Cinque Terre (Jun 21 - 24)

Well a big thank you to Sarah Lee and Mark for planting the idea of this lovely place in our mind! Our only regret is that we only had 4 days to spend here. It was the ideal place for us to end our Italian journey.

Cinque Terre is a collection of 5 small towns each uniquely located on the coastline in northern Italy - quite close to the border with France. Some villages are perched on cliff-tops while others are clustered within the small valleys between the hills. They are only connected by coastal foot paths and train.....so although there are plenty of tourists, there are relatively few cars....bliss! There are also various other trails inland to other villages.




























We chose to stay in a lovely bright, attic apartment in Montorrosso (the most northerly of the 5 towns). The Raso familia are very warm and sincere.... and invited us to sample their limoncello homemade (their are lemon trees in their yard)!

We were fortunate to spend time wandering around each village, walking the coastal trails, as well as relaxing on the beach and hitting the beautiful clear ocean when it became hot. The water is the perfect temperature to help you feel refreshed without feeling cool.














It was hard to leave but alas, it had to be.....ciao Italy! Thanks for a lovely time!














So now we head for time with friends in Paris and then its off to Canada!

Lucca (Jun 19,20)

Lucca lies 2 hrs to the north of Rome, back in Tuscany again and is a unique town of 80 thousand people or so. Unlike other Tuscan towns this one is flat, not built on a hill top, and as a result is full of bikes. It too is surrounded by a wall that is very broad on top wide enough for pathways with lots of trees and is always full of people jogging, cycling, walking their dogs, etc.















We decided to use it to picnic on our first day and due to lack of glasses we tried (but probably failed) at discretion and decoram....let us know what you think.....see photo of John drinking vino rosso....














Its a wonderful town to get away to and yet still has its share of impressive churches built in the 1200s (some with facades looking a bit like big multi-tiered wedding cake).














We had a nice time here, staying in a place that was an old converted monastery with a room spread over 2 levels and windows looking out over the terracotta roof tops of the town. If one really needed to get away, relax and sip capuccinos in the piazzas then this is one of the places to go!














We stayed just a couple of days because we really wanted to head a bit further north and get back to the sea before leaving Italy.

Rome (Jun 16 to 18)

No trip to Italy can be complete without a visit to Rome. So we went by train from Sorrento (with a few hours layover and quick walkabout in Naples) to Rome which is but 2 hours to the north. Rome is so unique in its mixture of a modern city yet with ancient ruins sprinkled throughout plus a dash of Vatican city thrown in!

We spent our first day in the Vatican Museum with it's stunning fresoes and sculptures, the amazing map room, and of course the Sistine chapel. Wish we could post some photos of the Sistine chapel but the nophoto police were out in full force there....but check outt his photo of the enormous map rooom!



















We then moved over to see St Peter's basilica which is very impressinve not just for its size but also because it is quite beautifully and tastefully done. There was a church service with a visiting choir singing the most heavenly sacred music. Give us goose bumps.



John has been having a great time reading a book about the Medici family in Florence and how the history of that family was intimitly tied to the flowering of the rennaisance. Here he learned that the pope was close to broke while St Peter's was being constructed and therefore resorted to selling a new wave of indulgences to help finance the construction...and that this was a major contributing factor to motivating Luther to protest with his 95 theses which eventually got the whole reformation show rolling in full steam.



The next day was devoted to the ancient Rome tour with a large part of that time spent in and marvelling at the Colliseum for its shear size, for how much of it still remains standing and for all the things you can learn about the daily life and culture of Rome that centered around it. The countless people and animals that lost their lives there entertaining the emperor and the people...and the intellectuals of the time who detested all this fearing that it was indicative of the decay of society.

This all leads you to ponder anew just how it could be possible for such a sophisticated and widespread society to have deacayed into literally almost nothing. How so many magnificent buildings slowly went into ruin and literally became covered over...many only being discovered again since 1500 or so when the rennasaince people went hunting for the history of Rome. Even in the Vatican museum you are impressed over and over again with how many sculptures etc were found in Rome even as late as the last 100 yrs.















