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Monthly Archives: November 2014
Beaches
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Biodola
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Fetovaia
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Barbaraca
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Driving Around
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Isola d’Elba
Isola d’Elba!! Though I am half Italian, I never knew that this little archipelago off the coast of Tuscany in the Mediterranean Sea even existed!! The shame, I know!!! Thankfully my dad did as he suggested a weekend trip there to explore the little land and its numerous beaches!! From his house outside of Florence it took about 4 hours to get to the dock at Piombino where we drove on to a ferry-boat (called MOBY) and headed to the port in Portoferraio on the island of Elba. Though the weather had been very sketchy for several weeks prior to our trip, and though it even rained on the ferry ride over, we got two full days of sun on the island and only had cloudy days on the day we arrived and the day we left:) Seriously lucked out since it was toward the end of summer/early fall that we went to begin with!
Our hotel (hotel Gabbiano Azzuro- hotel Blue Seagull) was located in a town called Marciana Marina on the North Western section of the island. The town itself is a cute little quaint place with the usual shopping, restaurants, beaches, marinas and hiking trails from here to there. The hotel, while really not terribly impressive inside offered quite a delicious breakfast including some of the best brioches I’ve personally ever tasted! They were filled with Bavarian cream… YUM!!! Just looking at them however pretty much capped my daily allowance of sugar intake… lol!! I should probably clarify that the hotel itself was quite clean, the people very nice, the location an easy walk to/from the town center, but the rooms were not that big and while they boasted that each room had a private balcony, the majority of those balconies looked on to an abandoned building and you could only see a sliver of a nice view. However, we were not there for the hotel… we were there for the BEACHES!!!
As far as beaches are concerned, I seriously didn’t think the ones in San Blas could be topped but the ones on the Island of Elba sure do give them a bit of a run for their money!!! The colors of the water surrounding the island at the various spots are out of this world beautiful! I found myself literally taking the same exact picture 3 or 4 times over just to make sure I was properly capturing the colors!!
The beaches are quite different from one another and some were even different from any I had previously been on before. While I’ve mainly been used to beaches with sand, many of the beaches on Elba consisted of stones!! I wasn’t expecting this aspect at all!! The stones are like river stones, therefore not sharp in any way, but smoothed out from years of sea water sanding them out. While they weren’t that comfortable to lay out on, they weren’t completely terrible either and it was due to these stone beaches that the colors remained so crisp and lovely, even when in the water!
Needless to say, after mapping out several beaches for us to visit, the next few days were spent just going from one beach to the next, sunning and tanning, swimming and snorkeling and generally just loving the water and life! It was a great and relaxing time to be sure!! Even more of a bonus was that we were still in Italy so dinners were to die for!! I Love Italian food!! The last day was spent driving almost all the way around the island, taking several pictures along the way before heading back to the ferry and then home.
Pictures:
On to Return to Treviso
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Portovenere
The day trip to Cinque Terre and Portovenere was mainly just for a viewing of each place. It had been a while since I had been to either spot, so it was time to reconnect, even if just for a day. Portovenere, which means the port of Venus (in my first version I said “door” of Venus, hence the comment below, lol!!) is another lovely seaside town located not far from the Cinque Terre in Liguria. The cutest of its features in my opinion is a little church at the end of the town that is built up on the rocks jutting out to sea. It is a very popular place to get married, and in fact while we were there, one wedding was just ending and as another bride was making her way up the steps for her turn, lol!! Portovenere also has a grotto and often times the waters of the area are blessed with pods of dolphins!! Unfortunately for me, the day after we were in Portovenere, a pod of 50 dolphins was spotted!! Oh well! It was probably just as well because otherwise I would have jumped in the water to chase them, lol!! Anyway, as the trip to Portovenere was really just for a quick reconnect, not a ton happened aside from wandering around and taking pictures. So enjoy them while they’re hot! 😉
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Italy
I was born in Italy and lived there for the first 7 years or so of life. Obviously, it will always have a tender and warm place in my heart:) But that doesn’t stop me from recognizing things that drive me crazy about the country either!! 😉
First I will start with the positive: Italians in my opinion have mastered the art of enjoying life! From the meals with friends that take hours (and almost always several courses) to complete then always end with a shot of liquor, then an espresso, followed by another shot and another espresso, lol!! They really have a passion for life and the enjoyment for it! They don’t really have personal space, which for some is really hard to accept, and they express themselves very passionately with their body language. This is another aspect that is hard for non-italians as while it looks from an outsiders perspective that a fight is going on (from their flailing arms and raised voices) they are simply discussing the weather!! Lol!!
