Last 3 weeks of Travel!!

Hi friends and family!! Sorry it has taken so long for our last blog post and sorry it is going to be a long one! The last 3 weeks of our trip were very busy, but lots of fun!! We are home now, and both happy and sad. We have already gotten back in the full swing of life! It almost seems like we never left. We can’t wait to see you in person again! Hope you enjoy and we’ll see you soon!

7/21: I did some grocery shopping and then met Roberta for our last lunch. We went to a delicious little pizzeria, then took a walk along the beach, and a little shopping, then said goodbye. When Casey got home, we headed to the beach for a while, then made it home before it started to rain and hail.

7/22: We have been packing off and on and did a lot this morning. I ran some little errands and got ready for Casey’s family to arrive. Casey was able to get off work early so we walked to the bus station to pick up his family. It was a little scary because we had no way to communicate with them, just an idea about when they should arrive. We were sitting in the air-conditioned building waiting when I looked up and saw Kegan walking! They had just gotten there and were waiting in the shade. It was great to see them! We walked to their hotel, which wasn’t too far and got them settled in. Right away we took them to get some gelato and then to the beach to swim and nap (they were definitely feeling the time change!). We took them to one of our favorite bar/restaurants to get aperitivi and some delicious pizza for dinner. Then we had more gelato , and home.

7/23: Casey had his last day of work so he headed there with some thank-you candy bars for his work mates. I met the Grimes’ in the morning and took them around Historic Pescara, an Italian grocery store, and to the fresh food market. Casey was able to come home and eat lunch with us and then went back for a little bit for his final goodbye. Ginny, Ken, Kegan, and I went shopping a little bit, but didn’t find anything too exciting. We went to the beach again and the water was nice, but it was really windy so there was sand blowing everywhere – not very enjoyable! For dinner we took them to get arrosticini at a small place!! They loved it just as much as we did. We showed them where Casey proposed.

Since Pescara is a fishing city, every year they have a festival to pray and thank San Andrea (the fish god). This was the weekend it was happening (very lucky timing!). It was a huge fair with lots of booths selling food of all different kinds, clothing, pets, and even vacuums. We took a walk down the main street and got some more arrosticini because it was a little cheaper at the fair. We took a walk up the Ponte al Mare bridge, which looks its best at night.

7/24: Today is our last day in Pescara! It has gone so fast – we can’t believe we are already leaving after living here for a little over 2 months. We met up with Casey’s family and took them to a Nature Reserve by our first apartment. We walked around the lake and took some pictures. By this time, the sky was looking pretty scary and it started to rain. Actually, this is an understatement…it was pouring and blowing sideways. Luckily, we had a bus shelter to sit under. However, every bus that stopped was packed full already. Ginny took off her shoes because they were new and suede and she didn’t want them ruined.

Finally, another bus came and we were determined to get on. We had to slosh through some puddles, and then cram our way in among all of the others trying to get out of the rain, many of them were the men who walk around on the beach trying to sell stuff, so they had their big bags of clothing and it smelled terribly of BO. Overall, it was a very pleasant ride back to our apartment (yeah right). We went back to our apartment because when we left that morning most of the windows were open, so we were very nervous our place would be flooded. We took another bus back so we didn’t have to run in the rain. Luckily, our roommate was home and was able to close most of the windows when it started. The only thing that was really wet was our bathroom, but it was all tiles so it dried fine. We were very thankful it didn’t leak in our room and get our packed bags wet! We were planning on eating lunch at the festival but the rain made everything close up. Luckily, the same little pizzeria was open so we ate there, then went shopping. We hung out at the hotel room, and then took Ginny to church.

We were unsure if mass was happening at the normally scheduled time because there was a wedding going on. Ginny told us that it was still being cleaned up when mass actually started. Casey, Ken, Kegan, and I went back to our apartment and played some cards until Ginny got back. Casey and I made a delicious dinner for them: tomato bruschetta, spaghetti with pesto and chicken, along with bottles of white wine and Prosecco. Then we went and got our last gelato from Bontà. We thanked the main guy who was always there, and he ended up giving us all of our gelato for free! They were extremely kind and we will definitely miss that place.

