Biking in the Tuscan Sun

I had been told by many friends that Florence was like an Italian Sevilla. When Grace and I arrived and made it to our hostel (an old monastery) just before the dark clouds rolled in, I already got a feeling similar to the one that I always felt walking the streets of Sevilla. Like the lively Andalusian capital, you can feel the passion and the energy just from walking next to the wonderful people who live there. Our time in Florence was full of art museums, great food, crazy cool architecture and the best gelato we found all trip--thanks to the Australians we met in Switzerland!

The Duomo in Florence is one of the most striking and detailed church
that I saw during my time in Europe

This is the dome in the Duomo

Here is the famous Ponte Vecchio 

Here we are with the center of Florence behind us

The highlight of our stop in Florence was hands down our bike tour through the Tuscan countryside. During our trip, Grace and I haven't joined many tour groups, but things like the Harry Potter tour and the Sound of Music tour were well worth sticking out from the native crowd, and the bike tour didn't disappoint either! We found a company run by a Scottish man who came to visit Florence and never left (the story also involves a love interest that kept him from leaving), and it involves a day of biking and a meal at a family-owned restaurant in the middle of the countryside.

First we were taken by van to a castle in the Chianti region that produces olive oil and wine. With our group, full of wonderful fellow travelers, we took a tour and tasted some of the goodness produced there. Next, we were given bikes and helmets and a native to Florence led us around as we looped through the green rolling hills.

Here are some of the barrels where the wine was kept

Me, our guide Keith and Grace at the top of the castle

The Tuscan Countryside  

Here we are with our bikes ready for the ride 

We got to stop and walk through the vineyards

The ride was mostly scenic, and just enough effort to burn off all of the pasta we had been eating. Just after our group lunch, where I had a few classes of wine and a huge plate of pasta, we reached the big bad hill that our guide had been warning us about since the beginning. He said it was part of the Italy's equivalent to the Tour de France. We were given the option to put our bikes in the truck and get bussed to the top of the hill, but Grace and I were determined! We were sweating our butts off while making our way up the hill and decided to stop and walk because we thought we had only made it to the half way point. Turns out we were so close to the top that we could see it, and man were we mad we stopped! All in all it was a lovely day, with perfect weather, fresh air, a little exercise, great company and good food. When they brought us back to Florence, our guides gave us big hugs goodbye and some restaurant recommendations for the rest of our time in Florence.

For our last meal in Florence we went to a restaurant recommended by our guide and got great service from the Italians. The next morning we made our way to the train station to begin the trek to our final stop, Rome!

When the waiter asked if we wanted water, we said that we
 would just stick with wine and this is what he brought us!

Grace's mystery meal--something about truffle pasta, so delicious! 

"In Florence we had yogurt and nutella gelato, fruit pie gelato,  cookie gelato,
tiramisu gelato, cheesecake gelato,  and dark chocolate gelato.
Can you see it on my lips???" 

5 Town Hike

Next Italian Stop: The Cinque Terre--also known as the Italian Riviera, and probably the stop I was looking forward to the most! After discovering my love for hiking, I heard about this little spot in Italy where you can hike between five little towns that are basically built into the cliffs on the ocean. When Grace and I were planning our trip, this stop was a must!

Here is a map of the towns. We stayed in Corniglia which is in the middle

I found this great apartment online and booked it for our 4 days in the Cinque Terre. I thought it was a good idea to stay in the middle, to make it easier to access all of the towns. Of course my brilliant idea didn't seem to consider the fact that Corniglia is the only Cinque Terre town that is not at sea level, and you have to climb 382 steps to get to it! But considering the amount of pasta/pizza/gelato that we had already consumed and was still to come, it was probably a good thing! Our apartment was owned by a wonderful Italian woman who lived down the street and took great care of us. We had three levels--one with a bedroom and bathroom, a kitchen up the spiral staircase, and a rooftop balcony.

We arrived late afternoon on our first day, so we took a walk around the small town, hit up the local markets, and grabbed dinner overlooking the water. To top off our day we enjoyed more gelato and watched the sunset. It was a great way to kick off a beautiful few days. 

Our dinner complete with the always yummy Italian wine

There was a stray cat trying to get some of my gelato as we spent about
an hour just enjoying the views until the sun went down

In the morning we enjoyed breakfast on the terrace and packed a lunch for our full day of hiking. Rick Steves, along with all of the other guides we read, all made the hikes seem leisurely, but don't be fooled fellow travelers, they were hard work! Also, a few of the paths were closed due to recent mud slide, but Grace and I somehow managed to hike from Corniglia to Vernazza, a closed path, without ever being stopped--we also had the path to ourselves, which was a treat for our first hike. 

