Whoa now... We are back in action

Heading to LA this weekend. Temps: 80-82, bluebird skies. Looking out the window here at SeaTac, glad we booked the trip. When is summer going to arrive in Seattle??? There is nothing better than a summer in the 206, but it is July 2nd and waking up to 50 and rain/fog pea soup combo is like waking up to someone throwing a bucket of ice water in your face.

Anyways, looking forward to some time by the pool, on the beach, and some Vitamin D! Booked this trip originally for April 15th, but that turned out to be our Italian extravanganza, so we pushed the tix back to the weekend of the 4th and got a sweet deal at the W Hollywood. Anyways, we're off!

Italy Highlights

So, we have been back for a little over a week now and are finally used to being back on Pacific Time. We were lucky we were only delayed one day thanks to Volcano Ehjyejihesdkjkehykjjekshki in Iceland. The flight home was a total milk run though, as British Air was still getting back to normal, meaning there was NO IN-FLIGHT ENTERTAINMENT ON THE 10 HOUR HAUL...which did allow me to watch a full season of Mad Men on my laptop. Anyways, we are back, and here is a rundown of highlights and lowlights.

HIGHLIGHTS:
Rome: 
- Colosseum, Pantheon, Spanish Steps, Piazza de Popolo, Vatican, St. Peter's Basilica, losing a camera at the security check at the Vatican, getting a camera back from Vatican security a week later with pics of the pope in the hot tub on it (hot tub part not true, but rest is), Trevi Fountain, all the amazing sites you have seen in the movies.
- Outdoor cafes (true for all of Italy). I know we live in Seattle, but this is such a great way to eat and drink! Outdoors! Crazy! 
- Carbonara, the best
- Wine, everywhere
- Street Hustlers selling umbrellas during t-storms
- Walkability...you can and should walk everywhere

Cinque Terre:
- Pizzeria La Smorfia! A real pirate serves you and they have over 100 awesome combinations. A total local place with true Italian Pizza, just like Papa Johns!
- "The Hike" - 8 miles. 5 towns. 2 big beers at lunch. Still had a ways to go. Bad decision on the 2 beers at lunch. You have been warned. This hike is no joke. But extremely beautiful. Do it if you can.
- Beach. Relaxing on the beach for just a couple of hours was a highlight of the trip. Toss in some gelato and you have a fantastic afternoon.
- Wine. You can drink anywhere you want in Italy, just like Vegas! But it's not like Vegas at all because there aren't any nerds walking around with 4' long Eiffel Towers full of sugary margaritas hanging around their neck here. Also no neon signs =(
- Sunset overlooking the Ligurian Sea. Most Excellent.
- Wash n' Dry. Laundromat for our first batch of clothes on the trip
- Poste Italiano. We sent $100 shipment of clothes home from Cinque Terre. Yep, in classic American fashion, we overpacked. U-S-A!

Florence:
- Tuscan Countryside, wine tasting at Castello Di Monsanto, an old castle in the "Chianti Classico" Region
- Grand Hotel. Top notch concierge, excellent location on the Arno River, close to the park which is fantastic for running (great way to see a city)
- Waffle Sandwich (see earlier posts for more info on this awesomeness)
- Buca Lapi - Local restaurant with local vibe and excellent food. Best meat sauce I have ever had (for those of you who know me, I am super picky, so it must have been good).
- Nove - Something out of a movie. Total hipster scene, super trendy lounge type outdoor restaurant with sofa's, candles, Lady Gaga and the like playing from the speakers, the well heeled men and women of Florence having copious amounts of cocktails, smoking like it was their job, models walking around, and the largest steak ever seen. Great food, great fun.
- Ponte Vecchio
- The Statue of David
- The Florence Market, where you can spend hours sorting through the different local goods (some good, some junk, but a must see)
- Duomo
- Uffizi Gallery 

Venice:
- Canals everywhere! There is nothing like it in the world other than Vegas (that place has it all! j/k) and we are glad we could experience it
- Gondola's
- Rialto Bridge
- Piazza San Marcos
- Running over like 30 bridges along the Grand Canal
- Taking the water bus over to Lido to see the beaches 
- Getting Lost! Trust me, easy to do! But a great way to see the city!

Italy in General:
- How friendly all the other Americans we met were. We get a bad rap, but we met some extremely fun people from Dallas, LA, Bellingham, Queen Anne, Minnesota, North Carolina, and some AWESOME Australians and Brits! English was the common ground, and everyone seemed happy to tell their travel stories
- The train system was great. We booked in advance through RailEurope and it was super easy. The train always left on time and got us to where we needed to be in time
- British Airways is a fantastic airline
- Cobblestone streets. Probably not good for heels, ladies! 
- Food. Very good, very fresh. They don't try to overpower foods with excess flavors, letting the natural flavors of the main ingredients do the work.
- Wine.


