Thursday in Roma

While hiking up and down the mountains of Cinque Terre along the Mediterranean coast Tuesday, I realized that in the past three weeks I have experienced quite a few superlatives: the coolest city I'd ever seen (Venice), the most enjoyable class I've ever taken (Food, Wine, and Language in Lucca), the longest time I've ever spent in Europe (3 weeks and counting, beating my 19 days from 2011), and now, the most incredible hike I'd ever been on. If you are planning a trip to Italy, Cinque Terre is a must-see!

Our last morning in Corniglia consisted of chocolate croissants (yummy!) at the internet cafe-bakery so we could access the web and check train times.  We realized we didn't have quite enough time to make it to any of the beaches in the neighboring towns, so I decided to do a long(ish) run of 9 miles round-trip on the road up to the fourth town, while Brad decided to do a little shopping in the second town, Manarola.   My run consisted of two miles up the mountain, gaining about 1300 feet of elevation, about a minute of flat road, and then two miles straight down to Vernazza. Then I turned around and came home. Very challenging, but what amazing views, especially coming back toward Corniglia!

Brad was due in shortly after me, but the minutes ticked by and there was no sign of him. We absolutely had to leave by 1:30 to make our first train (of two) to get to Rome, a 4.5 hour journey. After over an hour of high anxiety and silent curses on my part, Brad came running in at around 1:28, explaining he had missed his train to get back and the only options were hiking over the mountain or waiting for the next train, 70 minutes later, of which he chose the latter (and then sprinted up the 370 steps to the town). Quickly throwing his remaining things in his suitcase, we shot out the door to head to the train station. My nerves were not at all settled yet though, as we only had a 9 minute layover between our first train (a 15 minute ride to La Spezia) and the second one,  a 4 hour ride to Rome,

and of course, the first train was 10 minutes late.  So much for things being on time! Luck was with us, though, as even though we got to La Spezia several minutes after our train was supposed to have left, it had just started to pull in to the station by the time we made it to the platform. Whew! Between the run and my nerves, I must have sweated out several kilos in the period of 5 hours.  Speaking of weight, Sarah emailed me to say she made it home and actually lost half a pound.  Woo-hoo!! Three scoops of gelato a day is clearly the way to go.

So relieved to have made it!

And so onto Rome we went, arriving a little after 6 pm and heading right to the little budget hotel I had booked for two nights near the train station. We were pleasantly surprised by the place, Hotel Saturnia.  It was in a tiny alley, meaning there was no road traffic to keep us up, and they had actually upgraded us from a room with a shared bathroom to a room on the top floor (floor 4) with a private bathroom and balcony! It was pretty tiny, as all things are in Europe, fitting just our beds and a mini fridge (the smallest mini fridge ever!) but it was perfect for what we needed.

I was feeling pretty over-carbohydrated as I had eaten about .35 kilograms of focaccia (if you can't do the math to convert....it was quite a lot) with awesome fiore di Alpi pecorino cheese on the train, and so wanted nothing to do with pasta or pizza. We found a nice place with outdoor seating where Brad got his steak and potatoes while I was able to get grilled salmon for 10 euros and some spinachi with butter and parmesan. Delicious! We ended up chatting with the couple at the table next to us, from the Netherlands (I've met so many great Dutch people on this trip!) who gave us some tips about our upcoming dash of sightseeing.

One of the tips was on how to avoid the long line at the Colosseum, our first stop the next day after a lovely breakfast at the hotel. The ticket for the Colosseum also includes entry to the Roman and Palatine ruins, contained in a large park-like area just down the road.  Most people head to the Colosseum to get the tickets, because that is the main attraction, when in fact you can head to the ruins, where the line is extremely short, and then you have your ticket so you can bypass all the people once you get to the Colosseum. We explored the ruins first, which I hadn't even known existed, and they were pretty amazing to see. What surprised me was the time span between the various structures.  Some were from a couple hundred years before Christ and some from a few hundred yeas after.  The park was so big we ended up spending close to two hours walking around, then headed to the Colosseum.

We got right through the line, but then had to wait in a separate, short line for the guided tours.  The big tour of all the floors was already sold out for the day, but we got the 5 euro tour of the main two floors. It was worth it, as we found out some cool things I had no idea about.  One was that the whole place (which was built in the year 80 AD) used to be entirely covered with marble. However, in the Middle Ages, the material started to become very precious to they stripped down the whole place.  It was also interesting to learn the land that  the Colosseum was on was formerly a swimming pool of some ancient ruler. Additionally, the name "colosseum" is not derived from the fact that it's so big, but rather, because there used to be a massive statue of Colossus (so big it took 24 elephants to move it to that spot) just adjacent to the stadium.

