Rolling Hills of Tuscany

After the Amalfi Coast, Tuscany would be my next favorite part of Italy. The rolling green hills with the tall cypress trees and vineyards that go on for miles hold a certain charm that makes me think of Letters to Juliet and Under the Tuscan Sun.

I booked a tour with a great company in Florence, called Walkabout Florence. They're a relatively new company and offer some other good tours I would have enjoyed taking if we would have had the time. The price for the tour was awesome considering all that we did.

The day started off early and with a drive to our first stop, Siena. The city is beautifully medieval and the building tops were covered in flying bats, giving it the feel of an old city. To talk about this city would take a whole post so I'll give an overview.

We began with a walking tour with a local guide. Siena is broken up into 17 different neighborhoods and has an old medieval tradition of horse racing. The horse race is known as the Palio Horse Race and 10 of the neighborhoods race. When we arrived, the city was setting up for the race, as it was only a week away, set on July 2. The small square we were in quickly fills up with 40,000 people during the race and it only lasts about 75 seconds.



I loved when we got visit the Duomo there. It's smaller than the one in Florence but way more impressive on the inside. The city origionally planned to build a much bigger Duomo than the one in Florence but lacked the money. If you visit, you have to go into the Piccolomini Library. The library is full of frescoes and illuminated choir books by Umbrian Bernardino di Betto. The frescoes are all origional and none of them have been restored. It's stunning to see how vibrant the colors still are after so many centuries.





When we finished up, it was time for some much needed lunch. I knew we were going to head to a farm and try some wines, but I didn't know it would be so great! Upon arriving, we doned our whispers and took a short tour of this organic farm, Poggio Alloro. The farm makes their own organic pasta, sauce, wines, breads and olive oils. It was so tempting to pluck a grape from the vines in the vineyard, but I managed to show some restraint and wait until we got to try the fermented ones ;P.



I thought our wine samples would be just a swallow of wine to swish around in our mouths, but no. We got bottles of the stuff and I probably had six glasses of it until I cut myself off. My favorite wine was the Vernaccia Si San Gimignano. For the meal, we had bread, pasta, salad and cookies for dessert. The servers gave us an extremely strong dessert wine to dip the cookies in and I couldn't even finish it because the strength of the alcohol burned my tongue.



Once we finished our meal, we had about 10 more minutes at the farm and went to look at the beautiful vineyard views. From our terrace, you could see the farm's mile long vineyards and San Gimignano. I took a minute to collect my tipsy thoughts and layed down at a lounger near their pool. I got to admire the view and catch a few rays before leaving.

Since San Gimignano was so close, it took only 10 minutes to get there. After drinking so much, it's a bit daunting to hear that we can climb one of the few towers in the town or walk around to see the many scenic spots around it. Jeff and I were perfectly content with getting some of the "best gelato in the world" and relaxing in the cool shade of an alley way. If you visit San Gimignano and craving gelato, try Gelateria Dondoli. The gelateria offers many different and unique flavors of gelato along with the usual favorites. I got blackberry lavendar, raspberry rosemary and berry flavored and it was delicious. Lucky for us, the owner was there greeting everyone with such enthusiasm and kindness and took goofy pictures with us.



Finally, (what I origionally thought was going to be my favorite part of the day) we made our way to Pisa. It was great getting to see one of the major icons of the world and something everyone knows about. Jeff and I took our cheesy touristy photos and walked around to find a nice spot to sit down. After our busy day, we didn't feel like walking up Pisa or inside the cathedral or baptistry there. Instead, we layed in the shadows of the Cathedral and basked in the fact that we were sitting at one of the most popular destinations in Italy. Shortly after, it was time to leave and head back to Florence.





Jeff and I enjoyed our time so much on this tour and glad we did it. We certainly got to do way more than we would have on our own and learned so much. My favorite part of the day? Our meal at the gorgeous farm. Not only was the food and wine spectacular, but the scenery was the epitome of what you would imagine Tuscany to look like.

Addicted to the Amalfi Coast

I know I'm bouncing around about my trip but I have been having difficulty with wifi in a lot of areas and I want to share the best parts of my trip as soon as I am able to. But don't worry, I'll update about everything else as well once I get the down time and better internet connection.

Jeff (the boyfriend) met me in Italy, and we spent two weeks traveling through Tuscany, Rome and the Coast. Italy tops my charts at one of my favorite countries because of the vast amounts of history and beauty it offers. While each region of Italy had its advantages and disadvantages, my favorite part was the Amalfi Coast and the way there.