Our roommate Maxim came with us and we were glad we got to know him a little better before we left. He was really kind and was able to talk to Ken and Ginny some with the little bit of English he knew. We took one last walk down to the festival and then parted for our last night in Pescara. We had to go home and pack up the last bit of our stuff.

7/25: Our train to Venice left at 8:15 so we met up with Ken, Ginny, and Kegan and hiked to the train station. We had 3 big suitcases, 3 small carry-on suitcases, 4 backpacks, and a couple of other souvenir and food bags. We looked ridiculous walking down the street! We got on the train alright, but it ended up we had looked at the wrong ticket for our car. We got on car 5 and had to walk all the way to car 1 with all of our luggage, as the train is moving. We finally made it up to car 2 and found out that car 1 had no electricity, so we were put in our own little Harry Potter-style compartment in car 2. Since we had originally had reservations in car 1, we were taking up other passengers seats. There was no way we could move with all of our stuff so we had to keep getting the ticket lady to rearrange everyone. It was extremely hectic and a long train ride, but we made it to Venice, which is all that mattered!

We got out of the train station and then had to buy vaporetto (water taxi) tickets. It was beautiful! We were right on the Grand Canal so we could see how everything worked without streets – the water taxi drivers were masters at their jobs! After the water taxi ride, we walked the narrow streets up and down bridges over the canals to get to our B & B. It ended up being on the fourth floor, without an elevator, with all of our luggage!! Aaahhhh, it was exhausting. Once we got settled, we went for a walk to St. Mark’s Square and Basilica.

We found a nice restaurant that had a tourist menu, which usually includes a first course of pasta, a second course of meat, and a side. We had some delicious pasta with ragu, seafood pasta, and lasagna, but none of the second courses were very tasty (which seems to be a recurring theme in Italy).

7/26: Our plan was to go to Murano island and see the glass blowing. We took a vaporetto back to the train station, then switched boats to get to the island. We ended up taking a trip around the entire Venice island, which was neat to see everything, but it took forever. Right when we got off, we found a place where we could watch the glass blowing. It was amazing! They are so talented and it looks like they could do it in their sleep! That part was enjoyable, but when we looked around in the store, the salesman was extremely pushy. We walked into several stores (there’s only glass stores on Murano island), bought some wine stoppers and other souvenirs. We bought sandwich makings and fruit from the grocery store and made our own picnic lunch in a public park.

We took a vaparetto back to Venice and got some gelato, then took a walk and bought some wine along the way. We went up the Campanile Tower in St. Mark’s Square, with a beautiful panoramic view of the entire island. We took a break at the B & B, drinking wine and playing cards. At about 8:30 we left for dinner along the Grand Canal by the Rialto Bridge. Casey and I dressed nice so we could use Ken as our photographer and take some potential engagement photos!

We ate delicious pasta. While we were finishing up, a water ambulance zoomed by and the waiter ran out to tell everyone sitting near the water to hold their feet up because of the wave. We saw some monstrous rats clambering up from the water, scurrying under our feet. They were disgusting!

7/27: Ken and Ginny got up a little earlier to get in line to go into St. Mark’s Basilica. Casey, Kegan, and I wandered around and did some more souvenir shopping. We ate delicious pizza for lunch, then gathered our luggage and went to the train station. We left for Florence with no train problems whatsoever!! The problems came once we got to Florence! We walked to our rental car office, but they didn’t have a car for us. So….we tried to decide if it would be worth taking trains for the rest of the trip or find another rental agency. We decided that with all of our luggage it would be too hectic on the trains. Luckily, there was an Avis down the street, which was able to rent us a 9 person minibus. We tried to use our GPS to get to our hotel. It wouldn’t stay on, so we had to navigate with Google maps. Walked to a small pizzeria for dinner. It was amazing!! The owner liked us so he gave us all limoncello (lemon liqueur).

