Cinque Terre

After a few days of wandering the streets of Florence, I took the opportunity to take off to the coast for a couple of days while G was busy doing her thing at the conference.

It took a few train connections to get there, but I started from beyond the northern most point of the Cinque Terre at Levanto. I was a little disappointed (but not surprised) that part of the walking trails were closed due to landslides (have read that this is pretty common) so I actually started hiking from the first village of the five - Monterosso al Mara.

From the first moment you spot the coastline, every vista is like a postcard. Having seen more later on, I can now say that I think Monterosso was the least charming of the villages, but it was still very impressive on arrival. Quite like the French Riviera with wall-to-wall umbrellas for rent on the stone & grey sand beaches.

I only stayed long enough for a bottle of water and then found the path leading south to the second town of Vernazza. The path was pretty busy with people of varying levels of fitness going in both directions, but being so narrow you could only pass at certain points. By late morning it was already getting pretty hot and the path was steep as the trail climbed up the coastal hills, so the breaks to take photos and wait for groups of Germans & Americans to get out of the way were pretty welcome. 

The expected time to hike to Vernazza was supposed to be around 3 hours, and it was probably close to that when I came around a bend to this amazing view:

I figured I earned a break so grabbed some seafood and a couple of beers for lunch and then read my book on the rocks for an hour or so and watched the boats come & go. 

The next section from Vernazza to Corniglia was supposed to be much flatter (and it was) but it was still pretty hot going and there was a lot less shade. This was kind of a blessing as I think it was too hot for some people, so I had the path to myself for quite a few sections of the roughly 2 hour walk.

Corniglia was the start of the closed section of trail, so I just had a 20 minute walk around (its a very small town) and then jumped on the train to Manarola (where I was booked to stay the night.) 

Whatever/whoever told me that Manarola was the place to stay was spot on - from what I saw this town was the pick of the bunch. Steep streets and tall, narrow buildings all built into one fold of a valley. I spend a while walking around the streets and it seemed like every corner here had a great view. I had a feed and a couple of glasses of vino and hit the sack pretty buggered.

My one-day hiking card/train ticket had expired, so thought I would use a different transport mode to get to Riomaggiore (the last of the 5). The ferry was a great way to see the coastline - I just wish the 15 min ride was a little longer. 

Riomaggiore was probably my second favourite.

After my taste of the coast, I jumped on the train to spend a few hours in Lucca on the way back to Florence. Lots of people highly recommended Lucca, and it was certainly very serene. Lots of trees growing on top of the old stone city wall (greenery is one thing often missing from these ancient cities) - the wall itself is 10-15 meters wide, and there were loads of locals and tourists riding, running and strolling around it. 

It was a pretty sleepy town, and so I think a few hours there was enough to get a taste before heading back to Florence. Arrived just as Gosia was ready to finish up for the day, and right on time for a quick dinner (fat panini & vino) in the late night street food area of Via de Neri.

Walking Florence

I kicked off the first day of G’s conference by doing a walking tour. We’ve done a few of these before - they are usually free and run by students and you basically tip them whatever you think the experience was worth. Previously the best one I have experienced was in downtown Manhattan, but this one took the cake. Way too much content to take it all in, but the highlights included lots of details about:

• the rise of Florence from a few years BC to a European powerhouse given the strategic merchant location between Rome and the rest of Europe, and being on the river

• the Medici family’s ~350 year reign over the city, made possible by their investment of the profits from being merchants into banking (and most notably, becoming the bankers to the Vatican)

• Medici’s great patronage of the arts, but also the use of artwork as an advertising medium - they basically commissioned great artists to work in Florence as a way to promote their business and the region. One of the earlier patriarchs of the family actually spotted Michelangelo’s talent when he was a teenager and became a guardian to him, paid for his training etc. This publicity is why he was in the minority by being famous in his lifetime as a renaissance artist. 

• The fact that they were total ballers in vanquishing their main rivals the Pitti family (after a few attempted murders of their rival patriarchs and efforts at building houses bigger than the other)

• The temporary overthrow of the Medici’s which made Florence a republic for about 40 years (and the republic commissioned ‘David’ to celebrate the Medici’s pissing off) and the return of the family after exile (and the Medici’s commissioned ‘Perseus with the Head of Medusa’ to celebrate things going back to ‘normal’).

