Last Day

For our last morning, we took a water bus to the island of Murano. It took about 40 minutes and was totally worth the trip. 

We walked along what seemed like the main stretch for a while and went into A LOT of shops and saw A LOT of glass. We bought a few things. It’s hard to not spend money you don’t have to buy things you can’t carry home. The glass pieces range from absolutely cheesy to high art and the prices go along with it. We met a former glass blower who runs a shop with things made by either his father or other glass blowers if they’re better at a particular item than their family. 

We continued to shop for a while and then stopped for pizza before taking the water bus back to the main section of Venice. From there, we went to the Peggy Guggenheim collection. It was a breath of fresh air to see modern art. She has a pretty sizable collection. It seems like she went into a panic as World War II was heating up and bought a lot of paintings. She also fostered up and coming artists like Jackson Pollack and had 11 pieces by him alone. The building was an unfinished palace that she had purchased and lived in before turning everything into a museum. You can go out the back of one gallery and sit along the Grand Canal. It would not be a sucky place to live. 

After the museum we rested a little then went out in the neighborhood for last minute shopping and dinner. We had dinner at Osteria alla Staffa (where we had lunch a different day). It was soooo good. My shrimp came unpeeled and with the heads on so I felt like I made a huge mess. It was like eating mini lobsters but inside and without hand wipes after. 

We stopped in Piazza San Marco to listen to the music and so Mom could get a Bellini before heading back to our hotel to pack. It was a mild undertaking. 

Heading home 😭 thanks everyone for reading. I’m going to go back and edit my posts and post captions when I’m back on a real computer. Posting via iPad was not the easiest. 

Venice Day 2

For our first full day in Venice, we met with our local host and had a half day tour of Venice. We walked over to Piazza San Marco which is the only real square in Venice. The rest of Venice has little “Campos” which are just smaller little squares. 

We started at Palazzo Ducale with our tour guide. It’s a beautiful building and different than what we saw in Rome & Florence. It was used for government business and also had a jail. There is a big room that almost looks like a grand ballroom. It doesn’t have any columns supporting the ceiling in the middle of the room because they hired ship builders to build the room. It’s essentially an upside ship hull.  We also got to walk through the Bridge of Sighs. 

After the palace, we went to the Cathedral of San Marco. It was stunning but we weren’t allowed to take any pictures. The ceilings were covered in gold mosaics. Such a different style from the other churches we have seen. 

After the church, we went to see a glass blowing demonstration and shopped in the store a little. It’s so impressive what they can do with glass. 

After leaving our group, we wandered Venice for the rest of the day and had lunch at this great Osteria. The men who were running the restaurant were jamming out to American 80s music and making really good food.  After lunch, we stopped at this famous bookstore: Acqua Alta (high water). They have taken some of the books damaged in floods and made stairs out of them. 

We wandered around Venice for the rest of the day. We got gelato at Suso: mint & dark chocolate for me, chocolate orange and toffee caramel for Mom. After resting in the hotel for a while, we went out for dinner and then went to see a performance of Vivaldi by musicians in period costumes. 

Venice Day 1

This morning we made our way to the train station after breakfast to catch a train to Venice. In Florence, they have porters take your bags back and forth to the hotel and you walk to the station without dragging a suitcase across a skinny stone sidewalk. When we first arrived it seemed strange, but after watching people struggle all week, I’m glad we had that service. 

We took another bullet train to Venice. It took about 2 hours and was comfortable. When arrived in Venice, we got off the train and gave our bags to porters again. This time, they put our suitcases on a boat and brought them to our hotel. We took a water taxi to our hotel area. We aren’t staying close to the main canal so we had to walk a little also. 

Venice is made up of over 100 islands and has over 400 bridges connecting them. The streets aren’t remotely grid like so it’s very easy to get lost. After checking into the hotel, we found food. I had I gnocchi with shrimp and Mom had pasta. We wandered around for a few hours before meeting our evening food tour. 

The food tour was appetizer themed. We stopped at 4 places and had a glass of wine and a small bite at each place. Everything was delicious. Before our first stop, our guide took us on a gondola to cross the canal. Instead of putting us on an over priced touristy one, we got on one the locals use to cross quickly. All 12 of us crammed on board and stood the whole way (like locals). We had prosecco, sparkling red wine, and everything in between. We are squid cooked in its ink over polenta, and different crostini. Everything was SO good and we all had a lot of fun together. 