Had a great trip! We will never forget it!

We LOOOOVE Volcanoes!!!!

So, we planned our trip from April 7-21st. It is now the 21st and the skies over the UK are finally open after being closed for a week thanks to the Icelandic Volcano "Elihjialuoiajeineoin aeorijeoiheoi n" or some thing like that. Can anyone really pronounce it? Anyways, the odds of this affecting our life at any point in history have to be pretty minimal, like 1 in 10,000,000. But apparently we won the lotto! I am not going to complain (besides above) because some people have been stranded this whole time, missing important events like weddings, funerals, births, and we are just trying to get back home "on schedule". So, I know we don't have it that bad if we are a day late.

Our flight today was scheduled to leave at 11:45 Rome time with departure out of London-Heathrow at 3:10. We are now scheduled to leave here (Rome) at 2:20. So, unless this is a Deep Space Nine - trekki deal there is no way we make our flight, unless of course something awesome happens like a 2 hour delay on the Seattle bound flight. Worst case scenario (besides closing the airports again) is that we are on the flight home tomorrow and get to spend a night in London tonight, which we have never been to, so we can check that off the list!

Anyways, enough with the boring details of flight delays....here are some pics from Venice!

The Grand Canal with Rialto Bridge

Venice

Piazza San Marcos

Rach and gondola's

I think all coffee shops in the states should add this slogan: "Walk Coffee Man".  Pretty awesome.

Venetian Street

Papa Smurf's toilet? Seriously, it is times like this where I am glad I am a male. Who can sit on this? Honestly? It is like 8 inches off the ground. I don't want to smell my knees.

We had heard many things about Venice, some good, some bad. We stayed 2 nights, had a good time, but were OK with leaving on the 3rd day. I am glad we were able to see how beautiful it was and some of the architectural history, as well as enjoy the "fruits of the ocean" aka fish.

Cross your fingers for us so we can get home!

Ciao!

Back to Blogging!

Sorry for the pause in blogs, as a lot has happened since the famous Waffle Sandwich. We went from Florence, to Venice, and are now in Rome where we just experienced a thunderstorm complete with hail. It was awesome. Not only that, but we are hoping and praying that we can get out of Europe on Wednesday and get back home. Unless you live under a rock, there is an Icelandic volcano which erupted about a week ago and has completely grounded planes in and out of London's Heathrow airport, which of course is where are scheduled to fly to from Rome and fly out of to Seattle....so maybe we will get to see London for a few days before we head home (hoping not, but if so, oh well). Here are some pics from the last few days:

View from of a typical "Chianti Classico" Region vineyard.

Rach enter's the cellar underneath the castle at the Castello di Monsanto winery in Tuscany. Happy Birthday Babe!

We each did one of the large barrels before leaving. And then we forgot who we were for 3 days.

View from the lawn of the castle...below the ground is the cellar containing all the reserve bottles.

Some of the reserves in the cellar beneath the castle. Yes, they do clean off the bottles if you purchase them. 

2nd winery of the day. Solitione. Small, family run winery. They spoke very little English and did not know the Balzarini's (big name drop)

Tasting at Castello di Monsanto in "Chianti Classico" region in Tuscany. It should only be about 2014 by the time our bottles arrive at home, so they should be well aged.

One of the amazing sites on the road through the Tuscan countryside.

Florence was beautiful and we had a fantastic 3 nights there. Rachel's birthday was on the 15th, so we went into the countryside to try wine. We went to 2 different wineries in the region and also had lunch next to a 600 year old monestary, which was awesome. Our English speaking private tour guide Silvia was a blast and helped fill us in on everything from how to speak Italian and pronounce certain words, to  Italian automakers to Mussolini. If you are ever heading into Florence and want to do a tour of wine country that is worth it, check out Le Baccanti Tours at www.lebaccanti.com. 

We followed up the tour with a run along the Arno river which splits Florence right down the middle and then ended up at Nove for dinner, which apparently is a hot-spot for the well heeled swingers in Florence. Very entertaining people watching and very good food. We split the steak Florentine, which was about the size of half a cow. It seriously looked like the steak John Candy ripped in "The Great Outdoors". If you haven't seen it, Google it. Also talked to a guy and his daughter at the restaurant who were from Staten Island. Well, Mr. Staten Island was on the train today from Florence to Rome...and sat directly next to Rachel. Totally random.

We also have seen the same couple on every train we have been on. We finally talked to them and they are from Houston, but after talking to them I thought they were from Boredomville, USA.  

Anyways, hoping to get out of here on Wednesday! More to come....

Waffle Sandwich....

