Category: European Trips

Today was GLORIOUS! I slept in until almost 11:30 and I regret nothing! When I woke, I heard Mom in the shower and decided to just lay there for awhile. No point in rushing to get up if she’s going to style her hair and take her time.

We finally got moving around 12:30.. we walked back to that sandwich shop from the first day we were here-and stood in line to order. It was busy!We got our drinks (wine for me, a Coke Zero for mom), and our numbered ticket for our food, and mom snagged us a spot at the bar to sit. About 20-30 minutes later, we got our sandwiches and they were just as good today as they were before, if not better!

We ate and people watched the crowd and then walked back to the apartment to get some clothes and things to ship home, to lighten our load. We gathered it all and walked about 10 minutes in the opposite direction, taking note of all the stores, shops, and restaurants we’d missed by never walking this way before!

The shipping store charged us €140 to ship back a 30lb box of stuff-clothes, shoes, water bottles.. surely not enough to weigh 30lbs-but alas, I saw the scale. Thank goodness! This should definitely make our travel day tomorrow easier on us! Once we paid and got our tracking information, we went back into the dress shop we passed earlier. Many of these Italian stores have “one size” dresses and skirts. They don’t say “one size fits all” or “one size fits most” like at home-it’s just “one size” and hope for the best lol

The dresses in the one size don’t quite fit me right, the top is too stretched, but the skirts shockingly did fit, so I got a couple (since they’re so lightweight anyway, it shouldn’t add much weight back to my bag-I hope!). We returned my skirts and mom’s suitcase (that’s how she toted her clothes and shoes she shipped) back to the room, again, knocked out those 50 stairs, and then walked to the other side of the river to see about getting our nails done.

The ladies working said they were booked, but if we’d be willing to come back at 6:15 this evening (2.5 hours from now), they’d stay open for us. So, we wandered around, had coffee on a patio, looked at clothes and souvenirs, had a vintage wine tasting (one wine was from 1969, one was from 1980, and the last was from 2009) and then finally made our way back to the nail salon at 6:10. They promptly got to work on our fingernails, and an hour later we had freshly painted nails that didn’t look like claws anymore. We were so grateful!!

We went back to the room for the millionth time today and changed into our dinner clothes.. I wore one of my new skirts, mom had on a pretty dress she got the other day in Cinque Terre. We started walking towards the restaurant a friend from Kennestone, Mercy, told us about. When we found it, the line out of the building was so long we couldn’t even get to the door to have a peek inside! A little disheartened, we walked around some more and eventually found another restaurant that looked good. Because of Mercy’s recommendation, we were determined to have Florentine steak for dinner!

After lots of consideration, we ended up ordering the special.. we shared the T-bone steak with potatoes, plus bruschetta as an appetizer (with bread and olive oil, duh), and we each got our own desert. All for €50! The bruschetta with my wine was phenomenal. We watched the chef come get a hunk of meat from a refrigerator on display, toss it on his shoulder (with a towel laid out like a baby’s burp cloth) and lug it back to the kitchen.. impressive.

When our waiter brought out the steak, we didn’t realize he was going to put on a show of cutting it for us and then sprinkling salt, pepper, and oil on the pieces. We ordered it medium, for me, and then once mom got what she wanted on her plate, they took hers back to cook it a little longer for her. I’m here to tell you, that may have been my most favorite, flavor filled steak I’ve ever eaten in my entire life! It was so damn good. Not to mention the grilled potato wedges. As I’m writing this, completely miserably full and in considerable pain, my stomach just did a little growl thinking about it! There ain’t no dang WAY I’m actually hungry!

As a matter of fact, when he brought out our tiramisu, I thought I’d just keel over a die right there! I’m still shocked I was able to eat it at all, but of course I shoveled it all in my mouth just the same. And for the record, as good as this tiramisu has been, my Aunt Shannon’s is better. Anyway, as I was sitting there, thinking about how miserable my mile run will be tonight, I decided I’d set an alarm for the morning and knock out my run for tomorrow early-no more of this running at 11pm just barely making it happen!

So, when we got home, I ran my mile.. and I watched the videos that my friend Brittany sent me for some in room workouts-I was so full, some of them I could barely do at all, let alone more than once. But I at least attempted them all with the idea that I’d do the workout after my run in the morning. Mom and I started the last of our laundry, and we headed off to bed.. where I’m forcing myself to stay awake to write this, and I’m so happy it’s done so I can close my eyes and sleep every second until my alarm goes off at 7am. We leave for Venice tomorrow and have to check out of the Airbnb at 10am. Something tells me Andrea will be very punctual in his arrival for the keys 🙂
Goodnight!