We decided on taking a tour that left from Naples and went to Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast. Pompeii was amazing, but we'll save that for another day. The guides came and picked us up from our hotel in Naples and we were off. After Pompeii, we began our journey and started off with beautiful views of the Sorrento Peninsula. It was stunning and was only going to get better from there. We passed beautiful beaches covered with people enjoying their weekend. Come prepared to pay, though, if you want to use the actual beaches here, as they cost about 20 to 25 euro to spend the day there.



The ride to the coastline after leaving the peninsula, is not for the faint of heart. While it's well worth the visit, you ride along windy roads on the edge of the cliffs, with steep slopes careening off into the water. The roads through the small towns along the way are so skinny, only one car can fit through at a time. If you're on a bus, I'm sure you'll love that. We saw two buses scrape by each other, causing a minor wreck and a little bit of waiting. Our driver was a bit nuts and took the turns at gut wrenching speeds. We finally had to let him know we weren't feeling well and he took it a little easier on us. Even then, if you're terrified of heights and get motion sickness, be prepared and take some motion sickness medicine before going through with this. The only way to get here is by car, bus or ferry in the high season.



I stumbled out of the van and wanted to kiss the ground for making it to our first stop, Positano. This village is one of the main stops along the coast and it's easy to see why. Positano sits among the cliffs with views of the sparkling blue waters of the sea. The purple flowers of bougainvillea hanging from the windows on the colorful buildings make for the perfect picturesque stop. People in this area tend to live very long lives. Their secret? It's wonderfully quite, has great food and to get where you want to go, you have to climb up or down stairs and steep hills.



There's a great quote that describes how amazing Positano is by John Steinbeck, "Positano bites deep. It is a dream place that isn't quite real when you are there and becomes beckoningly real after you have gone. Its houses climb a hill so steep it would be a cliff except that stairs are cut in it...The small curving bay of unbelievably blue and green water lips gently on a beach of small pebbles. There is only one narrow street and it does not come down to the water. Everything else is stairs, some of them as steep as ladders. You do not walk to visit a friend, you either climb or slide. Nearly always when you find a place as beautiful as Positano, your impulse is to conceal it."



After grudgingly leaving behind the beautiful village in front of me, we headed to our lunch destination to a gorgeous restaurant located on the other side of Praiano called Calajanara Restaurant. The food was magnificent. We were served bread with organically made olive oil from the olives of the coast, a salad and a pasta with eggplant and tomato sauce. My mouth is just watering from remembering the taste of the food. We were served on a gorgeous terrace with views of the sea, Praiano and an old tower that used to be a lookout point to spot pirates. It's quite a romantic spot and the service there is one of the best I've received since being in Italy.





We left the restaurant and made our way to our final destination, Amalfi. Amalfi is very small and impossible to get lost in. Jeff and I spent our time admiring the view from the pier. I could have stayed there all day sun bathing on the rocks near the water and admiring the scene before me. Our visit was all to short and we were soon ushered back into our van to head back to Naples through the Milk Mountains (which was just as motion sick inducing, if not more, than the ride there).





I won't say the name of the tour company I used because I did not like them, but to give you an idea of how much it was, the tour cost €85 per person. It was combined with Pompeii and we also had to pay €11 separately to get into the ruins. There is a sight seeing bus tour that leaves from Sorrento, which only costs €18 per person. It begins in Sorrento and stops at Positano and Amalfi. For me, it would have been a better deal and I probably would have enjoyed it more because we would have had time to enjoy the stops. I usually enjoy tours because they're well organized, allow you to do and see a lot, learn a lot and take the stress away from you from having to do all of the planning. But with this, I would have preferred something different.

At least I know I have something to come back to Italy for!



This is part of the #sundaytravlerseries with Chasing the Donkey and don't forget to support all of the other participants! :)

Venice in 7 Hours

First of all seven hours is NOT enough time to explore Venice thoroughly. But that is all the time we had in the city built on water and we packed in as much as we could.

Second of all, Venice is extremely crowded during season, which may seem like a "duh, of course" observation for most. I had heard that it was crowded and there would be a lot of people there, but it's different when you actually see it.

I would suggest going in the shoulder season or off season if you're looking when to go to Venice. I visited in August 2013; not only was it teeming with people but it was sweltering hot with high humidity. While these may seem like negatives, it did not take away from how much fun I had while there.