7/28: We took the bus to the center of Florence and ate breakfast. Headed to the Duomo first. It included the babtistry, cathedral, the dome, and another campanile (tower). It was so intricate, beautiful, and enormous on the exterior. The interior was simpler, but still pretty. We walked to the Piazza della Signoria, filled with about 15 sculptures, including a copy of Michelangelo’s David. Unfortunately, we didn’t reserve tickets for the Uffize Gallery, so we waited for 2.5 hours. Once we were done, we ate some gelato and took another walk on the other side of the river. We were all exhausted so we took the bus back to our hotel, via a grocery store for breakfast food and more wine. Casey, Kegan, and Ken decided to take a trip to the Avis at the airport to get a new GPS for the car. Of course it started working perfectly as we made it to the airport. They decided to exchange it just to be sure that it wouldn’t stop again and, of course, the new one they got was slower…figures! When they got back, we ate dinner at the same restaurant as the previous night.

7/29: We left at 9 and drove towards Siena and Montalcino in the Tuscan region. We wanted to see the beautiful Tuscan wineries and countryside! We saw acres of vineyards and sunflowers. We stopped and did a wine tasting (yum) and ate lunch at a little restaurant. We headed to Siena and got there mid-afternoon. Casey and I had no problem getting around the city, without a map, from our previous visit. We walked through the city streets, and then to the Duomo, Crypt, Babtistry, and Museo dell’Opera. Everything was just as impressive the second time around! In the Museo, we went up the tower and saw the beautiful panoramic view; even Ginny went all the way up the narrow spiral staircase!! We wandered around to some of the neatest souvenir shops we had seen, then had a drink in the piazza. We got some pizza and sat on the Campo to eat, then headed back to Florence about 8:30.

7/30: We woke up early to get to our 9:00 reservation at the Galleria Accademia. After waiting for so long at the Uffizi we thought no line would be totally worth it! It had so many sculptures among them: about 8 unfinished sculptures by Michelangelo and, the main attraction, his David sculpture (the real one). Overall, we enjoyed it much more than the Uffizi. Did some more souvenir shopping and headed back to the hotel for some lunch and relaxation. We were able to do laundry, read, catch up on emails, and take a nap!! It was a nice change of pace after going like crazy for the past week. We also decided to go to the IKEA store since Ken, Ginny, and Kegan had never been there. We didn’t have directions and the GPS wasn’t working again, but luckily Casey, Ken, and Kegan remembered their way around from going to the airport! Overall a hilarious little adventure. We found a restaurant down the street that had good pizza and pasta. Kegan got seafood pasta that was loaded with clams and mussels; it took him longer to get the seafood out of the shells than to actually eat his pasta! On the way home, more gelato, then we played cards with more wine!

7/31: Ken went grocery shopping to get breakfast and lunch food, then we got everything packed up and on the road to Cinque Terre, via Pisa just for some pictures with the famous tower! The ride to Pisa was only an hour and the views were pretty; hundreds of tree farms along the way. We parked for an hour and took some pictures leaning against the tower, like all of the other tourists, then got back on the road to La Spezia. There were amazing views of marble quarries in the mountains and little hill-top towns along the way. We found our hotel easily and got settled in.

We had to take a bus to the train station, then a train up to Cinque Terre; we went to the last town, called Monterosso so that we could do the hike from there to the fourth city, Vernazza. We heard this was the most beautiful, as well as most difficult, hikes between the cities. It took about 2 hours to hike, stopping to take lots of pictures of the beautiful views with breaks because there were hundreds of stairs. It was definitely a great workout and so worth it! There were vineyards scattered throughout the mountainside and constant views of the coast. Vernazza was breathtaking! It was a small town with brightly-colored buildings where everyone knew each other. We saw a small parade of little kids all dressed up and a band of old people, and then found a small restaurant by the water for dinner. Ginny and I had delicious local white wine and the boys enjoyed some cold beers. The food was fine; we were disappointed because the pesto smelled delicious, but it did not taste as good as we make it. We sat by the water for a while, then caught the train back. We were all exhausted and excited for bed after a great day!

8/1: We slept in! We were so excited when we went down to breakfast because there was a huge buffet full of pastries, yogurt, salamis, and even scrambled eggs! We were headed for Rome next, so we all got packed and prepared ourselves for a longer day in the car. We were in beautiful countryside, had a good lunch at a gas station, and made it to our Hilton near the Rome airport about 3:30. The Hilton had just transferred over to a new booking system that day and it was not working properly so we witnessed a very angry man yelling at the staff. We drank some Prosecco and a bottle of Chianti and ate dinner at the Hilton restaurant.

