Euromoon 2011

Beach in Nice, with "imported" sand

Maybe it was because it was raining when we arrived, and we had to walk a considerable distance in that rain... with our bags... or because when we arrived at our hotel the manager informed us that our room was unavailable due to a broken shower so we had to walk to another hotel (that she graciously arranged for us)... but Nice was not so nice. Granted, we weren't staying at a fancy hotel or eating at the finest restaurants, so maybe all that luxury we had heard the French Riviera had was just happening somewhere we couldn't afford. It was also a Sunday when we arrived, and in Europe everything seems to be closed on Sundays which I guess added to the city seeming unimpressive. We did manage to find somewhere to eat dinner, which came with some free entertainment! Almost every time we eat outside there is some kind of street performer nearby, usually a musician. This night, there was a slightly plump man who would don a clowns nose (but was otherwise dressed normally) and make fun of the tourists walking by, imitating them. Some people were horrified but some people played along. It was very funny (but sometimes racist) and the most unique form of street performing we had seen.

The next day was gorgeous, and we decided to take the bus into Monaco (only 1 Euro!). We got off at Monte Carlo, to see the most famous casino in the world. Of course we couldn't go inside, let alone gamble, because the entrance fee alone was enormous. But the building and the landscaping surrounding the casino was amazing.

In front of the Monte Carlo Casino

View across from the casino

Somewhere nearby, possibly behind the casino

We walked around the coastline, gazed at the massive yachts in the marina and the even bigger cruise ships beyond that.

There was also some interesting artwork on the path overlooking the coast:

We didn't know what there really was to do in Monaco, so we just kept walking and walking until we got lost. We strolled along the Rue de Princess Grace, saw a museum and a Japanese garden where we sat and relaxed a while, and eventually just made our way back to where the bus would take us back to Nice. One of the best parts about the bus ride, aside from the price, was the view of the super lush coastline in between Nice and Monaco where I'm sure many celebrities have villas. Matt and I would stare out the window, looking at these areas, and debate whether we should buy a helicopter or a yacht first after we make our first billion dollars.

We ended the day with a light snack and bottle of wine in the park, excited to leave for Barcelona the next day!

Cinque Terre in Italian means "Five Lands" is made up of five little villages that sit on the Italian riviera: Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore. Matt and I stayed in a rented room in Vernazza, which is probably the second biggest village - not as bustling as Monterosso but not as remote as Cornigilia.

Vernazza

We loved Vernazza because it had a sandy little beach and all these massive rocks sticking out in the water that people could lay on. The water was also pretty and and super clear, so a lot of people were swimming as well.

Matt sunbathing

Upon arriving we had quite a bit of trouble finding where we were staying, which was literally a room in someone's house. Our biggest clue that we were getting close to it was this interesting sign:

Our host was very nice, and after resting a while in the room (it was a long train ride from Venice) we changed into swimsuits to catch the last bit of sunshine down on the beach. We stayed to watch the gorgeous sunset as well

The next day it was time for some serious hiking. There are trails that connect all 5 villages, some more treacherous than others. We bought an all day hiking and train pass, and took it to Riomaggiore to start our hike towards Manarola. This section of the trail is called the Via Dell'Amore, or "Love Walk" and was a very easy walk. The trail was literally covered with graffiti from previous travelers, on the walls, rocks and even carved into the cacti. We also noticed people left hundreds of locks here, a tradition we found in other places around Europe but something we had never heard of. The locks often had the names of lovers and the year, and since almost all the ones we saw were from 2011 we assumed city officials must have them (and the graffiti) cleaned out at least once a year. Anyway, it was no wonder this trail got it's name as the view was incredibly beautiful and romantic!

We tried to make our way from Manarola to Corniglia, but the trail was closed so we hopped back on the train to Corniglia instead. The reason I am mostly glad we didn't stay in Corniglia, despite it's quaintness, is the 368 steps you have to climb to reach the village! It was unexpected and unpleasant, so we treated ourselves to a snack and a drink once we finally got to town.