When my alarm went off at 6:30, I wanted to bury it and never hear it go off again. Instead, I woke Mom up and got back in bed for 15 more minutes.. haha

We got ready to go back to the same bus station from yesterday, for a Best of Tuscany tour, that had an 8 am leave time. A whole 30 more minutes! Yay! We walked a bit slower to the station and got the same McDonald’s for breakfast, don’t tell anyone-but I’m about all croissant-ed out. I ate, mom chose not to, and then we met up with our group. We were so worried today would be much like yesterday, being rushed and frustrated and missing the beauty of the excursion.. only time will tell.

It was about half the size of yesterday’s tour.. so that’s a plus. Our guide asked if he was too loud on the speaker (yes), he fixed it.. so, two checks in the better column! Ok! Not too bad at all! The group was quite a large mix and while some folks were a bit loud, and it still really wasn’t bad at all.

Our first stop of the day was in the city of Siena. A local guide from the area did a walking tour of the city with us, she was informative and funny-and we got to go inside the Duomo too. The people of Sienna are “separated” by 17 different districts, each district has a name, like the SheWolf, the dragon, and the Porcupines, which sounds so funny to me. They take their districts very seriously, and you’re born into the district and it can never change. For example, the tour guide was a porcupine, where she and her husband were born. But they moved districts when they married, so their children are in the Forest district. They eat some meals together, they celebrate things together.. it’s like a community within a community.

Siena is also known for their famous horse race twice a year called the Palio. 10 districts of the 17 have a horse entered into the race (it’s a lottery type thing to decide which 10 are in, then it rotates out).. the horse for the district is also by lottery.. they race around the main piazza 3 times and the horse that wins means that district gets to celebrate for months on end, until the next race.. bragging rights, parties, etc. Our guide said in 2019 her children’s district won, the Forest, so for months on end she didn’t see them because they were out at the community celebrations every night.

The marble work of the Duomo is stunning! I stared at the floor for way longer than normal. The floors, the pillars, the artwork and sculptures were made from white, black, green, red, and yellow marble. Incredible! I absolutely LOVE the detail and the patterns, so much so that I want to make crochet blankets with some of these intricate details, maybe from velvet, maybe once the weather cools down at home some.. haha

From there we had free time. Mom and I walked around and then went to a cafe for cappuccinos and snacks. We met back with the group, walked back to the bus, and then had a 45 minute bus ride into the hills of Tuscany, to a farm & vineyard. We got a tour of the grounds-got to see some Sangiovese vines (my fav), spot some baby cows (that were HUGE), and see the barrels and vats for the wine making.

The woman giving us the tour told us the farm is owned by 3 brothers.. they’ve been in business since the 50s, and the one brother is 84 years old and still works at the farm by tending the garden, growing carrots, potatoes, lettuce, etc for the restaurant that they have on site! How awesome! I think the elderly seem much more fit and healthy here in Italy, just like in Spain, because they are so active and many are eating foods that contain so much less preservatives and chemicals, unlike what we have at home. Mind you, many of them drink and smoke.. but even still, they just seem so much healthier! It has to be the food!

Speaking of the restaurant, holy unbelievable. For €30 each, we got at LEAST 6 glasses of wine, pasta in meat sauce, a salad, a salami, prosciutto, and cheese tray, and desert cookies with almonds that you dip into the desert wine. At some point I had to ask the man to please not give me anymore food! (Oh, and bread with olive oil of course!) he even kept refilling my wine glass, not realizing I was swapping my empty glass with mom’s full glass of the red wines.. I’d swap, he’d refill mom’s, he’d see my now second glass going down, refill mine.. it was like a never ending wine cycle, and I was soooo there for it! They were very good! Mom even liked the white wine so much, she asked for an extra glass and even bought some of her own! Wow!

The winery also has a bed and breakfast, a gorgeous pool, a lake, and picturesque Tuscan hillside views with every blink. We ate on the terrace with those views, too. It felt a bit surreal, like someone was going to turn off the background and a green screen would appear any second. When I was planning this trip, I had originally booked us an Airbnb somewhere like this, but the host messaged me to say the pool wouldn’t be open during our stay-so I canceled it and gave us more time in Florence.. as much as I LOVE it here, I know there’s only so much wine and view watching we could do without a pool or something to entertain us for 5 days..