My visit was with a tour group for other people my age and the small group I hung out with enjoyed ourselves, getting "lost" in the city (you can't really get lost because there are signs that point you in the direction you need to get to), exploring the touristy areas and holding pigeons.

Here is my guide to how I spent my seven short hours in Italy.

Vecchia Murano Glass Factory



While I'm sure the tour group gets nice commission for anything that the group purchases, the Vecchia Murano Glass Factory is actually pretty interesting. They started us off by showing us a glass blowing demonstration and a worker there fashioned a rearing horse right in front of us in about ten minutes. It was amazing how much detail he got into the piece of art in such a short time.

After the short demonstration, we got to walk around the huge store. Almost everything is made of glass, which is my nightmare because I'm extremely accident prone, but I managed to make it out without breaking anything! A small and insignificant triumph for most people, but I assure you, it's no small triumph for me.

Anyways, the store held all kinds of trinkets, from jewelry to masquerade masks to kitchen ware and glass made animals. There was no shortage. I managed to escape the store only purchasing a beautiful necklace for my mother. Watch out for the sales people; they are very persuasive (as most are, but people tend to get more easily trapped when they are on vacation).

Walk through the City with a Guide



While I would probably recommend this for a good bit of cities, I'm not sure I would recommend it for this one for the only reason that there are so many people and you can barely hear what the guide is saying.

After the glass factory, we were met by a sweet lady that was going to guide us around the city and point out the major sites and give us background information on everything. Headsets and maps were passed around to everyone in our group and we set off.

I liked this because the guide spoke through a microphone, which we could listen through our headsets. Had I been able to hear our guide, I may have actually enjoyed this walk more. The headset piece wouldn't stay stay in my ear and the volume didn't go up hardly at all, so I couldn't hear a word of what she was saying. I tried to stay as close to her as I could but ended up constantly falling behind, wanting to take pictures of what she was showing us. It's also very loud in the city due to all of the tourists but when we got to the less crowded areas, hearing the guide wasn't an issue.



If you plan to do a walk through of the city with a guide, stay close, ask questions, try to be in a small group and strike up a conversation with the guide. You'll be amazed at what you can learn from them.

Doges Palace

I'm sad to say that while I did go inside and got to see some amazing art, we only got about 30 minutes to walk through the palace. Which meant we pretty much walked at a steady pace the entire way through the palace because it's HUGE and we ended up not stopping very much to enjoy the history of it.



My advice if you want to spend some time in here, don't spend time walking through the gorgeous alleyways of Venice, unless you plan to spend more than one day there. Use your short time to walk through and learn all about the history of the Palace. If I ever go back to Venice, I will probably spend a quarter of my day in the place.

It's astounding how big and amazing this palace is and I am glad I just got the opportunity to visit it.

Gelato Stop!



Gelato is a must in Italy. Don't be stupid like me and only order one flavor the entire time (ahem, chocolate). Ask for recommendations from the seller of the gelato. My friends did and the orange flavor the guy recommended was amazing compared to my plain old chocolate (which mostly just tasted like ice cream from back home).

Gondola Ride

This was an added bonus for us while we were there and the reason we only got thirty minutes at Doges. The gondola ride was very nice. While we weren't serenaded in any way by our guide (super bummer), we got to float along through the canals and see what a sinking city looks like.



Taking the Gondola ride was also a nice break from the sweltering humidity and sun since most of the ride was in the shade. It cost about $25 per person because we added champagne to the ride, but you can do it cheaper than we did; we just decided we wanted to try and be classy.

St. Mark's Campanile



At the end of the day, our group enjoyed a trip to the top of St. Mark's Campanile. It was discounted for our group since we had so many people going up and it only cost $5 per person. It's usually $8 per person but the views are well worth it.

You can see all of St. Mark's Square and much of the city. The breeze up there is a sweet relief from the heat as well.





We stayed up at the top for as long as we could and shuffled our way to the line waiting for the elevator back down.



I really didn't want to leave. Much of the city was unexplored and we just had too little time there. When I go back, I will be spending time re-exploring Doges Palace, visiting St. Mark's Basilica (which is said to make you richer by just walking in because of all the gold you breath in) and getting "lost" throughout the city and exploring the shops.

Venice is a gorgeous city with many different sites to explore that require your attention. Take the time the city deserves to be explored and learn about the history of what's there. I wish I had the time and one day I will go back to visit again and explore all of the places I missed.