Monterosso al Mare to Faulty Architecture

Our trip to the hotel Porto Roca was a very long, confusing and stressful trip.  The GPS has not been the biggest help, and we didn't read the itinerary very closely.  This particular hotel does not have a parking lot so we were told to park in a lot and call the hotel to get picked up via taxi.  We followed signs to Monterosso and found a public parking garage that we assumed was where we were supposed to be...it turns out we were only 5 minutes away from our hotel, but because of severe flooding last year, the town limited the driving to a few roads.  The lot we were supposed to be in was up the windy road and back down another windy road and took 20 minutes to get there.

We then called the hotel and were told that the taxi driver was there, we just had to go to the front, so we went to the "front" and saw the taxi driver go past us to the entrance gate.  At this point, I looked at Robert and said "this hotel better be worth all this!"

We loaded up in the taxi and started driving through the town on the beachfront.  We then pulled up to this road:

Yes, that is a road, and a walking path to and from the hotel.  We were in a van that maybe had an inch on either side.  It was quite the adventure.

I am happy to say that the hotel was worth it and was probably my favorite hotel from the trip.  It wasn't glitzy or glamorous, but the staff was extremely friendly, the view was gorgeous, and it was very relaxing.

I still wasn't feeling great, so I ended up taking a nap before dinner.  We had dinner at the hotel and tried some of the local wine.  All the wait staff was very friendly and we were treated to limoncello and sweet wine as a congratulations.  

The tub in the hotel room was a jacuzzi tub, so of course, I had to try it out.  Afterwards, I walked out onto our deck and was greeted by a flash of lightning off in the distance.  The rest of the night it was quite the light show, and the sound effects were pretty impressive as well.

The next morning, I started feeling slightly better, and we asked what the suggested "to-do's" were for the area.  The town itself had some walking paths and a few things to see, and there was a train that could take us to the other towns in Cinque Terre.  The hotel also offered a few spa services, and we asked what time we could schedule massages, and opted to do that instead of touring the other areas. Before the massage we had lunch in a small, family owned restaurant and wandered around Monterosso.  It was raining hard off and on all day, so we went back to the room to warm up and dry off.  

After the massage (70 minutes of heaven!) we made reservations for the restaurant at the bottom of the hill.  One of the specialties of this place, was a seafood soup that was boiled in a ceramic pot.  There were several large groups at the restaurant that ordered the soup and even though I don't like seafood, it was pretty impressive to watch them serve it.  They basically dumped the lobster out and some of the juice and the spread out the rest of the contents which included varying fish, crab, oysters, mussels, octopus and who knows what else.  

The next morning, Tuesday, we woke up to beautifully sunny skies, and a nice cool breeze and then sadly had to say goodbye to Monterosso, but I have a feeling we would be back.  We both really liked the place and it was nice to relax after touring the Tuscan countryside for a week.  

We hopped back in the car and headed to Pisa before heading to Florence.  We wandered around Pisa and took pictures, but when we saw that it was 15 euros to go up to the top, we opted not to.  We found a pizza joint and had pizza in Pisa just for my dad.  Picture coming soon.  

After Pisa, we headed to Florence for a few days...I think that will have to be another post though!! 

On to the coast

We made it to Florence (just wait until THAT blog post is up!), now a quick blog post before heading out to dinner, maybe, just maybe, I will be all caught up before I leave on Saturday!

Saturday morning we said goodbye to our Tuscan villa (and the horribly uncomfortable mattress) and headed towards the coast.  On the way, we decided to take more country roads and swing by Volterra, which we heard was a beautiful medieval town (also apparently the town that inspired Stephanie Meyer to make her villain's the Voltari, another random Twilight fact from a girl who could care less).

It was indeed beautiful, but what I didn't know was that they "recently" discovered a Roman Theatre.  By recently, I mean in the 1950's but from the tour guide said that that time period was recent for an archeological find this big (no we weren't part of the tour, but I wanted to hear more about it and there was a tour group that arrived just as we were about to start walking away, free tour!!).  The theatre is still somewhat intact and the tour guide said that before they started to dig, it was a soccer field and before that it was apparently a donkey racing track.  Behind the stage, there is the layout for another building that was built when the Christian church outlawed theatre (sigh).  That building became a bath house and the foundation for a few of the bath tubs are still intact!  I was definitely in awe of this piece of theatrical history.  To think about performing on a stage like that in front of over 2,000 people is amazing.  So much so that I sat here and waited for these pictures to upload!