OK, so you are a pretty standard American such as myself and all you want to do is see the Duomo and Michaelangelo's David on your first day in Florence. But then you are sidetracked by a familiar smell that takes you back to your childhood. It's a smell you can't resist. The smell of FRESH WAFFLE CONES! So you have to look at your surroundings and see where it is, thinking it is just one of the 248 Gelato places in town. But to your surprise you see a little Indian lady standing on the edge of a business with a waffle iron in one hand and a huge smile on her face. In front of her: 25 fresh made waffles. Being who I am, I decided that this is too good to pass up, I had to at least see what the deal was....Well the deal was WAFFLE SANDWICHES!!!! The choices were plentiful, you could do a waffle sandwich with butter, syrup, or one of 15 flavors of gelato. It was only about noon, so I decided on 2 hot waffles with a nice hot section of Nutella in the middle...yep, you guessed it...bomb.com #2 all time favorite desserts. #1 is a secret. It was amazing. Best sweets I have had in Europe hands down!

So I tell these ladies, "this would be a huge hit in the USA, where did you come up with this wonderful idea?" Then they said a bunch of stuff in Italian and I caught a "Ben n' Jerry's" in there and I was like "you guys like Ben n' jerry's?" and they were like "oh, yes, of course"...well 5 minutes later I walk by a Ben N' Jerry's store!!! And guess what? Yep, they were selling Waffle Sandwiches with ice cream in them! I was dealing with a counterfeit operation. This is like buying a rolex for $40 off the street and realizing a real one is $3k....(wait, no one does that, do they?)

We also had a great day of touring Florence, checking out the sites and the shopping and outdoor cafes. I also was fortunate to get a solid run in along the Arno River, which was beautiful.

Dinner tonight was the best we have had in Europe, at a place called Burger King. We had Chicken Tenders and Fries, super sized of course (we are Americans!). Actually we went to a great Tuscan restaurant called Buca Lapi just a few block from the hotel and were treated to some amazing wine, pastas, and steak. If you have a special occasion and are in Florence, try it, you will love it, unless you are Vegan.

View from Balcony

Other View from balcony at sunset

Duomo through the streets of Florence

Our Hotel, Hotel Margherita (the yellow one)

'tis m'lady Angelina and I, Giacomo (with the fresh kicks on the right) Town of Vernazza behind

Monterosso alleyway

The Cinque Terre trail

Trail (easy part)

Vernazza

View of Monterosso from Riomaggiore

So we are in Cinque Terre for the last 2 days and it is absolutely gorgeous. If you haven't been here:

1) Go

2) Picture your favorite small resort town, add the sun, Italian food & culture, wine, and an amazing 5 hour hike and you have the Cinque Terre

Cinque Terre is a region along the NW Italian Coast consisting of 5 towns linked together by an 8 mile, 4-5 hour hike with elevation rises and drops of up to 400 feet. Apparently the people who built it thousands of years ago built it all by carrying and carving large stones up and down the mountainside without any adhesives and it is still mostly in tact. It is absolutely amazing. What else is amazing is the people who do the hike. There was a 6 year old on the trail finishing it with his mom. We saw people that must have been 70+ wearing sweaters, jackets, khakis, and dress shoes, and it was 70*! We saw women wearing sandals with heels, flip flops, and a 65 year old with his shirt open like fabio! The scenery was fantastic. The hike took us a little under 5 hours, with a stop for lunch in the town of Vernazza for about 45 minutes. We took some amazing photos and had a fantastic time. 

Had some awesome pizza tonight at Piazza la Smorfi, where a real pirate makes your pizza! Also met some awesome people from Bham tonight at a wine bar, Tom and Sandy, so a shoutout to them, who will never see this blog!

We will be heading to Florence in the AM and keep you posted!

Ciao,

Giangelina

Thunderstorms in Roma!

While eating at a streetside ristorante this evening, it began to rain. Real rain. Harder than Seattle rain. And then came the thunder, the lighning and the realization that we didn't have an umbrella. No worries though! You remember the guys selling the roses on the Spanish steps I wrote about a couple of posts before? Well, they are Jacks of All Trades and sell umbrellas too! There were up to 5 guys selling umbrellas at one time outside of our restaurant (some sold roses at the same time!).

So when we were done, I thought, "wow, it is really coming down, we definitely need an umbrella and it will be cheaper than a cab, I'll go buy a couple". So I finish paying for dinner and walk out to the meet the guy under an awning. I said "How much" he said "five", I said "Ill give you $5 for 2". He replies "$10 for 2". "Deal", I say...so much for my negotiation skills I learned at the fireworks stands growing up. I should have asked him to toss in a couple of Piccolo Pete's and some M-80's....Crap. Oh well, these guys are stone cold salesmen.

Ciao!

Giangelina!