Back on the bus, we went a whole 10 minutes down the street to the town on the hilltop, San Gimignano. We explored the medieval city, snapped pictures of the viewpoints-all of the hills and rows on top of rows of grape vines and olive trees. Truly amazing. We got some wine for me and cappuccino for mom, then headed back to meet the bus. While today did have timelines and meeting points and repeating-it didn’t feel rushed or like we were missing anything because of lack of time. It was perfect!

From there, we were driven to Pisa.. so see, of course.. the leaning tower of Pisa. There’s other buildings there too, like a cathedral which is gorgeous. Mom couldn’t quite grasp the concept of moving the camera to make the optical illusion of pinching the top or looking like you’re trying to stop the building from falling, but bless her for her efforts in trying. She asked someone else to do it for her, and we did get a couple good ones, not *quite* right, but I’ll remember the laughs from trying forever!

She hated all of the ones I took of her, but I love them. I got them within seconds and other people from our bus noted, and then asked me to help them get theirs.. after bending, squatting, lunging, and laughing like hell, they all 3 loved their pictures.

Now, we’re back on the bus for the almost 2 hour ride back to Florence. We are so ready for tomorrow’s sleep in.. we don’t have any plans for tomorrow except to catch up on that missing sleep, and then ship a couple things home that we no longer need and don’t want to keep toting around-I have to lighten my load some, and I think mom does, too. Tonight, when we get back around 9:30, we’ll head home and I’ll run my mile, shower, and snuggle into that perfect bed with the even more perfect air conditioning unit set to 16 degrees (Celsius).

Today has been fantastic. It’s hard to believe we’ve been gone for 2 full weeks now! It’s really starting to fly by, and I’m loving soaking up every moment.

We had to get up early: 6:20 for me, earlier than that for Mom. We left by 6:45 to walk to the bus station for our day trip tour to Cinque Terre, a National park in northwestern Italy. We walked our mile to the station, snagged some McDonalds for breakfast (it was literally the only thing open during that entire mile walk), and joined our tour group. It was a HUGE group.. double decker private bus huge.

The drive from Florence to La Spezia took 2 hours on the bus. The tour guide talked into the overhead speakers the majority of that time.. loudly. I did enjoy some of the history he was sharing, but he had my ears throbbing with the speaker volume. When we arrived in La Spezia, we split into two groups and went into the train station. We were told where to meet in 15 minutes.. we stood in the bathroom line for 14 of those minutes and had to leave before actually making it inside.. only to stand at the train platform listening to this guide say all the things the other guide said before on the bus.. cool. Had we known that, we wouldn’t have gotten out of the bathroom line..

We board the train to take us to the second of the five towns in Cinque Terre.. the towns go in order from La Spezia north like this:

0. La Spezia

1. Riomaggiore

2. Manarola

3. Corniglia

4. Vernazza

5. Monterosso

So, we went from La Spezia to Manarola. When we got off the train, we were supposed to be listening to the guide to know where to go and when to be back.. Mom had other plans. she went into a cafe and bought croissants and water so we could use the bathroom. There were two other women in there doing the same thing, also annoyed we didn’t get a chance to do so earlier when there was clearly time to allow it.

Mom and I then walked up the ginormous hill into the cliff side of this town. When we got to some great views, we turned around and walked back the way we came, so we could go into a dress shop and then walk down to the pier before it was time to meet the group. We both got cute dresses, and then rushed to snap a pic of the water.. and then all but ran back to the train station. When they said “fast pace tour” I don’t think this is what we thought they meant.

From Manarola, we went a whole 4 minutes to Corniglia. From the train station you have to walk up about 400 steps to the top of the village (with gorgeous views of the cliff side homes and vineyards surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea). So absolutely beautiful, but hot and apparently we had to be up those steps within 10-15 minutes to “stay on track..” Hearing that even that would be rushed, Mom opted for the shuttle bus to the top and met me at the village center.

We didn’t do the lunch option with the tour because so many of the preset meals had something with seafood, and mom doesn’t do seafood, so we’d be on our own to explore Corniglia and find lunch, then meet at the restaurant the group went to (those that opted in), by 1:05. It was less than an hour from this moment, and the guide kept repeating himself over and over, so we went to walk away, and he stops us.. fusses, “I am trying to tell you something important, I’m trying to tell you the meeting time and meeting spot!” So, I said back, as polite as my irritation would allow, “1:05 in front of that restaurant, we got it! Thank you so much!” And kept walking.. it has already felt like we’re being herded like cattle, please quit cutting in to free time we actually do have..