After that, we headed out in search of lunch and had some pretty good pizza in what seemed like the "Little Israel" section of Rome. Then we headed up along the West Bank of the river (the Tiber River in fact, which I recognized from Mrs. LaPorte's 7th grade world history class!).

It was at some point during this time that I had my airhead comment of the day: while consulting the map, I noticed yet again, how many streets were named after men with the first name of Giovanni (btw, I have yet to see a street named after a woman who isn't a saint). "Wow, there are a lot of Giovannis!" I commented.  "It's like as common as the name John." Then..."oh yeah, Giovanni IS the the name John!" This was confirmed a short time later when I saw a photo with the name of Pope Giovanni II.

Speaking of the pope, our other main stop for the day: Vatican City.  With only one day to see Rome, and the vatican requiring a full day on its own to really see, we figured we would just pop in, say hi to Pope Francis, and continue on our way.  The line to get into the basilica (with free entrance) was long but moving quickly so we made our way in after about a 35 minute wait. It was impressive! But I feel like now that I've seen so many amazing churches, it's not quite as jaw-dropping as it once might have been for me. The next time I'm in Rome, I will make plans to tour the Vatican and see the Sistine Chapel, but we just didn't have time on this trip.

From there we continued on our walking tour to get some gelato, glance at the Pantheon, climb the Spanish steps (nice view!) and return to our hotel.  Being the dork that I am, I wore my garmin gps watch all day to see how many miles we clocked. We managed to do 12! (That's almost 20 kilometers for you metric folks). It was 6pm so we had a little bit of time to rest and shower before our 7:30 appointment.

View from top of Spanish steps 

So, a little backstory: a couple months earlier, when this trip was starting to be pieced together, I heard that one of my colleagues was also heading to Italy this summer. Renata is one of the math coaches in the district and was also on the interview committee that hired me last year. I asked her about her trip and she said she and her mother had just booked a week in Rome and it turned out they would be arriving the same day we were! Each of us had just made hotel reservations and so I google mapped them and we realized we were staying 150 meters apart. How funny! So of course we had to meet up.

So fast-forward two months, and here we were, meeting up in Rome! And what a fun time we had.  She and her mom were hysterical, and combined with some entertaining servers and the craziness of subway trains on the road passing literally 2 feet from our table, we laughed all night long.  I love how restaurants here don't try to push you along at all.  Finally, close to 11:30, we had to call it a night, as Brad and I only had 7 hours till our train departed Rome!

I'm not much of a city person, and Rome was more of an obligatory stop on this trip as the capital of Italy and since it was so convenient, but I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. As people had told me, it was quite amazing the extent to which the 2000 year old structures were seamlessly woven into modern-day life. It was pretty incredible to see. The only thing we were not fans of (besides the expected hordes of tourists) were the increasing number of beggars and the peddlers who were constantly trying to sell you something.  All night long we shooed them away from our table like mosquitos. But for a city, Rome was pretty neat. On to Naples, our last stop in Italy and the origin of the D'Aniellos!

Our route around Rome, in black, starting with our hotel circled on the right (3 o'clock position)

SoG: 105

Cinque Terre

Day 1
This is the one place we were going in Italy where there was nothing to do if it rains. Well on Monday morning just after Lisa and I got on the train in Florence the sky opened up, complete with thunder and lightning. It was not what we wanted to see at 6am. We headed up the coast on the train while the rain came down. As we pulled into our final stop, Cornigla, it was like Mother Nature was on our side. The rain stopped.

Stormy skies over western Tuscany en route to Cinque Terre

       We hopped of the train down by the sea. The town sat high above, perched overlooking the sea. We now faced three options: climb up the 370 stairs, walk up the one lane road, or take the shuttle. We being the athletes that we are chose option 2 and with all our luggage we made the trek up. We even beat the other train passengers that climbed up the stairs with no luggage.


        To our delight the people of Cinque Terre are extremely helpful and very kind. We met our lovely host Nadia. She made sure we knew where everything was in the apartment and even gave us her only umbrella in case the rain came back as we walked through the village. We met a woman from New York who gave us some tips for what to do and see in Cinque Terre. She recommended taking the ferry to see the towns from the sea (which we took note of).

The village of Cornigla

Our adventure truly began after lunch. Cinque Terre has a national park connecting the towns via a
system of hiking trails. Some were marked very difficult, others for beginners. For our first day, not
knowing what the weather would do, we chose the scenic coastal route, one of the "easier" trails. The two sections between the first three towns were closed due to storm damage from 2011. So, we went northwest toward the fourth town. To our surprise it wasn't all that easy. Lots of steps and some navigating to be done. It was truly beautiful seeing the sea from the path. We came to the town of Vernazza an hour later, with two castles, several nice shops, and a rocky beach. We decided to stop
there, and take the train back to Cornigla. Mission accomplished, our first hike was over.