Then it was off back to Vernazza, which was a lot more difficult than I anticipated, so once we got back to our home village we opted to just take the train to Monterosso to look around that village. Even though the hike was difficult (for me at least, Matt was hiking with a beer in hand) it was definitely beautiful and unlike anything I've ever seen. Along our way, we ran into some Chico State kids studying abroad - it never ceases to amaze me what a small world we live in! Monterosso is the busiest and most touristy of the villages, probably the only one that has proper resorts and really fancy hotels. It has a long boardwalk, so we took a stroll as far as we dared to either end, stopping for our 80th gelato on the way After we had our fill, we hopped back on a train to Vernazza to shower and relax before dinner.

If any of you go to Europe, I don't recommend relying on your phones GPS and our hunt for a restaurant that night was a perfect example of why you shouldn't. We looked up a place we found on Tripadvisor called "Il Pirata delle Cinque Terre", and since it was a pirate-themed restaurant we knew we had to try it! So, we attempted to follow our little blue dot to where GPS said the restaurant was located, tucked behind the maze of buildings going up the hill. After climbing up the same steep paths a few times, trying to ask where "il ristorante" was and being pointed in the wrong direction, we decided to go ask the woman at the internet cafe if she knew where it was. Turns out, it wasn't even in the little area by the water, but on the completely other side on the train station up another big hill. So off we went, our feet sore as hell because of all the hiking and walking we had done that day, only to find that the restaurant wasn't open that day!! Feeling defeated, we ended up just plopping down at a pizzeria which luckily turned out to be delicious and perfectly greasy. The night ended with a bottle of wine overlooking the water and the lights of the village, finally relaxing from our busy day!

*Sorry sorry sorry! It became more difficult than we anticipated to keep this up while we were gone, with only our iPhone and spotty WiFi connections! I'm trying to play catch up now!

After the two hour train ride from Florence, we arrived in Venice around 2pm. The walk from the train station to our hotel gave us a nice glimpse of what Venice has to offer - lovely canals, lots of people, and cute little shops and cafes. After checking in we decided to "get lost" as a guidebook recommended, and found that the best areas were definitely the smallest hidden alleys with no one else around. We made our way to St. Marks Square but just hung out for a bit since we knew we'd be back the following day to spend more time in that area. On our way to our hotel earlier, a random woman gave us two water bus tickets she said no one validated and should be good all day, so that night we decided to try it out on our way home since St. Marks was at least a 25 minute walk. To our happy surprise they worked, although we realized that woman probably forgot to validate the tickets herself as most of European mass transit is on an "honor" system that way, and had she been caught with the unvalidated tickets she would've received a hefty fine. But at least we got a free ride! The water bus also allowed us to see Venice from the water, which was a nice change of scenery.

Our adorable hotel room

Water Bus!

We rested at the hotel for a bit, and since there wasn't WiFi we walked to the only McDonald's on the island to look up a place for dinner. We found a local Venetian restaurant that was highly rated and decided to try it. Almost everything on the menu was seafood (naturally) so Matt ordered spaghetti with mussels and shrimp, and I had just spaghetti with vegetables, washing the whole meal down with a liter of Prosecco. Our waiter was super funny and nice, and we could tell it was a local, non-touristy spot which was great.

After dinner we wanted to sit by the canals with a bottle of champagne, but because Venice is more of a "day-trip" location most of the stores were already closed. We walked and walked trying to find somewhere that sold wine or beer, and to my surprise Matt eventually ended up buying a bottle of champagne at a pizza place!