• This overthrow/take back scenario was definitely evidence that the Medici’s weren’t necessarily loved by the population. After kicking the Pitti out of the Pitti Palace, they actually constructed an amazing corridor across half the city so they could get from one palace to another without risking coming in contact with the public who might want to do them harm. It runs through houses, churches, and across the river above Ponte Vecchio. Only one family refused to let them take some space in their house for the corridor, so it makes one small deviation. That family was never heard from again. 

• the eventual decline of the Medici as a result of the final heirs being a gay son and daughter to frail to have kids. In an interesting turn, it was this end of the lineage that resulted in The Uffizi gallery. Knowing that the great dynasty was coming to an end, the frail daughter wrote a contract with the city of Florence that meant she would donate the entire collection of the family artwork to the people of Florence, on the condition that it could never be sold and it would be free to access for all people on certain days of the year. The collection was stored in the Public Offices of the city at the time (given that the Medici ran the whole place, it was basically their family business office anyway), and that is where it has stayed since - hence the name of the gallery Uffizi (‘office’.). 

Expecting to learn much more about the culture of the place on Friday when we do our tours of the Uffizi and also La Accademia.

Ciao Toscana!

Finally, after about 40 hours, we arrived in the quaint little town of Pisa.  Perfect for chillin' and getting over our jet lag.

The one and only attraction, leaning tower, is 845 years old!  It was built as a symbol of victory of the Pisa people over the Sicilians. It took 200 years to build thanks to delays in construction due to wars and such.  Unstable soil is the reason for the 3.99 degree lean, which wasn't discovered until the third level was constructed  The engineers attempted to rectify the problem by building the following stories shorter on one side and this subtle correction can be seen if you look closely enough:

Like Pisa, Florence is full of character and deep in history.  Whilst I was being a nerd at the conference, Jake was busy joining walking groups and learning about the history, culture and tasting the best cuisine Florence has to offer. The conference itself is in true Italian style.  You are never quite sure what time sessions will start, if they start at all and in which order the proceedings are to occur.  There seems to be a lot of song and dance though (and prosecco).

I've always claimed it was impossible to find better than  Gelatissimo hazelnut icecream.  I now admit, I was wrong.  There is even better gelateria, and happens to be at the end of our street.  As is a number of great little local restaurants.  I seems we don't have to venture far to eat and drink like a true Florentine!

Tonight before sunset, we climbed up to a small square on top of a hill to soak up the wonderful city views whilst indulging in some local vino bianco, cheese and prosciutto for dinner (followed by another cheeky ice cream for dessert).

I'll hand over the reins for the next post to Jake.  He's off to Cinque Terre tomorrow for a couple of days, so will have more interesting things to write about than me.  I might go to the conference..or not...it doesn't sound like the Italians really expect anyone to attend hehe.  And there is a lot of shopping to be done here!

Off to a flying start

Not really...

We boarded, but then waited for an hour and a half whilst the engineers worked on fixing a technical issue...
Tip for Singapore airlines:  don't tell your passengers that.  Tell them we are cueing for take off or waiting for a missing passenger or something.  Or say nothing at all.  At that point, I was glad to have paid attention to the safely video.

Anyhow, there was no need to panic and prepare a plan for rehoming our animals in the end.  We landed safely at Changi.  Even with the 2 hour delay, we still had 7 hours to kill, so we visited the butterfly garden.  The garden lived up to its' name.  We saw 1 butterfly...

Other highlights include:
- finally got to see Frozen.  I've been meaning to sit down to watch it after all my mum friends said how good it was.
- we got to enjoy business class services, like white tablecloths, port dumpling noodle soup, short ribs and belgian waffles accompanied by proper silverware, not to mention the extra leg room:

 But, like they say, for every up, there is always a down.  Our down is sitting at a small regional airport in Dusseldorf waiting to board a flight in 6 hours' time.  We can't check in for another 4 hours, and the only source of entertainment is a small cafe selling overpriced sandwiches and ordinary coffee (probably, though we haven't tasted it yet).  Mind you...we've left home 34 hours ago, so would kill for shower right now.