On the shore trail as we approached Vernazza

Sunset from Vernazza

Day 2
We came to Cinque Terre to hike, and we wanted to hike to each of the four other towns. One was already done (Vernazza) so that left three. After sleeping in, we made our way to the path. Now the trails have the weirdest numbering and coding system ever! We had three maps, each was marked differently! Some said colors, one had single digits, and the third had all trails in the 500s. This was very confusing. And no matter which trail you were on, the painted markings for it were a red and white stripe.  So you at least knew you were on a trail, although you might not know which one! Many of the signs did have arrows with town names, so that helped, but the numbers written underneath were very confusing.  They didn't equate to either miles or kilometers, and after quite a few of them we pieced together that it was the estimated time to get to the destination, written with a decimal point instead of a colon (1.40 for 1:40).

The day began around 9:45 for us. The trails face west, so hiking in the morning means you are in the shade.  The trail heading up the mountain was labeled as "most difficult" but we actually found it to be less technical than the "easy" trail from the day before - although it was of course, much more challenging in elevation gain. The way up was all trail and the way down was all steps carved into the mountain - yes, more steps! After two hours (including lots of stops for photographs), we reached the lovely town of Manarola, perched in the valley.

Hiking high above the sea on our way to Manarola

Hiking right into Manarola

The town had a great spot for swimming. We jumped off the rocks into the Mediterranean.  The water was very refreshing and cooled us off. After a short snack break we were back on the moderate trail, heading up and over again. We reached Riomaggiore forty-five minutes later and decided to take the ferry from here up to the fifth town. Riomaggiore didn't look like much from above, but all the way
down at the coast it seemed to grow out of nowhere.

Lisa decided to jump in to cool off

I had my turn too

We caught the ferry around 2pm. It was a very fun ride! Standing on the top deck was the place to be! You could see everything! The towns, trails, and all nature had to offer! We rode all the way to town five, Monterossa, the most developed, with a large sandy beach, roads, and many multi-story hotels. It had a very commercial feel. We made our gelato stop before starting out on our final hike, to head back east toward Corniglia, although we weren't sure yet of our hiking end destination, as we would reach Vernazza first and that was still two hours away and it was already 5:30. Luckily, the train could easily bring us the rest of the way if needed.

Riomaggiore from the trail

The ferry we rode

Monterossa from the sea

Before...

After our gelato stop in Monterossa

The steps were many and never ending it seemed to me! We just kept going up. So much so we thought we had missed our turn. Up and up we went! From sea level to 1863 feet above- such a long way, some parts even on a two lane road with little shoulder and many winding turns.  We knew darkness would set in by 8:45, so we chose to go down to Vernazza, as much as we would have liked to go all the way to Corniglia.  It was 7:15 pm and the sign said 1.40. By this time we had determined that the first number was hours, and after the decimal was minutes - so that was the estimated time the trek would take. We notched up our pace and stopped much less to take pictures. There was no one on this trail with us until the very end and we strolled into Vernazza at 8:30. Not bad!

All in all it was a breath-taking experience and we didn't want it to be over with so soon! We had hiked 11 miles on a very sunny day!

Enjoy the view!

We went home to shower. We forgot we needed turn the hot water heater on ahead of time. Yikes that water was cold!

With the original forecast predicting our entire time in Cinque Terre to be rainy, we really lucked out!

SoG: 95

A note from Lisa: Happy 31st anniversary, Mom and Dad!
                                           

Seconda Meta

My other half for the past eighteen days is in her way back to the states as I write this. It was sad to say good-bye at the Florence train station yesterday but I am so appreciative of the amazing time we had together. Thank you, Sarah! Our time in Lucca ranks as one of the greatest two-week periods of my life.

After one last run on the wall Saturday morning, Sarah and I packed everything up and rolled our suitcases to the bus station for the hour bus ride to Florence. (Note: do not put your feet up on an empty seat while using public transportation. The bus driver actually stopped the bus to yell at me for doing so. Then on the train this morning, multiple others were yelled at for putting their feet up). We arrived a little after 2 and dropped our stuff off at the apartment we rented for the weekend through Airbnb. The guy who owns the place is fluent in French and Italian, but not great with English, so we had a very interesting Italian-French-English conversation. It was kind of entertaining, but I was surprised at how when my brain tried to retrieve simple French, most of what came out was Italian! It makes me wonder how people like my high school teacher Monsieur Alston who know nine(!) languages can do it.