After more wandering and shopping in Volterra, we got back in the car and headed out again.  We had talked about swinging by Pisa and checking out the tower, but when we got there, traffic was so bad and we were both starving so we opted to stop at a pizzeria outside of town and try again on Tuesday.  We then headed for our final destination of the day, the beach town Rapallo.

The hotel was nice, and we were given a bottle of Prosecco to enjoy on the balcony looking over the Mediterranean Sea.  It was a gorgeous view, and thankfully a gorgeous day.  The hotel had a spa so we decided that we would treat ourselves to a massage.  It was a great massage, but very different from what spa's are like back home.  There wasn't much to cover up with and I had to remind myself that nudity isn't as big of a taboo in Europe as it is in the US.  

That night we had dinner at the hotel restaurant looking over the harbor, and then walked along the seaside and back.  We then headed back to the hotel room and Robert went out again to take pictures of the town at night.  I started reading and suddenly came down with a nasty sore throat that stayed with me through the next morning.

Sunday, we wandered around the town of Rapallo, which is very much a seaside resort, and very expensive to boot.  We were told that there was a cathedral on top of a hill that you had to either hike several hours, drive an hour or take the 8 minute funicular up to the top.  We decided to take the funicular and headed over to buy tickets.  It was pretty exciting going up, even though I still wasn't feeling all that great, but the view from the top was gorgeous.  The cathedral had just started mass, so we didn't stay long after taking pictures, and then headed back down.  

And there is where I will stop for now...next up, our exciting journey to Monterosso al Mare...

This is a road? Really?

We are getting packed up to leave our current hotel, the Porta Roca, and I thought I'd take a moment to write more.  It has definitely been my favorite stopping point so far.  When it was storming, its been very soothing listening to the ocean outside our window.  Not too many tourists since it is the end of the season here, so its been fairly quiet.  But back to the trip.

I ended with the trip to Multepuliciano.  Driving home that evening was exciting as the GPS was proving to be difficult.  We took country roads all the way home instead of the bigger highway so it wouldn't cost us anything.  At one point it started pouring rain, and the roads were so tiny and windy that I was pretty nervous.  We made it back to the villa just fine and planned for the next day.

Friday, we went up the north wine road through the Chianti region.  This region was gorgeous.  Hills and trees and ancient ruins spotted throughout the valleys and on the hill tops.  Every time we turned there was a new site to be seen and lots of pictures were taken.  We had heard about a place called Badia a Passignano , where there was a famous restaurant and it was the home of one of the oldest wine makers in the world.  The normal road to the small town was closed, and we had to take a detour...it was a dirt path.  To remind you, we are driving a tiny Ford Fiesta.  No four-wheel drive on this thing!  And it kept going and going and going and we saw many other cars give up and turn around, but we kept going.  When we finally got there, the road became paved and it showed us a beautiful medieval abbey, and a quaint little town.  Probably the smallest town we have been in so far.  We had a very expensive lunch at the Osteria di Passignano  and tried some delicious wines (haven't had many this trip that haven't been good) and took off on what we thought was a paved road out of the town.  It wasn't...but it was a shorter trip than the one coming in!

Our next stop was Greve in Chianti, where there is a wine bar that holds hundreds of types of Italian wines and oils for you to try.  You buy a card with a certain amount of money on it, and you can try any of the stations that are set up for you.  It was a lot of fun, however, I ended with a sip of Grappa and that did not sit so well with me.  I was done wine tasting for the day, but we had a few more stops along the way.

We briefly drove through the town of Radda in Chianti, but there didn't seem like much to see and do other than yet another medieval cathedral, so we read our guide book and heard about a nearby town called Volpaia.  Volpaia was a small hilltop town, where the residents are all winemakers.  They have turned the old city into a winery where all the machinery is hidden by the ancient walls.  We unfortunately were too late for the tour, but I'd definitely like to go back and see more of it.  Robert tried some of their wines and I tried their Olio (olive oil) and red wine vinegar.  We are bringing some samples home with us, it was so good!

That was our last stop in the Chianti area, and we decided that since we had such an expensive lunch, we would buy our own food and have it at home.  Since it was our finally evening in Tuscany, I asked Robert to pick me up one of the profiteroles we had had the other night...He did and made me a very happy camper!

Its time to check out of the Porta Roca, so I will continue with our trip out of Tuscany and to the sea at a later time!

Touring the wine country

I am sitting in the third hotel we have stayed at relaxing before dinner and thought, its been far too long since my last post, and I am starting to forget everything that we have seen and done!  Internet connection is still not great out here on the Mediterranean Coast, so pictures will be uploaded later.  I believe I left off with Wednesday October 10th, so here goes...