The driving in the country makes me absolutely crazy, as in my opinion all drivers in Italy are absolutely crazy!! The country is so diverse for being so small and each section has a very strong and individual culture (sometimes to a fault as there are many rivalries between regions that sometimes break out in violence which again speaks to a different kind of passion). I do love the country and of course recommend it to all travelers! However, do be aware of petty thieves and pickpockets… They are quite talented in Italy!! That’s all for now- enjoy my most recent experiences in Italy:)
Oh and by the way- Ice cream and gelato are NOT the same thing… Gelato is to die for whereas ice cream I could pass on:)
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Cinque Terre
Cinque Terre in Italian literally means the 5 lands. The 5 lands in this case is made of 5 villages on the Tuscan Mediterranean coast including, Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore. Monterosso al Mare is the northernmost village, and the Riomaggiore the southernmost. In the summer time these spots are quite a popular vacation destination, and from the few pictures I’ve included, it’s easy to see why!!
My dad and I drove there on a sunny late-summer day through the windy roads and arrived in Vernazza, #4 village of 5…
Seriously I will put this out that if you get car sick easily, you may want to consider taking a train into any of the villages of Cinque Terre… Because those roads are seriously no joke!! It’s really amazing that there is even a road to begin with that connect each village, as I’m sure that they started as simply foot paths then expanded to allow cars! Mind you, they haven’t really expanded that much… The roads are barely wide enough for 2 cars, and of course Italians speed around the blind corners of the really windy and narrow roads as if they could see the other side…
Since I’m on the topic a little, I’ve just got to vent for a few seconds that Italian drivers area absolutely NUTS!!! I’m not even being prejudice in that statement because I include my father in there too, lol!! And he knows about it, lol!! But seriously, anyone who has ever been to Italy knows exactly what I’m talking about! If there is an inch of space, it will be taken by a car or Vespa or bus!! It amazes me how there aren’t more traffic accidents than there are!! They are all crazy drivers yet somehow it just works out!! It’s beyond me how, but it does! My only saving grace on this trip was the absolutely stunning views around each and every terrifying corner!! Simply beautiful and amazing!!
Sorry for the tangent! Back on course here: We arrived in Vernazza about mid-morning, parked the car in the lot outside the village and walked down to the village for some exploring. Now, this area of Italy is sometimes quite prone to dangerous and damaging floods. Everything is literally built on the edge of the mountain that dives into the Sea, so when the floods come, it leaves lots of damage in the wake. About 2 or 3 years ago a flood had happened in the Cinque Terre area and in fact as we walked down the road to the Village, you could still see evidence of the damage it did years ago.
We wandered around the village, spotted a cave that led to a little beach that is only visible (and passable) when the tide is down, wandered up to the church and tower at the top of the village, then had some lunch at one of the restaurants with a view of the water:) The region of the 5 lands is in Liguria, which is famous for its pesto sauce!! Yum!!! In addition, Liguria is also known for a special shape pasta called Trofie, which is a hand rolled pasta made from pieces of dough that are twisted together. So “when in Rome” I of course had to have a plate of Trofie al pesto!! It was quite delicious and hard to stop eating until of course the plate went empty… So I had to stop, lol!! We wandered a bit more, had a gelato then headed back to the car for Portovenere.
Oh, before I leave this section- for those into hiking, there is actually a pedestrian trail that goes from the first village to the last!! It is quite a long hike though (remember to calculate in stop times to take a gazillion picts!) and the terrain has lots of ups and downs (literally)!! It would probably take all day to walk one to the next, but I imagine it would be well worth it for the views alone!!
