and they lived happily ever after

these pictures are a continuation from the last post - we couldn't decide which ones to put, so we did ten!)

note: in case you hadn’t guessed, we won’t be posting anymore on this blog, at least until further notice… Thanks for keeping up with us while we were in Europe – it was fun to hear from you, and we’re glad we got to share our trip with you!

we did!!!

We had a great last day in Rome/Italy/Europe! We had a delicious breakfast at the hotel (which included CEREAL for the first time!!! I tried to have it one other time in Florence, but the milk they served with it was warm – yuck. So it really ended up being only like 28 days without cereal – I kind of feel like I cheated or something… or like we should change the name of the blog… but it was worth it!!!), then took the first shuttle into the city, went to The Roman Forum and Palatine Hill (a bunch of old brick piles and buildings from first century Rome), and the Colosseum; then had some yummy lunch before wandering through the Vatican and seeing the Sistine Chapel! We love Rick Steve’s, by the way – that book was worth its weight in gold, especially the way it helped us avoid pretty much ANY lines at all of the sights we went to in Europe (just by getting certain passes beforehand, etc.) – it was awesome! After grabbing some gelatto, we went back to the hotel for a siesta of swimming, napping, showering, trying to post our blog… and then went out one more time to take Rick Steve’s “Night walk through Rome” (which we had actually attempted to do on our anniversary… yeah, not so much), and it was PERFECT this time! We started out at a cute (jason says “loathed” – ‘cause we got lost so much getting to and from it) little square called Campo Dei Fiori, got a piece of pizza and focaccia, sat on a fountain to eat it, then wandered through “the walk” to Piazza Navona, which is a super-fun evening place to be. there’s tons of people around, just hanging out, people making money playing beautiful guitar music or drawing caricatures, kids chasing pigeons… We sat down at an outdoor café there to have “tartufo” – an incredibly chocolatey ball of ice cream rolled in more chocolate chunks - Rick Steves calls it "death by chocolate"(we also had a banana split)! they let us sit there for about an hour, just enjoying the scene before we finally asked for “il conto” (the bill) and continued the walk. there were some cool fountains, but the most amazing one in Piazza Navona was under construction and almost completely hidden from view (as were about a fourth of all the sights we went to in Europe as a whole – apparently July is “restoration month” or something?). We passed some obelisks and columns that must have some historical importance, and took a detour to Giolitti’s (Rome’s most famous gelatteria) for one last taste of Italian gelatto (which we were WAY too full for, and they “had” to give us 3 flavors, piling off the cone, and it was melting like crazy and we had to eat it so fast)! Then we went to Trevi fountain (another busy night scene and beautiful fountain) and tossed a coin in… We finished our walk off by stopping by one of the world’s largest McDonald’s to use their toilette, then stopping at the Spanish Steps – another local evening hangout place – and then got on the Metro and made it back to our shuttle bus just in time! a perfect end to the perfect trip!

…but it wasn’t really

we were still wiped out and I think just burned out on seeing sights and all the little cultural nuances were even getting to us. We made it to St. Peter’s Basilica and the Pantheon, with lots of little things going wrong – paying too much for bad food, etc, but we made it back to the hotel just in time to go for a dip in the pool before it closed (it had been raining when we got to Rome, but it heated up to the 90s VERY quickly the next day!). Spent the rest of the day just relaxing, hoping (once again) that we’d get some sleep and wake up the next day refreshed and ready to enjoy our last day, and…

We had to have ONE bad day, right?