After the food tour, we got on a water bus to take the long way around the canal to see more of Venice from the water. It was beautiful. We grabbed dinner in the hotel restaurant and went to bed. It was a long day! 

Florence & Tuscany

Today we got up earlyish and headed to the Uffizi gallery. It wasn’t too crowded but there were several tour groups. We saw Venus, of course, and wandered most of the galleries. So many paintings, so much gold, so many Jesus-es. We stopped at an exhibit towards the end that focused on the restoration of The Adoration of the Magi. I very old DaVinci painting that was so dark it was unreadable. The restoration is great and we got to see a video about the process. Art restoration is so fascinating to me but would make me so nervous. 

After the museum, we went around the neighborhood a little bit before returning to the hotel. Around noon, we met our driver, Stefano, at the hotel. We had hired Stefano to take us through Tuscany and asked for his help in setting up a plan. Stefano brought us to a vineyard first outside San Giminiano: Tentua Torciano. The vineyard has been in the family for centuries and is still run by the family. Stefano suggested we stop at the vineyard first so we could have a light lunch. After a brief orientation, we were whisked away to a private room upstairs where the table was set with ALL the wine glasses and a small plate. Our instructions were to try all the wine with the different combinations of food. I haven’t been drinking red wine for the last several years so it was a little bit of a shock to the system for me. I did like some of the medium bodied wines but the heavier ones were too strong for me. After some time, they came in with bread and poured out some oil & balsamic. The balsamic was “only aged” 30 years. It was amazing. After even more time, they brought us Tuscan soup and Grandma’s lasagna. Also amazing. After stuffing ourselves we got back in Stefano’s car and made our way to San Giminiano. 

San Giminiano is noticeable from the countryside because of the many towers that make up the town. We walked through the center of town, shopped a little and stopped at a gelateria famous for being a world champion. It was so good, I think we ruined our lives. I had ricotta blueberry, raspberry rosemary and dark chocolate. Mom had pink grapefruit wine, sour cherry and coconut. San Giminiano was super cute but it seems like it’s becoming very touristy.

Next, we stopped at Monteriggioni which is a VERY small Tuscan town. We did a quick lap and returned to the car to make our way to Siena.

Stefano dropped us off in the Piaza del Campo where the famous horse races are held twice a year. From there we walked to the large church but didn’t have time to go in. We wandered around, shopped a little then met Stefano again to head back to Florence. 

Tuscany is so gorgeous. Stefano told us that his Grandfather would say “God was happy the day he made Tuscany.” Even just driving around the countryside was stunning. 

Once entering Florence, Stefano pointed out to us he grew up on the street near the Boboli Gardens. It used to be more of a family neighborhood but now it has a lot of tourists.  Stefano dropped us off a Sasso di Dante where we had bruschetta, pork, risotto, tiramisu and limoncello. 

Florence Day 4

This morning we had our Monogram half day tour of Florence. We met a largish group of people in the lobby, then more people in the neighborhood before walking to the Galleria Dell Academia to see the statue of David. The museum wasn’t as chaotic as I would have expected. It was good to have a guide there to tell us about David. Apparently, Michaelangelo would carve from the front of the block of marble back as if he was 3D printing. David used to be in front of the Pallazo Vecchio, where there is a replica now, and considering it was in the elements for several hundred years, you can barely tell.

After the museum we had a walking tour of the neighborhood. Even though we have been wandering around Florence for a few days, it was good to get a new perspective and have some thing so pointedly out to us that weren’t so obvious.

After breaking off from the group, we found panini and went to the Boboli Gardens at the Pitti Palace. It was SO hot and pretty uphill so we didn’t spend too much time there. We left the gardens & palace and went shopping around the neighborhood before meeting up with our food tour guide.

We met our tour guide at Piazza Repubblica. She led us away from the super touristy area with the fancy name brand shops. We stopped in a building that has been owned by a family for centuries and they have so much money they have their own door at the church across the street. The family
Owns vineyards in Italy and also one in Napa. On the tour, we had truffles, prosecco, olives, meats, olive oil and gelato. Today’s flavor for both of us was almond.

After the food tour we shopped a little more. We stopped at the oldest working pharmacy in Florence. The building was so pretty but we didn’t buy anything. We got dinner at Ristorante Il Caminetto. (Thanks Aunt Adele!) We had chicken liver pate & arugula salads. Mom had pasta with scallops and I had a single serve steak Florentine that was still pretty large. It was sooooo good. After we had dinner we grabbed pastry and went back to the hotel.