Thursday October 11th:  We were advised by the villa staff to try the La Crete drive which is known to be very scenic and takes you through several old towns.  We finally were able to get the GPS to work, but even with the GPS and two maps, we still got lost!  We finally figured out the road we were supposed to be on and headed out.  Our first stop was the town of Asciano after looking for parking on very narrow roads, we wandered through the town to look for lunch.  Asciano is a small, old town that had very few tourists.  We had a delicious lunch and wandered a few more minutes before getting back in the car and heading towards our next stop.

La Crete was somewhat reminiscent of California's I-5.  A lot of farm land that has been recently dug up and harvested.  Not exactly what we were thinking of, but it was still a nice drive.

On the windy roads, we stumbled across the Abbey di Monte Oliveto Maggiore.  It was a very quiet, beautiful monastary out in the middle of the woods.

Our next stop was Montalcino which is the home of Brunello wine.  Robert was very excited to be here and taste the Brunello's, I was enthralled by the beauty of this hilltop town.  We wandered the streets heading towards the fortress where they had wine tastings.  The wine's we tasted were delicious, but way too much money for our tastes.  We headed up the fortress stairs for yet another panoramic view of part of Italy.

After Montalcino, we headed towards Montepulciano, a gorgeous, huge, gothic town which if we hadn't arrived so late, we would have spent more time in.  While looking for parking, we mistakenly entered the old towns street and had quite the adventure.  We watched as the car in front of us tried to back up and ended up hitting a statue, and fumbled through the steep hill that was the road, in our little Ford Fiesta!  I have a video of that, so I will post it later!  We finally found parking and started walking up the steep hill.  Montepulciano is the home of what is now my favorite type of wine Vino Nobile.  We had dinner at a lovely restaurant and drank amazing wine.  Its definitely a place I will want to go back to and explore someday.

I'm going to cut this blog short, because there is an amazing sunset happening!  I will try to write again later tonight or tomorrow morning about our fun trip on Friday through the Chianti area!!

Food, friends and vino

Before I start, I must rejoice in the fact that my luggage FINALLY arrived!  It is so good to have all my clothes with me!

I believe I left off on our third day in Tuscany.  On Monday, we found out that our luggage had been found and would be delivered that day, so we decided to hang around the villa and wait for it.  When the doorbell rang we jumped up and ran to the door only to find that they just had one suitcase not both of them.  Of course, mine was the one to still be missing, but we were assured it would be there later that evening or the next morning.  Well it didn't show up that night, or the next morning and of course that day there was a huge lightning storm which my little flats and Italian sundress were no match for.  I sent Robert to the reception to have them call the airport and find out what was going on.  He came back with directions to a "superstore" and the assurance that my luggage would arrive later that day.  We didn't want to just hang around the villa again, and the weather started clearing up so we went to the store and bought some clothes just in case the luggage didn't make it.  

We then headed toward the town San Gimgnano.  On our way, we went to a few wineries to taste, but only one was open so we headed towards the town center.  You can see San G from where we are staying because it has several tall towers.  Its another old old town that is just breathtaking.  We wandered around for awhile and had our first Italian gelato, which was delicious.  

Our villa was having a wine tasting and dinner, so we headed out from San G.  When we got back, we had enough time to drop everything off and my luggage was waiting for me!  I can't explain how happy I was, but maybe this picture will sum it up:

Dinner that night was a lot of fun.  We went on a tour of Le Torri's wine production center, got to taste their wines and had a delicious dinner with other guests at the villa.  There was a group of people from California as well as Pennsylvania and a Brazilian family who live in Switzerland.  I spent the evening teaching their kids some English words and having them teach me Brazilian (I don't remember much, probably due to the wine consumption!).  Robert even gave them a small concert!

Wednesday morning, we woke up early to have breakfast and then headed out on another touring adventure.  We were told that the city Siena has a huge market on Wednesdays and we decided to check it out.  The city center was huge and it took us awhile to find parking and then find the location of the market.  Basically, it was a large flea market with knock off clothing, purses, shoes and even animals.  We wandered around for about an hour and a half and still hadn't seen everything.  We went back to move our car and headed for the center of Siena where the Duomo was.  The old part of Siena is like a maze.  There is so much to see and it just keeps going and going and going.  It is very beautiful though, and we were able to go up to the top of one of the towers near the giant cathedral and get a gorgeous view of the city.  Pictures of that coming soon.

