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! 😉
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:)
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!!
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!!
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 reallyalmost 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;)
This really was quite humorous because though I’ve never been one to pick a fight or even be involved in a fight, my time in Glasgow is somewhat known for being riddled with fights! No real violence was involved though so perhaps a better term would be altercation… It just seemed like everywhere we went one sort of altercation or another broke out!!
Quick example: first day I was there, we went out to the Horseshoe bar, which is most famous for having the longest continuous bar in Europe! Another quick funny here, while Anna is a local Glaswegian, she knows nothing really of Glasgow!! She kept trying to tell me all this interesting facts about Glasgow, but would only tell them half-way! “This ceiling (Central Station ceiling) is the largest glass ceiling!!” She would say… Ummmm…. ok…. The largest glass ceiling… where?? In Glasgow? Scotland? Europe?? Turns out (after a Google search) that it is the largest glass ceiling in the World!! Impressive after all! And she tried to tell me about the “longest continuous bar” but again didn’t know the rest of the statistic (longest continuous bar in Europe) and at first she named the wrong bar!! It took another of her friends to straighten her out, lol!!
I digress… Anyway, we were in the Horseshoe bar enjoying some beers when all of a sudden the very drunk woman at the table next to us turned and said… Well, I will just write out the conversation for simplicity sake:
Drunk lady: “How are you doing in the future?”
Us: “Uh, we don’t know, we haven’t been there yet”
Drunk lady: “Ugh! Nevermind. F off!!”
Us: “Wow, F off?? That wasn’t very nice!”
Drunk lady: “I wasn’t trying to be nice!”
LOL!! Seriously!! I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or well, actually I did just laugh! Though it was really annoying as we were just there minding out business then suddenly had to deal with her lunacy! And the friend that was with her was even worse! She wasn’t near as drunk and kept laughing every time her drunk friend said something to us, then would turn to us and say “sorry girls, she’s just drunk, she doesn’t know what she’s saying” only to go back to laughing with her drunk friend! Strange!! Needless to say we left shortly after.
The store fight was again just a confrontation more than anything. We went in to buy something and when it came time to pay, the price was 2 pounds over the actual price shown for the item. I was paying with my credit card and spotted the increase in price so asked why it was 2 pounds more expensive. Now, we were a wee bit drunk at this point, so perhaps I asked in not a nice way… But the clerk said it was a credit card fee. To which I said that was bollocks and outrageous because all other stores only charge up to 60 pence for CC fees!! Then I said he should have told me about the charge instead of just charging so much extra! Anna was chiming in too, and I think he just got irritated with the two drunk girls challenging him, so he kicked us out of the store… I threatened to dispute the charges on my card, didn’t sign the slip for the charge and stormed out. I didn’t end up disputing the charge because I did take my purchase with me as we left, so disputing the charge would have felt like stealing…
So yea, there you go! There were some other altercations but for the life of me, I just can’t think of what they were exactly… LOL! Obviously they weren’t that interesting to recall…
Heading out of Australia to escape this Aussie winter. First stop Japan, then UK/Ireland and if work doesn't call me back, onto Chicago. I will make it up as I go along
Ramblintraveler 