The dirt walking paths hugged the side of the cliffs.
The little town in the background is Corniglia, where we stayed all week

This view sums up what we were looking at during all of our hikes

This town called Vernazza suffered greatly from the mudslides and is
only just starting to recover. It had a cute little harbor where we had gelato

We arrived at our final stop for the day, Monterroso, mid-afternoon and had a picnic lunch on the beach. While exploring the town, I saw a man wearing a Minnesota Twins hat! I was very excited to see a fellow fan, but according to Grace, I scared him away...oops, Go Twins! After a long and physically exhausting day of hiking, Grace and I went back to the apartment and cooked dinner. We bought fresh mozzarella and tomatoes from the local market and a deck of cards to play cribbage until the sky became dark. 

This home cooked meal was one of the best we had all trip! 

If we thought day 1 was a hard hike, we had no idea what was coming for us! Unfortunately the direct path to get us to the other two towns was also closed. The guide told us that we could take a longer path, so we decided to go for it, without knowing that we would be on an uphill climb for almost an hour, and down hill for what seemed like another hour at the end.  I don't usually agree to climbing stairs for an hour straight, but the reward turned out to be far greater than we could have imagined. The path was full of Italian wild flowers and we ended up way high up the cliff in the middle of vineyards. 

Grace at the beginning of our uphill battle

The wildflowers all over Italy are red! 

This is Manarola, the town we could see from the balconies of Corniglia

To finish our day of hiking, Grace and I walked the famous Via Dell'Amore, or the "Walk of Love," which was nice and flat, and didn't make me sweat profusely! There are love locks and graffiti all over the little stretch between Manarola and Riomaggiore, the final Cinque Terre town that we saw. We walked as far as the path would let us, and had lunch on the rocks by the ocean. On our way back we met a group of students from the University of Minnesota; the second Minnesota connection we found in the Cinque Terre! They were just starting their summer session in Rome and gave us some great travel tips! 

This piece of art is the symbol of the Via Dell'Amore

Here we are in Riomaggiore, my favorite of the 5 Cinque Terre towns

Feeling tired from all of our hard work, Grace and I made our way back to Corniglia to enjoy a relaxing evening with more food from the market. The clouds that had kept us from baking under the sun during our hikes finally cleared and night and we got to enjoy a nice full moon on our rooftop balcony. Next, we spent our final day in the Cinque Terre in our little home of Corniglia after we discovered a hidden beach spot. We enjoyed a day under the sun with our books and more gelato of course! It was a great way to relax before spending our final week in more busy city settings. 

Here are the steps we had to climb up to Corniglia! 

I think Grace would agree that this was our best meal of the trip
Gnocci with pesto and focaccia bread--both originate from the Cinque Terre!

A beautiful night to have a rooftop terrace! 

After leaving the Cinque Terre, we had to connect trains in Pisa. Before we caught our first train, we met a woman from Vienna who had studied at the University of Minnesota (3rd Minnesota connection in the Cinque Terre)! She was a very funny lady, and Grace and I never figured out if the old man she was with was her father or rich lover...She insisted that we sit by her on the train to share stories, and didn't quite understand that we didn't have first class tickets. Once the train started moving and the ticket checker came along, we had to say goodbye to our new friends. In Pisa, while we waited for our connecting train, we threw on our heavy backpacks and hurried over to the tower--this was the second time we used the Italian bus system for free! 

Here we are with the Leaning tower of Pisa, which is
actually in the city if Pisa! 

When we were finally on our way to Florence, we met a group of three sisters who were also traveling together. One lived in London, one in South Africa, and the other in New Zealand, and they were gathering for a 50th birthday to do a walking tour of Tuscany. They got off the train in a little town and planned to from town to town in the area while trying the local food and wine. I think Grace and I definitely got some ideas for our future, especially with Grace going to the Peace Corps in the coming year! 

Shaking it up in Italy

After singing through the hills of Austria, Grace and I were officially half way done with our European tour. The last half was a 2 week tour of Italy that included 7 cities! First stop: Venice, after our final night train. This time around went much more smoothly than the first night train, and we only had to share our car with 2 others, so it was easier to spread out and get comfortable. I had heard people describe Venice, but nothing could have prepared me for arrival in the most unique city in the world. When we got off the train, we had to catch a cab to our hostel—only in Venice, all of the vehicles are boats! For those who are thinking of traveling to Venice, just know that you will get lost or turned around at one point! With that said, Grace and I had no trouble finding our hostel, the trouble was what we found when we got inside! Out of our entire European trip, this one was up there on the sketchy ratings. The building was probably older than America, and it was dark and kind of stinky. We felt so out of place that we almost took our bags and went in search of another. In the end, we only had one night to stay in Venice, and we had good roommates and a free breakfast in the morning, so we survived.