The internet connection at the villa is spotty, so I will have to post more pictures when I find a better connection.  Its almost dinner time here, so I am signing off!  I will update more in the next few days!

Bongiorno from Italy!

Hello everyone!  Thought I'd take some time to give you an update on our adventure to Italy!

We are currently staying in a gorgeous villa in the Chianti region of Tuscany.  Everywhere we look there are rolling hills covered with grape vines.

Our flight from the US, was relatively uneventful, except for the fact that we were delayed almost an hour due to the Blue Angels air show.  Thankfully our connecting flight in Frankfurt was also delayed slightly, but we were very worried about our luggage not making it.

Those worries turned into reality when we arrived in Florence and our bags didn't show up along with about 30 other passengers.  We made a claim to the lost and found department, who assured us we would get our bags either that night or the next morning.  After picking up our rental car, we headed out of Florence towards our villa.

After arriving at the villa (we did get a little lost at first, but that was fine as the countryside is beautiful!) we dropped off our carry-ons and ventured into the town of Tavarnelle to pick up some food supplies and look for a dress for me.  We found a cute little clothing shop, where after a lot of gesturing and pointing, I was finally able to relay the fact that our luggage hadn't arrived and I was hoping for a dress to wear for the next day.  Then we came back to the villa, cooked some dinner, and fell asleep around 7pm!

The next morning, Sunday, we didn't get up until 11am, which meant we were in bed for 16 hours or so.  We called to check on our luggage and were told that they still hadn't found it.  So we went to reception to find out what we should do for the day since most shops were closed.  We were given several ideas on what to do, and she suggested we go to a festival in a nearby town named Certaldo.

Certaldo is the ancestral home of an Italian poet, Giovanni Boccaccio, and every year the "old town" has a food and wine festival.  I say "old town" because there are two parts to Certaldo, the newer part is down below the hill and is more modern and industrial and the old town is up above it.  To get to the old town, you can either walk up a steep, cobblestoned hill or take a trolly up to the top.

When we got to the top, it of course started to rain, and where were both our jackets?  In our suitcases!  Thankfully we were able to duck inside a building and look around until the rain stopped.  Afterwards we wandered around the medieval town tasting wine and food goods and marveling at the beauty that surrounded us.

When we got back to the villa, we checked on our luggage again and there was no change.  As we headed back to our room, a group of people were sitting at the base of the stairs, and invited us to come join them as they were celebrating a birthday.  So after dropping off our stuff, we headed back down and had wine and pizza with a delightful group of people.  Most of them were English, but only a handful still lived in England.  The others lived in Venice and gave us all sorts of helpful tips.  After a very fun evening, we headed back to our room, checked the luggage status (still nothing) and then fell asleep.

Monday, morning, just a few hours ago for me, we checked the status of our bags and were very excited to see that they had been found and were on there way!  We decided to stay around the villa today because we were feeling very gross after wearing the same clothes multiple days.  We went back to the grocery store to get some lunch, and then read and dozed all afternoon.  Around 2pm there was a knock at the door!!  We jumped up and answered it very hopeful that it was our lost luggage...

Well, it was one of the two.  At this time, Roberts luggage has arrived safe and sound but mine is still out there.  We were assured it would be here tonight or tomorrow (yeah, I've heard that before!) so until then, I wear my little Italian sundress and hope that it doesn't rain again!

We are going to see if we need reservations for dinner tonight and wander around the villa grounds.  I will keep you posted as the luggage saga continues!

Ciao!!!

A Singleton no longer

I cannot believe that today is September 28 and that tomorrow, Robert and I will be getting married.  The past 6 months of been a whirlwind of activity and planning, and tomorrow I get to see if it all will work out!

The one thing that I know for sure will work out is my dream of having family and friends surround us and help put this wedding together.  There were craft nights, special trips to the city to buy fabric for veils and to try on dresses, dear friends who are currently working very hard putting all my flowers together, and special family items apart of the wedding, some reminders of those that are no longer with us.  We are truly blessed to have so many that care for us and without all of you guys, this wouldn't have been possible!

We will be heading out to the Sonoma Valley later this afternoon after we load the rest of the boxes up in a rented truck.

For any of you who can't make it, we are hoping to have a live broadcast of the event, but I can't promise anything.  If we do, I will post a link here and on the website.

Thank you to all of you for following me on this journey!  Looking forward to celebrating with most of you on Saturday!  Pictures will be posted later on for everyone to enjoy!

Here we go!