The next day Matt woke up early to get us fresh fruit cups for breakfast from the open-air market right outside our hotel, and then we walked all the way back to St. Marks Square to go into St. Mark's Basilica. The church was just as gorgeous as many of the other churches we had seen in Europe, but it seemed odd that while it was free to go into the church, almost every area inside the church cost money to see. For example going upstairs, which seemed to have an impressive view, cost 5 Euro a person... we decided that we'd rather pay 8 Euro a person and go up into St. Mark's Campanile (bell tower) across the street which is 323 feet tall. Needless to say, the Campanile was a much better deal! We had to wait a little while for the tiny elevator to take people up and down, but it was amazing to see the hundreds of little orange roofs and the ocean beyond them.

Peppers at the market

The Campanile

View from the top!

Oh, did I mention the pigeons? You probably know that those flying rats occupy most busy cities, but the ones in St. Mark's Square are worse than most. There has been a very long tradition of tourists feeding pigeons here, which was only recently outlawed, but means that there are TONS of them. We watched in utter horror as people would sit in the middle of a huge crowd of them with bread or some other food, and let the disgusting birds crawl ALL OVER THEM!! And then there would be a child or two who ran threw them, sending them flying. I swear every time a pigeon took flight it was aiming for my head. So of course it was difficult to sit anywhere without coming under attack... but despite our best efforts one of them still pooped on me while we were sitting outside the Basilica. Whoever says it's good luck is full of it!

After doing all that we tried to visit one of the smaller islands nearby, but we misunderstood the water bus prices and in the end decided it was too expensive. On that note, we decided the famous Gondola rides were also too expensive and didn't take one (sorry Aunt Debbie!) - it cost over $100 for a short ride on the busy canals, and didn't appear to be the romantic experience we imagined. We chose to put that extra money to good use at the end of our trip instead (more on that later) Then it was just more and more walking, only stopping when our legs and feet got too tired to go on since there was so much to see. For dinner that night we had spotted a Kosher restaurant (our hotel was located in the world's oldest Jewish ghetto), which had a menu I was immediately drawn to: hummus, cous cous, falafel, etc.

Traditional Israeli appetizers that I couldn't wait to scarf down, so of course I forgot to take a picture first!

The food so nice they named it twice.

Following dinner we grabbed the bottle of wine we bought earlier, and wandered to some empty steps on the canal to enjoy it. It was a lovely way to end our short trip to Venice!

After dropping the rental car off at the Florence airport, we jumped on a bus that took us to the main train station, close to our hotel. We had some trouble finding the hotel at first, as the street names in Europe are often confusing. The room was modest but comfortable, and we thought there was no shower until we realized the the entire bathroom was the shower - the showerhead was perched right above the toilet! After settling in we went to dinner at a restaurant we found on Trip Advisor called Antica Trattoria "da Tito". Also hard to find, (but aren't the best places always the most difficult to get to?) we ended up having a lovely meal. We ordered an appetizer of salami, sheeps milk cheese and fig mustard, which was excellent although I definitely let Matt have most of the salami while I enjoyed the cheese . For our entrees Matt had freshly made tagliatelle with wild boar, and I had fresh eggplant ravioli with a sweet pepper cream sauce. Matt said it was one of his favorite meals, but mine was a bit too salty. We decided to share chocolate cake for dessert, and as we finished Tito himself came over and asked if we wanted Limocello. We had read on the reviews he often took shots of Limoncello with customers and left the bottle for them to enjoy as much as they wanted - for free - so of course we obliged. We took three shots with him back to back (mind you we also had 2 bottles of wine with dinner) and then shared a few more shots with friendly neighboring patrons. Tito came back for one last shot with us before we left... Needless to say, we weren't feeling our best in the morning, but it was such a great experience

