There is always a trip being planned in our lives. Two years ago we started planning 5 weeks in Italy and Greece. The goal was not to “see it all”, but to check out some off the beaten track places as well as a few iconic spots. It was an itinerary complete with planes, trains and automobiles along with neat Airbnb’s, a couple of hotels, and a lot of YOLO moments. And while I had been to Europe when I was 20, being there 47 years later with Roger was really the stuff of dreams.
And we're off!
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We each had a carryon and small backpack --- and did just fine!
In fact, we felt sorry for the travelers lugging huge suitcases! |
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| View from our Rome hotel - and it turned out to be where we had our first Italian dinner. |
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| Tired, but happy --- "We're in Rome!" |
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| The first of many churches, the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore. We may not be religious, but the architecture and beauty took our breath away. |
Florence
The next day we took a high speed train and headed for Florence for 9 days. I loved Florence in 1977 and really loved spending so much time exploring it this time. It's a wonderful, walkable city with something new to see around every street corner.
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| The Ponte Vecchio - 1977 |
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| View from Piazzale Michelangelo |
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| I love street art - and we found Italy and Greece have a lot of it. Much of it seems to be random graffiti, while gems like this are a treat to see. |
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| Galileo Museum was amazing. This is the spectacular Armillary Sphere. |
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| We took a fantastic cooking class where we made homemade pasta into pappardelle, tortellini and ravioli. It was as fun as it was delicious. |
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| The chef had me come up and toss the ravioli in a basil and tomato sauce. |
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| Our class! |
Day trip to Venice
We headed to Venice for a day, and had an amazing day. Lucky for us, good friends from Alberta were there and we had a drink with them before we headed back to Florence!
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| The fast trains are a great way to travel |
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| The canals are like busy freeways! |
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| I saw my first Banksy mural, and I was thrilled. It's called The Migrant Child and was done in 2019. Because of the water, it is decaying at a higher rate than his other works. |
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| Our gondola taxi driver! |
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Roger caught the joy I felt (as well as wondering if I
would tip off the gondola's ledge into the choppy water!) |
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| The bird photo bombed this pic! |
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New experience - high tide in Venice. Enterprising people sold these pull on boots which were
necessary to navigate the areas around St. Mark's Square. Many didn't buy them - the occasional whiff of sewage made me cringe as I saw adults and children wade barefoot.... |
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| Venice also puts out raised sidewalks to battle rising waters. |
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| We did the Secret Itineraries of the Doges Palace tour - home to a prison as well as a palace. Casanova was one of the famous inmates - he was rich enough to rate an upper floor. The poorer prisoners were kept in the dark basement where it constantly flooded. |
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| One of the torture rooms. |
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The mix of depraved prison conditions and practices and
the palace was hard to wrap our heads around. |
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| Military weapons and equipment in the palace |
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| Fun to meet up with John and Laurel MacPhail (beside me) as they were traveling with their friends. |
Off to the Tuscan countryside
As planned (and planned….) we finally met up with our dear friends, Paddy and Dave Carlson from Spokane and spent 13 glorious days exploring Tuscan villages and the area between Naples and Sorrento.
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| Our first dinner together in Florence |
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| Florentine steak is all that it's cracked up to be. Absolutely delicious! |
A train strike (there are often 24 hour strikes) stymied our plan to take a train from Florence to Arezzo where we were to pick up our car. Fortunately, I was able to hire a driver who could take us — a king’s ransom for an hour trip — but we got there!
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Our villa in Monte San Savino was fantastic.
Our bedroom was part of the original building and was built in the 1700s. |
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| Roger and David had a great time cooking wonderful dinners on the BBQ |
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| We loved our home in Tuscany! |
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| Church in Assisi |
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The Tuscan countryside was so beautiful. Every town seemed to be on a big hill,
so we did lots of walking and climbing. |
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| A motorcyclist photo bombed our cocktail break in a beautiful piazza! So fun! |
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| Fun times! |
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Did a wonderful wine tasting at Cantina De'Ricci. The casks were kept
in a cathedral like cavern. |
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| We loved the doors throughout Italy. Bigger is always better! |
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| Negroni Spritz overlooking the Siena piazza |
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| Sunset at the villa |
Naples to Sorrento
When our time in Tuscany was over, we hopped on a fast train and headed for Naples. Our amazing Airbnb host picked us up and drove us to Torre Annunziata about an hour south of Naples. She and her family lived in an apartment in the same building as ours, and couldn’t have been more hospitable if we had stayed with them. They brought us Limoncello, a cake, wine, and over the course of 4 days, got us a driver to take us to Sorrento, gave us a day pass to their beach club, and made dinner reservations at a wonderful restaurant.
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| Even the trains have street art/graffiti! |
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| One of the buildings being painstakingly unearthed at Pompeii. |
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| Overlooking Sorrento - the Fabulous Four! |
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| Sorrento was a beautiful city to walk around |
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On the only blustery day we had, our hosts gave us access to their beach club.
We are all hardy souls, so embraced the opportunity and had a great time!
Paddy and Dave were hardier than us and actually went swimming! |
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| We were the only ones there that day! Don't know why??? |
Naxos, Greece
It was time to bid our wonderful traveling companions goodbye. We had so much fun together and despite all of us having colds, we drank great wine and Campari Spritzes, ate amazing meals (many that we made at the villa), were totally on the same page in what we wanted to see and do, and had more laughs than you could imagine. Paddy and Dave went to Rome for their last 3 days, and we flew to Naxos, Greece. A place neither of us had been before and were excited to see.
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| The island of Naxos - about a 45 minute flight from Athens |
We loved Naxos. There were lots of Greek families living there, the old town was a myriad of alleyways, the food was great and the Island was a treasure to explore. There were no huge hotels, and we stayed in a small hotel where we had breakfast delivered to our room each morning.