Our day in Venice basically included just wandering around the island and getting lost. Venice is considered an island, and it is said that it will sink one day. As you walk through the skinny streets, you often have to walk over a bridge to cross one of the many canals. The great part about being in Venice, and finally arriving in Italy was the food! Our first Italian meal was pizza—we each ordered our own of course, while we sat in the sunshine on the water. We did a lot of relaxed walking on our first day in Italy, in fact that is just about all that we did, and it felt great. In the morning we were headed to our next stop in Verona, but we ran into a little bump along the way—or should I say a quake! While in London, I heard about a severe earthquake in northern Italy, and at about 9 o’clock in the morning, Grace and I were shaken awake as we felt the outskirts of the second earthquake to hit the same region of Bologna. At first, we weren’t quite sure what had just happened, because when I peeked out the window it seemed like business as usual. It was the strangest method of an alarm clock that I have ever experienced, and when we got to the train station, the mass chaos delayed our departure for Verona, but only slightly.

A picture of the Gran Canal with a boat taxi passing by!

Grace and the canal

Our first meal in Italy! The location was great, the food was great,
but we almost fell asleep while eating due to the night train sleep

We stumbled upon the most amazing book store while wandering,
and this was the fire escape! I guess that is a park to having
canals for streets!

This was one of my favorite pictures. The city is so old, but vibrant
at the same time

This is the famous Rialto Bridge after sunset 

Verona, our second stop, is where we stayed in a romantic B&B in a couple’s suite. The city that became famous for being the setting of Romeo and Juliet is very old and situated along a river. It has a ton of ancient Roman ruins that people just casually walk by every day. We had some great meals in Verona and relaxed walking around through the different plazas.

This is the statue of Juliet, the main attraction in
Verona. People come and leave love letters,
graffiti and love locks

Here is Juliet's balcony

The city had many plazas with beautiful colors on the buildings

On our second morning in the quaint town, we decided to walk to a place recommended by our guide book, but we didn’t put two and two together and realize that we were headed for the church we had seen on top of a big hill! Sometimes tourist maps are not totally accurate…but in the end it was a great adventure that provided us with a little exercise and beautiful views. In the evening, we visited Juliet’s balcony, Romeo’s house, and enjoyed a nice dinner at a restaurant tucked away in a little street.

I always love the cities on a river! 

Here is a view of Verona from the church we climbed up to

We were exhausted, but once we got to the top it was great to see
a bird's eye view of the city and make room in our stomachs for more
pizza and pasta after all the climbing! 

In the morning, we enjoyed our last breakfast in the lovely B&B, stalked up on to-go packets of Nutella, and hit the tracks for our journey to the Cinque Terre. We also discovered that if you hop on through the back door of the Italian busses, you can get away without paying...shhhh, we only did twice! 

The Hills Are Alive

Let’s start at the very beginning—a very good place to start in our day in Salzburg.

After realizing that our night train from Vienna to Venice stopped in Salzburg, we decided the universe was telling us to pay the classic city a visit. We only had the day to explore, so we decided to take a guided tour of all of the special locations from the movie The Sound of Music. The tour involved getting on a big cheesy coach tour bus that had pictures of the movie’s cast on the outside—I’d say we didn’t stick out as tourists at all! The tour turned out to be a great way to see Salzburg.

Like our tour of the Harry Potter studios, we were given some secrets of the movie’s filming. First, we were driven outside of the city to a big beautiful mansion on a lake. We then learned that in the movie, there were two different locations used for the Von Trapp house—one was the actual mansion, the other was just a backyard of a house that never appeared in the movie. Also, the lake that was used was manmade and freezing cold during filming. Because of the temperature, the director only wanted to do one or two takes of the scene where the children fall off of the little row boat. The biggest concern of the scene was for the little actress playing Grettle, because she didn’t know how to swim. So, Maria was supposed to fall into the lake with her and pick her up right away. Unfortunately for Grettle, Maria accidentally fell backwards off the boat and wasn’t there to pick her up—watch for it next time in the movie, Grettle never comes up!

Here we are by the man-made lake. The white mansion was not used as
the Von Trapp house, but the backyard was. 

Next we saw the house from the movie, and other classic places like the gazebo used in the song “Sixteen Going on Seventeen,” and the convent where the Von Trapp family hid from the Nazis. The director decided to use a church for the wedding that was not actually in Salzburg so we were driven to this little town outside the city, were we saw lakes and mountains, the inside of the church, and had an apple struedel snack! The tour ended with a sing-a-long on the bus, and a trip to the Mirabell Gardens where “Do-Re-Mi” was filmed.

Here is the famous gondola where Liesl and Rolfe dance around,
and Maria and the Captain declare their love for each other

This is the little town where the church is located outside of Salzburg

Outside the famous church. We decided to get some
apple strudel and only had about 5 minutes inside!