Anyway, Sarah and I had some time before Brad arrived so we set out exploring. We had some recommendations from Maddalena on a clothing store and gelateria so immediately hit those up. We saw the Duomo of Florence, a very impressive site...it truly amazes me that things were built with such extravagance hundreds of years ago!

Through all this, Brad was en route to Florence and had plans to arrive via a 5:55pm train. I started to get nervous because we hadn't received any confirmation from him, and I knew he had a tight layover in Zurich as well as a tight turnaround from landing in Milan to catching his train to Florence. We got to the station and watched the 5:55 train pulling in, watched dozens of people get off, and still no Brad.  But then, finally, there he was, to our great relief, as we were not sure what we would have done if he hadn't arrived and still hadn't been able to get in touch.

The three of us had an enjoyable evening together, grabbing dinner and the heading to Piazzale Michaelangelo on the south side of the river for the amazing view of Florence that you see in all the pictures. Sunday morning comprised of some shopping, including Sarah finding the perfect leather handbag. Florence is known for its leather products and there was quite a lot to choose from! With another vendor from whom we bought some things, I exchanged basic pleasantries in italian and she expressed surprise that I could speak a bit of the language. I told her (in italian) about our two week class and she was shocked that I had only been learning it for two weeks. Score!

Before we brought Sarah to the train station for her 1pm train to Milano, we of course got one last bit of gelato together.  Sarah pointed out that we'd become quite the gelato snobs.  Despite the dozens of gelaterias around Florence, most of them did not look to be the "artiginale" authentic shops, and therefore, weren't worth it. If you want to know how to find true artiginale, ask and I will share the inside scoop (and that pun is totally on purpose).

Brad and I had no set plans for the afternoon but decided that it was a good time to eat so headed back across the river to get some pizza at GustoPizza, the recommended best pizza in Florence (thank you, Nick Webster!). It was amazing pizza and I had a fleeting moment of annoyance that we were sharing one and hadn't each gotten our own. It's good to not always be the supper-gluttonous American though! Our Gusto Pizza experience ended up dictating the rest of our afternoon, as we were placed at a table with a couple and their daughter.  I played the "guess which nationality they are" game with myself upon hearing their "ciao"s and my first choice of American was right on target. Anyway, we had a great conversation with this family from Los Angeles. The daughter had studied abroad in Florence last year and as a graduation gift, her parents took her back. Gusto had been her favorite pizza place, and after taking them there she was bringing them to her favorite gelateria. Then they were heading to tour the gardens of the gigantic Palazzo Pitti, built in the 15th century and home to the royal Medeci family.  We thought that sounded like a neat idea so we decided to do the same.  The gardens were massive and included amazing views of Florence. Adjacent to the gardens, but requiring a separate ticket so we didn't go in, was the fort at which Kim and Kanye got married at, if you care to know (which I hope you don't).





After the gardens we hit up the highly recommended gelateria, which had multiple awards hanging on its door and was AMAZING, and then we had a bit of downtime back at the apartment before heading to dinner, at another recommended place (by a Canadian duo Sarah and I met on the train a few weeks earlier), La Cipolla Rossa (The Red Onion). It was a bit if a splurge, as it was a little pricey, but what a delicious meal! For the first course, we split some homemade pasta with an amazing pesto-like sauce and bits of almonds, cherry tomatoes, and capelli - capers. I don't think I've mentioned the Italian capers yet in this blog. I am a big fan of capers back home, especially in my mother's chicken piccata, but only knew of the little pea-sized capers. All of the capers I have seen so far in this trip have been as big as marbles! Not sure why there is such a difference, but they're quite good. And for the second course, we split the 500 gram portion of T-bone steak (that equates to 17.636 ounces, if you do the math, but it does include the hefty bone). It definitely ranks up there as one of the best hunks of "mucca" that I've had.

Eating it though, I got a flashback to another recent steak I had, with my dad at Smokey Bones on my last night before leaving for this trip. I cannot believe that was less than three weeks ago, as I have experienced so much since then. And my adventure is only halfway through! I am thrilled and grateful to be able to do all this, but of course do miss everyone back home. Love you all!!

And since I know she is a reader if this blog, happy birthday, Kara!!

Latest SoG count: 78

Sorry to end the FP count, but it got a bit overwhelming. Especially once we got to Florence. I seriously think I saw more FPs than children. Sarah and I decided next time we'll do something more realistic, like counting glasses of wine consumed. Which would probably closely rival SoG...