…but why’d it have to be our anniversary??? We knew going into the trip that we were going to have to travel on the 27th – our actual anniversary day – but had come to terms with it, since it was just a 4 hour train ride, and we didn’t really have any other option (we had to arrive in Rome in time to see it before leaving, and we had already made hotel reservations) – plus, we kept saying that the whole trip was celebrating our anniversary, so the day itself didn’t have to be “the perfect day”— and we kept trying to keep a good attitude, but it got not-so-comical the more things that went wrong all day! We had planned to have a leisurely “American” breakfast (with eggs and stuff – Rick Steve’s says they take breakfast about as seriously as flossing… which is NOT) before leaving on the train. So we went to the one restaurant in town that served “american” breakfast, and ordered a smoothie, some eggs, and hot chocolate… but they were out of hot chocolate, a smoothie was “not possible at this time” and the kitchen didn’t open for making the eggs for another hour! So, we got our little croissants and juice and headed out. We hadn’t realized initially that the “4 hour train ride” we had tickets for didn’t actually leave from Cinque Terre, and while it was only a half hour train ride to La Spezia where it did leave from, we had to take the train that left 2 hours beforehand, so now our travel time became 6 hours in total… we made the best of it, chilling in McDonald’s at the station for lunch, then enjoying first class on the 4-hour train to Rome… when we got there, we had to switch to a Metro and then we were supposed to take a shuttle bus to our hotel (How far is it!??)… we got to the corner where we were supposed to take our shuttle bus and couldn’t find it anywhere on that bustling street, so we called the hotel (worked from the 3rd payphone we tried), and they told us that the 5:00 one had just come, and the next one was at 6:15… and so, we stood – in the RAIN – and waited for over an hour until our shuttle bus came, and we finally made it to the hotel at 7pm, after having left Cinque Terre at 10am. so our “4 hour train ride” turned into 9 hours of travel time. And we still wanted to go out to dinner on our anniversary, so we got a little cleaned up and headed back out on the next shuttle at 8:00 to go out on the town and see Rome… but we got lost trying to find our restaurant (which, once we got there, was actually closed from July 15th-Aug 31st, so we had to pick somewhere else to eat, which had horrible service but okay food), and by the time we finished eating, we were stressing out because the last shuttle back to the hotel was at 11, and it was already 10:30. We tried to book it back, but finally at 11:00 gave up and hailed a taxi, which cost us 20 euro ($30) to get back to the hotel. we were both so exhausted (very close to tears) we just crashed in bed, hoping we’d be refreshed and the next day would be better…

“Those are the happiest backpackers I’ve seen yet!”

we overheard this walking into Vernazza on the first day we arrived (and I forgot to put it in the blog for the first day) – the girl was referring to us :)

The third day, we got up a little later (having learned our lesson about Italians and their time-orientation, or lack of it ;), went to the same Pirate place for some more AMAZING pastries (like the panzerotto – filled with sweet ricotta, vanilla, cinnamon – mmm), then hiked the other direction to Monterosso, the town to the north of us. once again, beautiful! but you had to pay for the beaches there, so we went back to our little town of Vernazza and went to the beach there one more time. we pretty much just chilled the rest of the day! watched an episode of House with a pesto pizza… remind me to make pesto pizza when we get home!!!

The second day...

...we got up early, stopped at “Il Pirate delle Cinque Terre” for breakfast (which was supposed to be open at 6:30, but we got there and waited until about 7:15 before all the pastries started coming out of the oven – one of those “cultural” things), then started our hike through the 3 towns south of ours. We took the coastal trail and stopped in each town for a drink or some food, and to take some nice shots of the Cinque Terre towns… then, when we got to the last one, we boarded a boat (using our last 13 Euros we had in our pocket) and took “the scenic route” back to Vernazza… like the trail wasn’t scenic – the whole thing went along the coast, with the turquoise water on our right and gorgeous terraced vineyards on our left! We got back and crashed on the beach again, taking dips when it got too hot to lay out, getting a little bit tan (jason gets a little browner than me ;). Then, we went kayaking! It was kind of strange ‘cause they didn’t give us any instructions whatsoever (like “stay on this side of the buoys” or “if the kayak tips, then…”); the only thing they said was “if water comes in the boat, it’s normal” – lol. We had SO much fun chillin’ out there in the middle of the ocean – even JASON relaxed! Came back, got cleaned up, went by the “internet point”, then went to dinner at the restaurant at the top of the town, next to the castle tower (Lynn AND Rick Steves recommended it, so…). We had DELICIOUS pesto lasagna (after we each finished our pasta, Jamie had to order ANOTHER lasagna just ‘cause it was so good!), hung out with Mario our waiter and discussed the state of the world, before going down and hanging out on the rocks with the water lapping up around us – so peaceful…

If we got to pick one place to come back to…

We’ve just left Cinque Terre after 3 wonderfully relaxing days there! It is such an amazing and beautiful place!! it is a series of 5 little Italian towns on the coast of the Mediterranean, with a 7-mile walking trail (and some train tracks) connecting them. Each of the towns – Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso are so totally picturesque, with all these pastel homes bunched together into their own little niche in the coastline. The first day, we got there in the afternoon (after a short stop in Pisa to see the leaning tower), and after wandering through town and finding a place to stay, dropped off our bags in our own little apartment, and immediately hit the beach! I don’t think either of us was expecting the town we stayed in (Vernazza) to be so resorty, but it was FULL of people enjoying their vacation at the beach! There was a concert in the square that night, which was nice when we were out there, but very LOUD when we were back in bed trying to sleep!!