I did more in the past 6.5 weeks than many people do in their life and I did more in the past 5 days than I would expect to do in 5 years. I don't even know how to put it all into words or into any sort of readable length blog entry but I'll try.
So...Florence. I did the art, I did the cathedral and duomo, I climbed the towers, I walked that city from top to bottom and I loved it. Florence is quiet and laid back and beautiful. I did decide (and I will elaborate later), that even with the crowds, after spending my last 2 days in Rome again, I like Rome better than Florence.
Monday night Preston flew in from Prague. He didn't arrive until 8p.m. so we popped open the wine I'd already stored in the minifridge and went wandering around Florence picking up bottles of wine along the way. We sat and drank on the stairs to the cathedral. We sat and drank by the Ufizzi listening to some amazing live music and we ended up at some amazing pizzeria sometime after midnight. It was nice to have someone wandering and drinking with me. When I'm alone I always feel like a borderline alcoholic. Ha!
Tuesday I showed Preston around the city. We found a little market and picked up cheese, olives, bread, pesto sauce, and some wine and crossed the river to hike up to Piazzelle (sp?) Michaelangelo. On the way we got some stuffed eggplant and greek salad from another little market (you don't hurt for food in Italy). Of course, as soon as we got up there, it rained. And rained. And rained. The view of Florence and the mountains was incredible anyway and we managed to keep the bread from getting soggy and the wine from getting watered down.
Is it bad that I don't remember what we did Tuesday night? I do remember that we walked down to the car rental area and set up our rental car for Wednesday a.m. for our road trip to Cinque Terre (or CT) national park. Oh wait...we had dinner with 2 greek guys Preston met on his way to Florence...Dimitris and Vasilios (sp?). That was an excellent time and, in addition to my roommate Minos, I now have a place to stay if I ever go to Greece.
Cinque Terre. 5 towns nestled in the hills and cliffs and vineyards along the Italian coast. I don't have words that correctly express the beauty of this area of Italy but I can tell you I will be back there one day. We picked up our rental car (named "the bullet") and were thrilled to see it was a convertible. I had thought to ask for one but didn't want to pay extra so it was an awesome surprise. Luckily (or unluckily perhaps) there was also an available GPS. And we set off! CT is about 110km northwest of Florence. The drive through Tuscany and into Liguria was incredible as was the randomness of Italian radio stations. They don't have hip hop stations or oldies stations. It's just kind of whatever they feel like playing at any given moment.
The GPS, although she spoke in English, gave directions like an Italian. "Stay to the left and take the exit. Then take the motorway." Or "In 800 meters bear right. Then take the road." Needless to say, we missed an exit on our way to CT. It ended up being kind of cool (if you're not afraid of heights) because we ended up on some twisty turny mountain roads with great views. If someone would get up there and trim the trees the views would be spectacular!
Finally we made it to Manarola, the 2nd town going south to north, and found parking near some random bus stop in the middle of hills and hills of grapevines. Given that the bus schedule was in Italian and 2 other tourists decided to hike down the mountain to the ocean we did the same and I crossed my fingers that we would find the car again.
CT was breathtaking. To make a long story short, we ate lunch in Manorola and I think it might have been the best meal I had in Italy. Stuffed mussels for me and spinach and ricotta ravioli with salmon for Preston...not to mention the bread and olive oil. Then we walked about 20 minutes south along the coast (called the "lovers walk") to Riomaggiore, the southernmost of the 5 towns. We hopped on a ferry north along the coast to get a peek at all 5 towns (next time I'd like to take the time to hike from town to town but we didn't have the 5 hours to spare) and hopped off in Monterosso, the northernmost town, to hang out and drink some wine on a sandy-ish beach and get some time in the Mediterranean.
We then attempted to take a train back to Manarola but got on the wrong train and ended up way far south in La Spezia. With only a minor moment of panic (on my part, not Preston's) we figured out how to get back to Riomaggiore and walk back to Manorola along the coast at sunset. Luckily, we found a cute shop to tell us how to catch the bus to our car, sell us pizza, and a bottle of cinque terre's famous wine scriaccetera (butchered the spelling of that one!!). That wine, by the way, is sweet and strong like a dessert wine or a port. Delicious end to a perfect day.
And that's all I have time for right now! My flight is about to take off. Plenty more to come.
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