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SpanItalish
SpanItalish is what I’d like to call the language I was basically speaking when I arrived in Italy and throughout my time in Italy… Let me break it down for ya:
Span-Ital-ish: Span = Spanish, Ital = Italian & ish = English 🙂
After my time in Central and South America, all the conversational Italian that I did know converted completely to Spanish! So now before going back to Italy I was trying in my mind to think Italian instead of Spanish…. That was definately easier said than done as I kept speaking Spanish to myself, desperately trying to recall the Italian words again… In fact, I was sort of doing that in my mind (converting my Spanish to Italian) while in the Gatwick airport, but obviously gave up when helping out the woman from Spain:)
When I first got to Italy, while I could understand everyone and what they were saying (depending on their speed of speech and whether they had a heavy accent or not) I would reply pretty much completely in Spanish, lol!! Needless to say this was rather annoying to me though luckily everyone seemed patient with me as I repeated myself to them, slowly converting Spanish to Italian. Slowly but surely Italian came back and took over my Spanish! Now I find myself thinking “how would I say that in Spanish???” and not being able to recall, lol!!! It’s seriously a case of “when in Rome” because when in the environment it’s easier to be and speak Italian or Spanish as needed!
I threw English in there of course because first I am fully fluent in English and second because it was my last resort if Spanish or Italian didn’t work in asking questions, lol!!! And since neither Spanish nor Italian helped while I traveled the rest of Europe, I was glad that at least English did!!
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Florence
For those who personally know me, the next sentence won’t come as a surprise, but for everyone else… I am fortunate to have been born and raised (for the first 7 years or so) just outside of Florence. My dad has been living here for several years now, and since it has been 4 years since I’ve been back to Italy, why not #1 spend some time with my dad, #2 use our home in Italy as a base to explore other European countries and #3 make the eventual trip to Thailand not such a painful one from a flight perspective:)
I know, I know, I sound totally spoiled. But I can’t help where I was born, I can only recognize how fortunate I am in many ways and most importantly to be thankful for what I am able to do and to have such an international family!!
Now that that is cleared up, I am currently still in Italy writing furiously to catch up on this blog from the years past travels so that I can write about more recent adventures and ones that are still to come:) I arrived here in Italy at the end of August (2014- I know, I’m really almost caught up with blogging about my travels to present day!!!) at the Florence airport and was greeted by my dad at the airport with one of his famous “daddy” pick-ups, as we call it in my family. That is simply where he insists on parking the car so he can go into the airport and greet the new arrival from the gate, instead of waiting outside in the car for the new arrival to walk out of the airport:)
We had a lovely dinner at a pizzeria near where my dad grew up and has been going for over 40 years!! Let me just say, for the record that, in my opinion, there is no better pizza IN THE WORLD than the pizza in Italy, and more specifically the pizza in Tuscany!!! The thin crust is to die for!! Now the further South you go in Italy, the thicker the crust gets… Just a warning for those going South wondering why I’ve described the pizzas as being thin-crusted:) Oh and the ham too… I’ve never tasted better ham either (on my pizza of course!!) than in Italy!! Ok, I better stop talking about food for now… I’m making myself hungry!!
We headed to the house (about 40 Km outside of Florence) after dinner and turned in for the night. The next few months were spent catching up, hanging out, hiking in the National Park that we back onto, exploring several surrounding cities, reconnecting with Florence, a trip to the Island of Elba, going to Salzburg, Austria for a few days together (then I left to explore more of Europe on my own), entertaining some friends from Scotland, blogging (for me:)) and now we are getting ready to head out on a cruise that the family organized for my dad’s 75th birthday present!!
It’s been a busy few months for sure!! Not to mention that while I’ve been here I’ve been making sure that my dad has stayed busy making me homemade lasagna, limoncello, meat sauce, arista, crostate di more, pasta with the favorite sauce (can’t tell you the recipe it’s a family secret:)) focaccia, pasta fagioli, and on and on!! It’s a miracle I’m not obese!! Lol!! Actually, it’s not a miracle… I workout vigorously everyday to counter the calories I indulge in while here:)
Oh… I should mention I’ve cheated a teeny bit on the pictures… All are current except for the Florence pictures… They are ones from winter 2010… But in coming posts of Florence I will have pictures from this trip, I promise!! Just wanted to give you a little teaser to start;)
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Gatwick & Airport Fun (Leaving the UK)
Well, after about a month in Scotland, it was time to head to Gatwick and take off for Italy!! After giving my many thanks to Anna for her hospitality, I left Glasgow via train and headed straight down to Gatwick. I had booked a little B&B for the night (it took almost all day to get from Glasgow to Gatwick so it was a good thing I left the day before my flight!!) called Da Vinci Gatwick Guest House. For 40 pounds (yea I know it was pricey but I got my own room/bathroom, breakfast and after traveling all day I enjoyed a little pamper:)) I reserved a single room only about 10 minutes from the airport.
