnels through the cliffs. Here you can see our train leaving the station. We are staying in Manarola. 

We are staying here three nights. The hotel Duke booked for us is awesome. This is the view from our room out onto our terrace. 

The lady at the tourist information office explains that the hike from Manarola to the town south of here is only about a kilometer but it is all steps up and then steps down. We hiked and she was right. We went up up up sometimes climbing on the rocks. The views were stupendous. 

For dinner we ate at a little ten table seafood restaurant that we had to climb up to and then walk along a pedestrian path to get to. We shared home made pasta, and crab.