Cinque Terra

Today we hiked Cinque Terra. Cinque Terra is 5(ish) towns built into cliffs along the Mediterranean. We met a group at the train station in Florence then took a 2 hour bus ride to the beginning of the Cinque Terra train line. Our guide, Gloria, kept a tight ship and we practically ran from the bus to the station so we could get on the 1035. Moving South to North, we skipped the first town and went to Manarola. We went into the center of town and Gloria explained some history of the area. From there, we returned to the train and got off after one stop in Corniglia. We got off the train and climbed A LOT of stairs. These were pretty level and seemed pretty new. 

At the top of the stairs was the center of town. We got to walk a little and take pictures but more importantly we had lunch: squid & mussels and PESTO. During lunch it started to rain, but most of us were relieved because it had been SO hot and the hike component was going to be gross. We hiked from Corniglia to Vernazza. It was about 4km but it was pretty steep up hill. 

From Corniglia when Gloria pointed out the landmarks along the way, it looked very daunting. The rain cooled everything down but also made the rocks along the way pretty slippery. Once we reached the top, we stopped at a little coffee shop for lemon slush & lemon cake. Both were ridiculously good and we would have handed over a lot of money for them. (Lemon is one of the flavors common to this area, and they are much sweeter than what we are used to at home). After catching our breath, we began our dissent. It was slippery so we went slow. There were a lot of stairs but they were more natural stone stairs and not as level as the first set of stairs in Corniglia.  

Once we arrived in Vernazza, we wound through the neighborhood built into the mountain to get to the center of town. We didn’t have too much time in Vernazza so we got REALLY good gelato before meeting our group to get back on the train. Gelato flavors: Black cherry, Creme de Caramel and Dark Chocolate for Mom; Hazelnut, Tiramisu and Dark Chocolate for me. It would have been amazing if we hadn’t just hiked. 

We all hopped on the train to Monterosso al Mare where we had time to walk around the town and explore. We got to do a little shopping and then found a place that sold fried calamari. Originally we had hoped to swim at the beach but after the rain, we weren’t as motivated to swim. We did walk over to the water to touch it just to say we did. 

From Monterosso al Mare, we all got on a boat that took us directly to Riomaggiore (the first town we had skipped that morning). The water was choppy because of the storm but it was cool to see all 5 towns from the water. 

After a few minutes to see Riomaggiore, we got back on the train to go to La Spezia and get on the bus. 

It was such a great day and we were exhausted. My phone said we had walked the equivalent of 75 flights of stairs. My Fitbit said we had a 11.9 mile day (including the walk home and to get dinner in Florence). 

Florence Day 2

Today was our first full day in Florence. On the first Sunday of each month, several museums are free to the public. We got up early and had breakfast in the hotel. The hotel breakfast here is good but the selection was larger in Rome. We selected a museum that opened early and we didn’t think would be that crowded. We started out at the Bargello museum. It was a really cool building with a big open air courtyard and lots of sculptures. There were early Michaelangelo pieces and A LOT of stuff commissioned by the Medici family. I knew that family ran Florence but they seem like they were SO extra. We wandered near the Palazzo Vecchio which is the town hall. Today, every hour from 9am to 1pm there was a procession which involved several men marching in mid 16th century uniforms and firing a cannon twice. It reminded me of war re-enacters in the US.

After the Bargello, we went to the Medici chapel which had more Medici stuff and an amazing chapel. A lot of the artifacts in this museum were really elaborate cases made of golf, crystal and jewels. Most of them had pieces of bone in them, some more obvious than others. I couldn’t read what all the labels say but I assume a lot of them belong to saints. I’ve read some medieval historical lit and they all seemed very enamored with bones at each church.
After the second museum, we went to eat a leisurely lunch at Ristorante Sasso do Dante (Thanks Aunt Adele). We split a caprese salad, a plate of pecorino cheese with pears, and pasta with beef sauce. It was SO good.
After lunch we escaped the heat and hung out at the hotel for the afternoon. Mom went up to the roof deck for a while. Around 530, we went out in the neighborhood to shop a little. Shopping in Glorence is overwhelming because there are SO many vendors and SO many tourists so you assume a lot of the vendors ar going to rip you off. We stopped at a pizza place back near the Palazzo Vecchio for a quick  dinner of pizza. We stopped at a gelato place that is 140 years old. Tonight’s flavors were Melon & lemon sorbet for Mom and caramel & chocolate hazelnut for me.