....and the last stop on the ancient rome tour has to be the Pantheon....a building that was built in AD 160 or so and still remains completely intact....not in any way could it be considered a ruin or even a rebuilt ruin. Is this the oldest and most complete standing building of impressive size on earth? We had the pleasure of dining on the piazza one evening and enjoyed a mime show and musical quartet all taking place simulatenously but not interfering with one another.......this is Italy!















Well after a couple of days tho' it was enough and time to move north into more rural and relaxing areas not so full of roaring mufflerless motorcycles and in search of less extreme heat which was made walking around a bit exhausting.

Italian Riviera (Sorrento, Positano, Capri, Pompeii)

Pompeii: destroyed by Mt Vesuvius eruption in 79 AD: amazing to see what still remains.

Capri: Stunning coastline - blistering hot day - we earned our dip in the Mediterannean!

Sorrento: Lori's chauffeur and limo........chauffeur taking a dip in an amazingly blue sea on an amazingly quiet beach (and no the photo is not colour-enhanced and oh such a nice temperature).

Wow-inspiring view from our room in Sorrento (we kept reminding ourselves how fortunate we were):

View of Positano from the winding cliffside roads along the Amalfi coast:

Umbria (Volterra, San Gimiangno, Orvieto, Assisi)

Well, apologies for the brief notes in this and the next blog but the cafe closes in 10 minutes....


Agritourismo just outside Volterra: amazing view of the umbrian hillside where dinner and breakfast were enjoyed outside thank you very much :)

San Gimiangno: the hilltop town with many towers (competition among the wealthy):

Orvieto: a great hill-top town (very popular/necessary in Umbria):

Last but not least, the home town of St. Francis......wonderfully peaceful and beautiful...we stayed at an amazing guesthouse run by nuns - no needs were left unprovided.

Italy (May 30-ongoing)

After 5 days or so catching up with friends in Paris and doing some further trip planning we departed on a discount airline flight for Venice. Our plan is to spend 2-3 weeks in Italy moving at leisure from Venice to Florence through Tuscany to Rome and ... well after that we'll see how things go. So far we've done the Venice,Florence, Siena part and tomorrow we pick up a rental car for a week to wander through smaller towns and the countryside.

There isn't nearly as much to say now compared to the more exotic travels and sights of Asia and the Middle East except to say that everything is so much easier and relaxed about this kind of travel (albeit about 4x as expensive!).... and of course everything is beautiful and that we have moved into much more recent history of the middle ages and the renaissance. We'll just say a few words here and leave some photos just so you can have some feedback knowing we are still alive and starting to really relax and enjoy ourselves (as well as getting fattened up!).

So first a few words about Venice. If you ever have a chance to go there.... GO!. There is no place like it on earth. A whole city completely devoid of motorized vehicles (even bikes) and where the only way to move around is by foot (through an almost infinite maze of streets and bridges), or by boat. Here the city transit is boats and the canals are full of boats of every kind (UPS, FedEx, Ice Cream delivery, Telecom Italia, Police, Firedepartment, ambulance, garbage, etc). It's like being in a dream world and that's not yet to mention the enormous number of churches all richly decorated, restaurants and cafes, tiny little food shops, etc etc. After a few days in this kind of environment you really relax.

From Venice we took a couple hour train ride to Florence. Florence is a whole different atmosphere with lots of traffic and an architecture that is less people friendly. It's hard to describe...darker, more imposing, less human scale, less pretty. Nevertheless Florence has some truly amazing architectural wonders and art museums that just have to be seen. We also suffered through a couple of days of overcast and drizzle here which also dampened the atmosphere, so after 2 days we took a 1.5 hr train ride south to Siena in the heart of Tuscany.

Siena is a truly medieval feeling town, smaller (50,000 people), cars banned from the city centre, a university town and a wonderful place to stroll around in and be awed by the central square and the most beautiful and ornate cathedral (hailing from the 1200s) that we have ever seen. It's been nice walking around without cars once again and almost feeling like you're transported back to the middle ages.

So Tomorrow we pick up a car and enjoy the freedom to wander as we will. Internet access will probably become harder to find so you might be seeing less from us on the blog....but just imagine us sitting at a cafe, with a view over rolling green hills and old stone churches and sipping on some wine.... Ciao.