8/2: We got up at 8 and munched on random foods because the Hilton didn’t have breakfast (well, an 18 dollar breakfast), then took the shuttle to the airport, where we could catch a train to the center of Rome. We had to walk a ways to get to the Colosseum. We bought the Roma Pass which allowed us unlimited use of the buses, metro, and quick entry into some places. We ate lunch and went to the Roman Forum to walk around the 2000 year-old ruins. It was extremely hot so we had to take a lot of shade breaks and luckily found some cold public water! Next, we went to the Colosseum and because of our passes we were able to skip the long line and go right to the front. It was massive. We were all in awe that something that large could have been built so many years ago!

Next we went to the Vittorio Emmanuele Monument, which was our favorite from our first trip to Rome. We took pictures and then headed to the Trevi Fountain, more gelato, and then to the Spanish Steps. Next to the Pantheon and Piazza Navona, where they were setting up the Miss Roma beauty pageant. A lot of walking, but a lot of beautiful and unique places! We ate an ok dinner, and then started our journey home – taking a bus to Roma Termini, then the metro to Ostiense, then the train to the airport, and the shuttle to the hotel. Yikes!! Now..sleep!

8/3: Luckily, Ginny and Ken woke up on time and woke Casey, Kegan, and I up to get to the Vatican for our tour at 10 AM. We had quite a hike to get to our meeting place on time, ate some breakfast, and then off to the Vatican. We had a very lively and funny 22 year old Canadian tour guide named Brandon. He had floppy hair which he played with all day. He graduated high school when he was 17, went to Cambridge for 3 years, graduating with a degree in “Classics” (Latin, Greek, art and language), and then moved to Rome to give tours because there is nothing else to do with his degree! But…he did know his stuff! We surpassed the line, got headsets, and then started. One of the first things we learned was that St. Peter’s Basilica was closed that day due to a German Altar Servers convention – there were thousands of German children in the Rome streets. There were about 15 people total on our tour and some of them were very disappointed because they were leaving the next day and would not be able to see the basilica.

We had a lunch break and then started again – going into an open courtyard, and down halls full of sculptures. We went through the Hall of Maps and the Pope’s rooms, painted by Rafael. Then on to the Sistine Chapel. To be concise, it was amazing! After everything, out tour ended up being 6 ½ hours long! We bought some souvenirs, and then more gelato! We decided to walk over to St. Peter’s Square, just in case we weren’t able to get into the Basilica the next day. It was massive, a giant circle surrounded by huge columns. At this time, it was filled with German children! We sat in awe for a few minutes and then went to find a restaurant that our tour guide had recommended. Unfortunately, it didn’t open until later, but we found another one close by. Again, we took the bus, then metro, then train, then shuttle back to the hotel.

8/4: We got to sleep in until 10:15!! We had no breakfast food so we all got ready and headed to Trastevere to find another restaurant that our Vatican tour guide recommended, but again it was closed...ahhh! We were really disappointed, but ate at a little restaurant because we were all starving by then. We took the bus north, back towards St. Peter’s so we could go in the largest church in the world. It was just that, with massive marble columns everywhere. We saw the real Michelangelo’s Pietà (so beautiful!). By this time, we all felt like we had seen most everything in Rome we wanted, so we took our last trip back to the hotel, where we all showered, played cards, and drank wine before heading down to the Hilton restaurant for dinner. We finished our packing and weighing bags.

8/5: We got up and packed quickly and took the shuttle to the airport to get Ken, Ginny, and Kegan checked into their flight, ate a quick breakfast, and then said our goodbyes, this time only for a week. Casey and I were lucky enough to have Ken and Ginny take our large suitcases back with them so all we had left were two carry-on size pieces and our backpacks, much easier to manage! We took the train back to Rome and then headed back to La Spezia and Cinque Terre. The train had outlets so we were able to use the computer and internet on the ride to get some things done. When we got to La Spezia, our B&B was only about 3 minutes from the train station, plus about 100 stairs because we were on the 4th floor. We decided to go to Corniglia, the 3rd city, for dinner. When we got off the train, we were very confused because there was a road, but no city. We walked up a hill and found the city. It was absolutely beautiful with breath-taking views. We found a little pizzeria and brought a bottle of wine to drink. We found a little overlook, where we sat and ate dinner, then saw our most beautiful Italian sunset! It was a wonderful night!