The next morning we headed to the Galleria dell'Accademia to see Michaelangelo's famous David. There were some other exhibits there but nothing as impressive as David. We had been seeing a lot of paintings and sculptures of David in our trip so far, and he was almost always depicted with Goliath's gruesome decapitated head, so it was interesting to really see and appreciate what made this David so special. Afterwards, we had some time before our reservation at the Uffizi Gallery (for the Uffizi, tickets sell out so fast we had to reserve a month in advance), so we explored the area around the River Arno. When we finally got to the Uffizi we realized we had vastly underestimated it's size and spent many hours in it's countless rooms and corridors. The most famous painting here is Botticcelli's Birth of Venus, which was my absolute favorite. All of his work seemed to stand out from the others, so his popularity is no surprise. We came across another very interesting Rennaisance-era painting of a nude court jester "little person" that had both front and back views. Paintings like this, on both sides of the canvas to show perspective, was rare enough but to have such an unusual subject made it another favorite! There were tons of other paintings and sculptures to see, and our feet were quite tired by the end. After relaxing, we had dinner in the Palazzo Della Signoria, a main square near Uffizi where David used to be displayed (a copy is now in his place). Towards the end of dinner (pizza and ravioli, nothing to really write home about but Matt did say his pizza was really good) we heard an opera singer in the distance. We followed the sound to the other side of the Palazzo and were able to listen to the very talented young opera singer performing in the street until the Polizia shut her down, along with all other street performers. I was bummed we didn't get to hear more, but grateful we got to hear it at all. I was lucky enough to get a short video, so at some point I will upload that!

The next day we headed to the train station for our next stop: Venezia!

Sorry for the delay! Free WiFi has been tough to come by and we haven't had much time for sitting in Internet cafes...

We left the busy streets and subways of Rome to rent a car and drive through Italian wine country. After picking up our very tiny Smart car from the Rome airport, we headed to our first winery in Montalcino called Poggio Antico. It is a small boutique winery in the Tuscany region, specializing in a type of wine called Brunello. We got a very informative tour of the winery, followed of course by a tasting. Our group was small and full of Americans, some of which we actually saw later in Florence. Our tour guide was a young Scottish woman who had been living in Italy the past 8 years and was very sweet and helpful, giving us (and the group, including other honeymooners) advice about where to go and what to do later in our trip. We decided to stay for lunch since we had gotten quite lost on our journey there and were famished. I was delighted when my gnocchi arrived and was literally covered with black truffles! Matt ordered a pork stuffed pasta with veal sauce, and we shared a glass of wine since we had also bought a (not cheap) bottle of their Madre - a blend of 50/50 Sangiovese and Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. After lunch we had about an hour drive to our bed and breakfast in Siena, my face glued to the window to take in the insanely gorgeous Tuscan landscape. Siena was quite tricky to navigate in a car, because the city is enclosed by high walls and you need a very special permit to drive within them, so we had to park somewhere we guessed was close to our B&B and walk into the city. Luckily we guessed pretty well, and we had a short walk before being warmly welcomed by our hosts. The room was very nice, with a small balcony and another window overlooking part of the city. Not long after we settled in for the night after walking around town, a storm hit and it started pouring so we sat in bed watching the sky light up and listened to the roaring thunder.

The next day we got up early to begin our drive into Chianti (Greve to be exact) for our second winery, the Castello da Verrazzano. Giovanni da Verrazzano discovered the bay of New York and the main part of the East Coast of America (the suspension bridge in New York with the longest span in the world bears his name). The winery has a tradition of winemaking dating back to 1170.

This was a slightly bigger winery, where of course their specialty is Chianti Classico, but they also make white wine, sweet wine, grappa, and REAL balsamic vinegar. I was heartbroken to learn my giant bottle from Costco is nothing but regular vinegar flavored and colored, since real balsamic is like a syrup and costs about 50 Euro for a 100ml bottle. We had a lovely tour of the castle and the grounds, led by an adorable young Italian man, and then of course a tasting accompanied by bread and olive oil (I was tempted to lick the plate clean the oil was so good).

Afterwards we had about another hour drive to the Florence airport (my face on the window again) where we dropped of our not-so-beloved Smart car, and settled in for 2 nights. Stay tuned for a separate post on Firenze!