Though a little pricey, I really enjoyed the Da Vinci Guest House!! I found it comfortable, quaint, warming, welcoming and over all just had a great vibe! The people who owned, or at least who took care of it are Latin American (I could hear them speaking Spanish) and the woman at least was very accommodating, polite and welcoming! I didn’t get any actual chat time with the man, that’s why I only mention the woman:) Though when I made my reservation over the phone, I spoke with a man (maybe the same one??) and he was very polite and accommodating too. They even provided me with a number of a taxi service that they use that costs half what other taxis cost (according to them) and they picked you up right from the train station.
Quick note here though about taxis… CARRY CASH!!! AT ALL TIMES CARRY CASH TO PAY THE TAXIS!!!! Otherwise they will charge you a fee of 7 pounds to use a credit card!!!!!! Yup, it happened to me… I was fuming!! Though of course that was on the way to the airport, so what could I do?? The fee almost cost as much as the fare!!! Consider yourselves warned!!
In any event, the night at the B&B was spent picking off ticks from my forearms (only 4 of them and they were babies, so it didn’t take that long!) and going out for a bite to eat at the local (potentially only) pub and restaurant just walking distance down the road. The food was great (surprisingly very international!!) and the beers were splendid as always. Needless to say that night was a quiet one as I prepped to take off the next day.
Because my flight was in the afternoon (6pm) but I had to be out of the B&B by 11am, I opted to just go to the airport and wait until my time to board. Unfortunately, Vueling Airlines only allows people to check-in 2 hours before their flight, so I had to sit and wait (with my very heavy bag since I was carrying gifts) from basically 11am to 4pm before being able to get rid of my bag and go through security… I finally got checked in and through security, then the cutest thing happened…
As anyone who has ever been to the airport knows, past security there are a ton of shops and stores, and restaurants. The larger the airport, the more there are! Gatwick was quite busy and had a ton of places to shop and eat! I stopped by one place to grab a slice of pizza (easy, cheap and I hadn’t eaten all day!!) then wandered around to find a quiet spot to play a game on my tablet…
I was there all of a few minutes when all of a sudden an elderly woman came by and asked “con permiso, habla Espanol?” Translation: Excuse me, do you speak Spanish? To which I responded “Yes, a little” (in spanish of course) and that’s all it took! She was off!! Thankfully I actually did understand what she was saying despite her speaking a mile a second!! She was on her way to Orlando but her flight in Gatwick was delayed and she had no way to contact her family because for some reason she couldn’t get her phone to work and no one in the Gatwick airport spoke Spanish and she couldn’t find anyone to help her because she doesn’t speak and English…
I kinda had to chuckle, because she was just too cute!! In any event, I explained that her phone didn’t work because she did not have a SIM card for the UK (she was from Spain btw) and I offered her to call her family with my Skype account on my tablet. She was very thankful, made her phone call to let her family know about her situation, thanked me profusely and went on her way.
I simply went back to my game playing when all of a sudden, about 5 minutes later she snuck back around one again asking for help, lol!! Poor thing!!! My heart broke for her and loved her all at once!! Anyway, she handed me two slips of paper and asked if I could tell her what it was all about. The first was her boarding ticket for the plane. But there was no gate assigned to the ticket, only the flight number and seat number. So I explained that because the flight was delayed, they didn’t know what gate the plane would actually be at and that we would have to simply watch the monitors for departures to see what gate it would be once it was announced. She got a good handle on that, then I looked at the second slip. It was a voucher for 5 pounds from British Airways to redeem for food or a beverage at any of the food shops to make up for the delay in the flight. I explained this to her, then asked if she was hungry. She said yes, and I offered that if she was interested in pizza, I just happened to know of a place that sold a large slice for 5 pounds… She agreed, so I took her to the food shop, ordered her the pizza to go, paid the shop with the food voucher and gave her the slice.
At this point, as chance would have it I checked the monitor to see if my flight was announced yet, and in fact both mine AND her flight were announced, lol!! So I told her that the gate for her flight was ready, walked her to her gate (mine was on the way anyway!) then went on to mine:) She was very thankful, but honestly the whole experience just warmed my heart to be able to help her, so really I thank her!!
Ramblintraveler 