So, we find a sandwich shop, get food and a lemon soda to try, locate the gorgeous terrace and eat our lunch on a bench. It was pretty, for sure, and I loved the idea of it-but this tour was annoying us both by this time. And trust me-one thing you don’t want to do, is tell Connie to hurry up. Yikes. We snap some pictures along the walk from our lunch spot to the restaurant meeting spot. We actually make it there early and our guide spotted us and asked if everything was ok and if we enjoyed lunch.. we tell him we did and ask if we have time to order a glass of wine here before time to go.. he grabs the waiter for us and gets our order in.

We enjoy (well, I enjoyed) our wine on the terrace and took advantage of the restrooms before walking down to meet with everyone. From here, there were 2 options: hike from Corniglia to Vernazza and have the absolute best views, or take the train.. the hike is estimated to take 1.5-2 hours, the train-5 minutes. It was a no brainer to me, I wanted to take the train, get to town, have 2 hours of freedom from cattle probes, and enjoy the views we’ve paid to see. Mom was shocked! Look, y’all, just because I hiked the AT doesn’t mean I want to sweat my ass off and be miserable on vacation!

When we made it to the train station for our 5 minute ride, one of the women from this morning at the bathroom asked me something.. I don’t remember what it was now, but I’m thankful she did because it sparked our conversation that turned into making the rest of this day trip wonderful. Her name is Jennie, shes an ED nurse in Florida, she’s here with her Mom, Diane, who reminds me of Mom so much it’s hysterical. The 4 of us quickly bonded and decided to find a place for drinks together with the view of the sea in Vernazza!

We did just that. Jennie and I tried a lemon spritz, which is 100x better than an aperol spritz, for the record. It was like a lemon candy in a drink-but put a lemon drop to shame. We talked and shared our stories-everything from nursing nightmares to traveling mishaps. At some point we were all laughing so hard we had tears in our eyes! After some time, we all went perusing through the shops until it was time to be at the meeting spot. Ugh. Meeting spots.

We boarded the next train from Vernazza to Monterosso. They split us back up into our groups, so Jennie and Diane had to go with the other guide. Boo. In Monterosso, we had almost an hour (45 minutes actually), so Mom and I found a bathroom, paid our €1 each to use, changed into our bathing suits and promptly walked to the beach. I cannot-hear me now-CAN. NOT. See a gorgeous body of water and not get in it if I have the chance!

We drop our stuff in the rocky sand and walk towards the water. People are sunbathing all around, but only 3-5 people are actually in the water. We step in- HOLY SHIT that’s COLD! Hahaha, but not the coldest water I’ve ever been in (thanks, Lake Tahoe).. so, I walk out until I can swim out farther, keeping my hair out of the water.. mom got her toes in and called it quits! Hahaha

I swam, I floated, I smiled and I giggled. I flipping loved it! And I didn’t have to dodge, bob, weave, or talk to anyone else. There was no one out there! I kept a close eye on my watch and stayed in the water for 30 minutes, giving myself just 10 to walk out, get my towel and attempt to dry off before throwing my dress back on and walking to the meeting spot with mom. We got there and met back up with Jennie and Diane before getting on a cruise boat that would take us from Montorosso back to the first town (the one we skipped this morning), Riomaggiore.

The boat ride was beautiful, but too crowded to even attempt getting a picture. Dang it. Then, once off the boat we walked along the coast just long enough to snap some pictures, stand in a bottleneck line attempting to go down the stairs, and then stand at the train station for 20 minutes.. you know, the train station with no views.. when we could have been enjoying the breathtaking beauty surrounding every other step of this gorgeous town. Awesome.

We take the train back to La Spezia, then walk for 20-25 minutes to the bus.. to take our 2 hour bus ride back to Florence. Good gracious, this trip was so beautiful and could have been so much more enjoyable, but we were honestly worn out and frustrated from the rush rush rush of the day. We originally thought it was just us, but we overheard others say thing the same. Oh well, they meant well-it is so beautiful, and honestly now I know if i ever make it back here that I can navigate this area without using a tour group.

After getting back to Florence, Jennie and Diane walked back with us from the train station. We went into a square with another lovely church and quickly found a restaurant to sit and eat some dinner outside. The best part this trip has been meeting these two! Man, they are funny!
We said our goodbyes sometime around 11:15 (we didn’t get back to Florence until after 9pm), and we walked towards our Airbnb and they walked to their hotel-all exhausted by the day. Upstairs, I changed into running clothes and knocked out my mile-showered-and then we both crashed, hard. Reeeeeeal hard.