8/6: We woke up early to get breakfast and head to Monterosso, the furthest city, to start our hike for the day. We bought 2-day Cinque Terre cards, which allowed us unlimited train access and hiking on the trails. However, we looked at the schedule wrong and there was no train when we thought, so we went back to our B&B, where Casey got some school stuff figured out and I went back to sleep. We finally got to Monterosso about 10:30 to start our hike. We were already hungry so we ate some foccacia bread (native to this region), then realized we had forgotten our sunscreen. We started our hike from Monterosso to Vernazza (the same one as with Ken, Ginny, and Kegan); it took about 1 hour and a half, and when we got to Vernazza, I found some other Americans who let us use some of their sunscreen!

Headed on to our next city, Corniglia. It took another hour and a half. The hikes were beautiful and a good workout! There were hundreds of stairs and elevation changes, but it was worth every minute! We ate more of the same pizza for lunch and continued our hike! It took about 40 minutes to Manarola! When we got there, we took a break and got gelato! We finally headed to the last city, Riomaggiore, along the Via dell’amore (love walk). However, it was not romantic or pretty at all; there was a ton of graffiti, but it was only about 20 minutes. We took the train back to our B&B for showers, then went back to Manarola for dinner. We ate at a nice little restaurant and had big portions of delicious pesto and carbonara pasta, along with some wine. We sat on some rocks and watched some little kids fishing and then headed home for some well-deserved sleep!

8/7: Again, we got up about 7:45 to get breakfast and then catch the train to Monterosso (the 5th town) with the largest beaches, which were small compared to Pescara. We found a spot pretty easily on the rocky beach and spent our time taking in the sun, sleeping, reading, swimming, and eating some fresh fruit. This went on for a good 5 hours or so until it was time for lunch. We had more foccacia bread pizza and then took the train to Vernazza to hang out. We sat by the water in some shade and took a nap, listening and watching the Italians in their little fishing town. We took the train to Riomaggiore to use a cheap internet café, then back to our B&B to get ready for dinner. We got our favorite dinner – a bottle of wine and two pizzas – in Vernazza and sat by the water. Then we watched a sunset and the stars come out before catching our train back.

8/8: We slept in and then got our beach stuff together and headed for Vernazza; this was obviously our favorite city! It wasn’t crowded, but there was only a small beach area, so we laid out on a concrete area by the water, surrounded by locals! Once we got hot, we decided to go jump off the end of the concrete “pier” into the water. It was only about 5 feet high and a lot of fun, jumping and diving off. Then we saw some people jumping off a cliff about 15 feet high and Casey decided he wanted to! Casey jumped off once and then I decided I would, but I was too scared to go by myself so he came up with me to jump again. I was pretty scared, but I got up the nerves and jumped – it was a lot of fun, but the pressure going into the water made my ears hurt really bad (and it lasted for about 3 days). We ate some lunch, lounged in the sun more, and swam, a wonderful last day in Cinque Terre. Again, we ate dinner by the water in Vernazza; it was delicious pizza, pasta, and wine! We headed back to the B&B to finish packing for our early train the next day.

8/9: We caught a 7 AM train to Naples. We were nervous in Naples because we had heard so many bad stories about pick-pocketers, but we kept ourselves alert and were fine. We got to Sorrento about 3:00 in the afternoon; we were staying at a nice hotel, where they picked us up at the train station and drove us up the side of a mountain to our hotel. Our room had a balcony with a view of the sea. Unfortunately, right from the start, the views were not that great. It was really hazy from the volcano and remained that way the entire time we were there. We took a great nap, then took the shuttle down to the Sorrento city center to walk around and eat dinner. We found a restaurant and had a tasty dinner! Unfortunately, before dinner my ears started to hurt pretty bad again so we headed home after dinner. Tomorrow we will be more ambitious, but it’s great to be lazy sometimes!