Leaving Lucca

Lydia, Erling, Lisa and I after Montecarlo 

Our Pane, Vino e Lingua course wrapped up on Thursday evening. We were thrilled to have  Maddalena as our teacher one last time! She is the perfect combination of quirky, bubbly and hysterical. Each one of us wanted to pack her up and bring her home with us. We had roles in helping to prepare the four course meal. Our Austrian classmate, Lydia was in charge of chopping up veggies (verdura) for the Panzanella salad, which turned out to be excellent Antipasto dish!

Eilidh, "Miss Parmigiano" grated cheese and helped to marinate vegetables for the first and second dishes. Lisa, "Miss Melanzana" cooked up the eggplant, which was our first plate, consisting of eggplant, mozzarella cheese, parmesan cheese, tomatoes, and onions. Bellissimo! The second plate
was pollo and verdura fritta, or fried chicken and vegetables (including onions, zucchini, zucchini fiore, and sage).

I was referred to as "Miss Crema" and helped to prepare the cream for our "Zuppa Inglese." Translated as "English Soup," it was actually a dessert consisting of biscotti, a red liqueur, cream and chocolate powder. The entire meal took about an hour and a half to prepare and we sat and ate for around the same, enjoying Prosecco and white wine. At one point, the topic of gelato came up (surprise, surprise) and Lisa and I were asked how much we had had so far. We both responded "cinquantanove" or 59, and received a startled look from Lydia. She asked us to repeat the number, figuring we had simply said it incorrectly in Italian. When we repeated the same number, and further explained that we had each had around "trenta" or 30 scoops, she shook her head at us in disbelief (and perhaps even slight disgust). We couldn't help but laugh though...the number does sound ridiculous, even when we explain it's combined.

Maddelena...our Prosecco butler ;) 

One of the highlights came during cleanup, as we had just finished the dishes and were folding up the "tovaglia" when we noticed Maddelena was acting strange. She kept folding the ends of the tablecloth with quick, rigid motions that made it look like she was struggling to move her arms. Lisa finally
asked "va bene?" or "are you okay?" and Maddelena explained that she hadn't had a chance to get her armpits done. We were keeling over laughing, and Lisa to the point of tears. We are really going to miss her.

Koine School, 7.7.14- 19.7.14

Best focaccia in Lucca...bread will never taste the same.

We have not been short of laughter in Lucca... I was telling Lisa that I haven't laughed this hard, this consistently in a really long time (probably since Hawaii). Our final full day in Lucca was another example of this, while also being the perfect ending to an incredible two weeks. We had our final Italian class in the morning and took the afternoon to relax, do laundry and start to get things together.  We has made plans to meet up with other Koine students at 6:30/7 for apperitivo
(appetizers) at the "chicken bar." Lisa and I made a pitstop beforehand to "Unbiq," a local Lucchese bookstore and bought a children's book about Lucca. We both laughed saying that the book was definitely at our frustrational reading levels. However, it will be good incentive to keep learning Italian.

Last dinner in Lucca...

There were about 11 or 12 of us that gathered at the bar for appetizers, which was our typical hangout throughout the week. Afterward we ventured out to dinner at a restaurant over by the Koine School.  Lisa and I split gnocchi with pesto, a caprese salad and pork loin with roasted potatoes. We also ordered a bottle of the house red wine, which turned out to be more like a jug. Another guy at the
table had also ordered a bottle of the house red, so we had more than enough to go around the table.

Highlights from the night included...

-Of the 11-12 of us present at dinner, there were 10 countries represented... Switzerland, Austria, Netherlands, Norway, Italy, USA, Russia, Scottland, Estonia, and Spain.
- the waiter referring to one guy from our table as "Boy George" in Italian.
- watching a YouTube video man on the Italian Man in Malta
- Free Limoncello for the table (like an entire bottle). Woah.
- Eilidh drinking wine.
-Post dinner gelato outside of the wall at a place called "Le Bonta."
-The walk back to our places... At each drop off there were teary-eyed farewells, followed by three kisses on the cheek (because that is the Swiss, Netherlands, Norwegian way).

FP: 134, end count

SoG: 69

I am off to Florence for my last couple of days before the long trek back home. This trip has been one of the best experiences of my life, and thus it is hard to think that it is ending, however, I have a lot to look forward to in seeing family and friends that I have missed. Especially, these two....

i miei genitori 

I also want to express a HUGE thank you to Lisa....for encouraging me to take this trip, finally making my dream of seeing Italy come true. She planned every detail, navigated us through cities, and helped me to translate! :)  This trip would not have happened for me without you...and now, I am itching at the chance to come back!