The children and Maria danced around this fountain during the song
Do-Re-Mi

At the end of the song Do-Re-Mi, the cast jumps up and down these
stairs in Mirabell Gardens, where many scenes were filmed 

After our tour, Grace and I did a Rick Steve’s walking tour around Salzburg and had our last Austrian meal—wiener schnitzel. Thanks to Until Timmy, we had a day full of singing and sunshine in Salzburg. You don’t have to be a die hard Sound of Music fan to appreciate the places we saw, I know I wasn’t before going on the tour. Our tour guide also let us in on an Austrian secret--Mozart was born in Salzburg, so the Austrians are very proud to call him their own, but the truth is that when Mozart was born and growing up in Salzburg, it wasn't part of Austria yet, so it is hard to truly call him an Austrian! 

During our walking tour we rounded a corner and came across this
huge monument. The castle was also always in sight

The buildings were pastel colored! Mozart's childhood home was
just around the corner. 

After dinner and a walk by the river, we made our way back to the train station to kill time before catching our 1:00 AM night train to Venice to begin our two weeks in Italy! 

Vienna Waits For You

After a brutal night train from Switzerland, Grace and I arrived for our Austrian part of the trip. It was truly incredible to go to sleep in one country and wake up in another. With that being said, I could definitely have gone without the screaming baby in our train car! Because of our college student budgeting, Grace and I didn’t splurge on a bed for the night train, but decided to just go with the sleeping chairs. Big mistake. Our car with six chairs was full with seven people—one being the screaming baby! With no room, shrieking noises, and Grace’s pesky cough, we didn’t get the best night of sleep—even after drinking a bottle of wine while waiting in the train station! Luckily our Vienna hostel was a five minute walk from the train station, and it turned out to be our favorite stay of the trip with its backyard garden and great backpacker’s feel.

Vienna is an breathtaking city. It is full of open space, big grassy lawns, huge palaces that belonged to the Hapsburg family during their ridiculous European dynasty, and bratwurst! I had been looking forward to our weekend in Vienna ever since my nights up chatting with my cousin Sara in London. My Auntie Sue studied abroad in Vienna back when she was young. It was the city that launched her fabulous European life (which included Rome and eventually settling outside London), so I was looking forward to experience the same things that she did, although I promised myself that I wouldn’t ditch my return to the U.S. for a motorcycle trip around Europe with a Viennese man that I met, mainly for my mom and dad’s sake.

After arriving, we decided to skip a nap and power through to the Schönbrunn Palace—a past summer home for the Hapsburgs. The extensive gardens with flowers and fountains was a perfect spot for a picnic lunch too.

This is a picture of the palace from the gardens where we had lunch

I can speak for Grace and myself when I say that the history of the Hapsburgs was fascinating. We were especially interested in the story of the Empress Elizabeth or “Sisi.” At the Hofburg Palace in the historical center of Vienna there is an entire museum dedicated to her. She was a very morbid empress and didn’t seem interested at all in her role. She was known for her tiny waistline and wore her hair all the way down to the floor. Most of her time was spent traveling, which eventually led to her assassination which was an unlucky twist of fate—while vacationing, Sisi got caught in the middle of a man’s planned assassination of an Italian official. The official canceled his trip, but it was learned by the media that Sisi was traveling there, so the assassin decided to kill her instead.   

This is a picture of Hofburg Palace, home of the Sisi museum.
There were many art museums on the complex too.

Our special event of the Viennese weekend was a night at the opera. Vienna is known as the origin of classical music, and our guide book told us about seats we could get for 3 euro. Grace and I waited in line for standing room tickets, and then grabbed appetizers and glasses of wine while we took our time exploring the Opera house before the curtain opened. Overall, it was a great cultural experience. The entire show was done in German, but there were individual subtitle screens in front of every spot—although it took Grace a while to figure this out, so she had an entirely different story line worked up in her head! After the opera, we went across the street to a bratwurst stand, where we would eventually eat three meals!

Inside the Opera House

Our wine and hors d'oeuvres before the show

Grace and I in our standing room only seats preparing for
 a show in a language neither of us understand! 

After months full of visits to churches, I have to say that St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna was the most breathtaking of all the churches I had seen, especially on the inside. 

The inside had reflections of the colorful stained glass windows
all over the walls 

The massive church even had a colorful design on the roof

Lastly, before leaving Vienna, we had to make one final stop to our favorite Bratwurst stand. The menu was in German, so when we ate our many meals there we just had to take our chances and point to something on the menu. Grace made an interesting choice for our final Viennese meal! 

Here I am with my favorite bratwurst with curry sauce,
definitely a recipe idea to bring back!

Grace getting up the courage to try her black bratwurst! 

Due to advice from our Uncle Tim, Grace and I decided to cut our weekend in Vienna a day short, and spend that day in Salzburg instead. So for our last night in Vienna, we went back to our lovely hostel and cuddled up to watch the Sound of Music in preparation for our visit to where it all happened!