8/10: We slept in until 9 and then ate a great breakfast! There were scrambled eggs, tons of pastries and other breads, salami and other meats, yogurt, and freshly-squeezed blood orange juice. We bought bus tickets to go to Positano on the Amalfi Coast (from the movie Under the Tuscan Sun). Of course, the bus schedule was wrong, so we waited for almost a half an hour before the bus finally came. The bus was packed so we had to stand for the 40 minute ride, on the steep and curvy roads – it was exciting! We were able to get some great pictures of the coast, but we were unsure of which stop to get off at. I saw a sign that had an arrow to the beach, so we got off and walked down a cliff with tons of stairs to get to the rocky beach. It was hot so we swam quite a bit to cool down.

When we finally left a couple hours later, we counted the 278 steps to get back up to the road! A great workout! We waited in the hot sun for the bus to take us back towards the center of Positano, and got off at another stop where we thought we might be able to find some food. However, we had no map and no idea where the center was; the roads were windy and narrow with no sidewalks so we didn’t want to walk too far on them and we needed to be able to find the bus back to Sorrento. Basically, we got off the bus, wandered for about 10 minutes, and then waited for the next bus back to Sorrento. The first bus was empty and we had seats, the second bus was packed full and everyone was standing squished next to each other and we were all sweating like crazy because it was so hot. Needless to say, not the best bus trip again! We finally made it back to the center of Sorrento, got some gelato and then caught our hotel shuttle back up the mountain. We walked to a pizzeria near our hotel and took it back to sit on our balcony in the hotel with a bottle of wine. This was some of the best pizza we had!! Then we took the shuttle back down to the city for a nice walk at night. It ended up being a great night after a not-so-great day.

8/11: We ate another delicious breakfast and then took our shuttle down to Sorrento for a beach day. Again, this is a very small beach area that we took stairs down to, so we ended up sitting on some concrete, but the water was beautiful and it felt amazing! We lounged and swam, ate lunch, read, took a nap, and swam some more – a very relaxing day! We took the shuttle back to the hotel to shower and got pizza from the same place to eat on our balcony. We took the shuttle back down one more time to get some last minute souvenirs and gelato. By this time, we were very ready to be back home in America!

8/12: We had our last delicious breakfast, packed everything up, and took the shuttle down to the train station. We took the train to Naples and then back to Rome. We were lucky enough to stay at the same Hilton Hotel near the airport as with Casey’s family so we knew how to get there no problem! We relaxed and read, then played some cards, and drank our last Prosecco. We ate dinner there because they had good food and it was easy. Finished packing and headed off to bed.

8/13: We got to the airport and everything went smoothly. It was crazy though – American Airlines was in a warehouse building off of the main airport. Our shuttle took us there, where we checked our bags and went through security. Then we took a bus back to the main terminal, where we would catch our flight. We walked around the duty free shops while waiting and spent our last few euros. When it was time to board the plane, we went down an escalator and took another bus out to the tarmac, where we climbed stairs to get onto the plane. Overall, a bizarre experience, and by the time we got on the plane, our passports had been checked five times!

Luckily, there were good movies on this 10 hour flight. We read, watched The Bounty Hunter, took a short nap, and played some cards. We went through customs all too easily in Chicago, and then had to wait for 4 hours until our next flight left. However, once we had all boarded the plane and drove out onto the tarmac, there was a lightning storm, so we had to sit out there for about an hour. By this time, it was 8:45 in Chicago, Italy time 3:45 AM, so we were exhausted and slept, the entire flight back to Denver. We were so relieved to be back in a familiar airport when we finally arrived 2 hours late, about 10:30 PM. My mom and brother picked us up at the airport and we went to drop Casey off at his place and eat some delicious brownies (that don’t exist in Italy!). It is great to be home, but I was so sad to have to say goodbye to Casey because we will both be living at home for a while to save money. We went to bed about 1:30 in the morning. Casey woke up at 4:30 and was wide awake for the rest of the day and I woke up for an hour between 4 and 5 and then was up at 7 AM.

Overall, we had an amazing 3 months in Italy. It was bittersweet to come home and now seems like Italy was so long ago, but really we were in Rome 3 weeks ago. Thank you to everyone who made our trip wonderful and to those of you for staying in touch and taking the time to read our blog. We are happy to share it with everyone!