↑

Sweet Tea in the South

Europe! Last Stop–Italy!

Happy Monday–hope y’all had a fabulous weekend!  I figured it was time to post some of my favorite pictures from Italy.  Our night train from Munich lead us to a cloudy and chilly day in Venice. After leaving our bags at the hotel, we headed out to see the sights.  First up, we visited Venice’s glass island called Murano, by public boat transportation, of course.  In 1291, all the glassmakers of Venice were forced to move to Murano due to the risk of fires.  We watched a glass blowing demonstration once on the island.

Afterwards, we walked around the island to do some shopping : ) This is probably the place I had the most fun walking around shopping. The guys, not so much. This island could make anything out of glass.  I managed to make it out with only a pair of earrings and a little square earring plate (which I accidentally dropped at the boat dock and had to buy a replacement…oopsie daisies!).

It was dreary the whole time we were on the island…sigh

Next, we visited Burano, the island of lace.  Here you can catch ladies making lace by hand.  Burano was much more colorful than Murano.

Next we headed back to the heart of Venice.  Of course we had to take a gondola ride.  We chose to ride on the main canal, then on a smaller canal.

 

Did you know that they do not actually sing to you during a gondola ride?!?  I guess I had assumed they did because they always do in the movies.  Even though I was forewarned about this, I was still a little disappointed.   We passed one gondola that had hired an accordion to play during their ride.

Grand Canal

 

The Gondola industry has become a wee bit touristy…can we say traffic jam?

After our gondola ride, we headed back through the city to our hotel, passing all of the major sites.

Rialto Bridge
Saint Mark’s Cathedral
                                                                                                                                                             After dinner we headed back to the hotel, did I mention there were fish in the lobby bathroom sink??
 
The next morning, we took a train to Cinque Terre, which is a group of five villages along the Mediterranean.  We stayed at the northern most village of Monterosso that had a beach.
The water was pretty chilly!
All of the villages are connected via train or trails…we opted for the train.  First we visited the southern most village of Riomaggiore. The walk was straight up once we got there.
Afterwards, we took the train to the next village, Manarola.  I think this was my favorite of the villages.
Next, we headed to Corniglia.  Corniglia was the one village that you did not immediately arrive at from the train station.  We walked 365 steps up to reach the village.
Group pic!
Vernazza was our next village.  It is the one you normally see on the postcards.  A few years ago, when Cinque Terre was hit with floods and mudslides, Vernazza received the most damage.  They are still rebuilding.
The following day was our last day in Italy.  After checking out of the hotel, we spent some time on the beach where I got my read on.
For lunch we grabbed a hot dog and chips.  By the end of the trip, I was tired of Italian food.  The Italian food was what I was looking forward to the most food-wise, but was really disappointed.  The best Italian I actually had was in Germany, weird huh?  After lunch, we found out our train was delayed  (Italy was the only country where the trains were regularly late).  We walked around for a bit to find somewhere to sit down to eat and heard the sound of country music.  Intrigued, we ventured to where it was coming from, and it was a cute little bar across from the beach.  We set up shop with our hot dogs, a Margarona, and a view of the beach.  Hanging out here was a perfect end to our day.
We finally caught our train to Milan, where we stayed over night to catch our flight out the next morning.  By the 16th day, I was ready to head home.  The travel day home I was awake for 24 hours, but was only able to sleep for four hours that night.  It took me about a week to get back on schedule, but it was totally worth it.
Check out my other posts from our Europe trip–Switzerland, Germany, and Austria!
Thanks for stopping by and Ciao!!
Jess

Comments

  1. After reading all of your posts I get the feeling that this was a very hilly trip with lots of walking. I bet you guys walked more than 100 miles! Venice looks like a beautiful place to visit.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Categories

Archives