civita, italy

We owe so many of our awesome experiences on this trip to our Rick Steves guidebook. He lists so many out of the way and interesting places, it's amazing. Civita was another one of those places. We went to Civita as a day trip from Orvieto because it was only about an hour bus ride away. Maybe the coolest thing about Civita was it's location. It's tiny, with only 14 residents, and it sits atop this huge rocky hill. It looks like it belongs in some scary movie with lightning flashing around it or something, haha. We actually had to take the bust to the city called Bagnoregio, and then from Bagnoregio walk up this big long walkway thing to reach Civita. It was rainy, which sucked.. but since it was so small, we didn't spend that long there anyways.

Civita was so charming! It was pretty much a ghost town, and most of the shops were closed down, most likely for the winter. We wandered all around, and this old man invited us into his yard which had a great view point. He had this weird orange tree thing in his yard (except they weren't oranges and I don't know what they were!) which looked really cool. As we were leaving he held out his hand and it turned out he wanted a fee for his little favour, haha. Oh well, we each gave him a euro and that was that. It was a cheap sighsteeing day for us overall and if a euro was all it cost us then that's a pretty good day!

We went to the grocery store before catching the bus back and got a roasted chicken for lunch. We sat and ate it on the bench at the entrance to the store..hehe. I miss things like always having a table to eat on!

civita

06
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

walking up to civita

walking up to civita
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

civita's main street

civita's main street
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

civita

civita
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

orange tree? not quite!

orange tree? not quite!
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

scooter/truck

scooter/truck
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

orvieto, italy

We decided on walking from our hotel in Siena to the train station instead of taking the bus. We got there half an hour early for the train we intended to take, but it turned out that train didn't run at that time anymore, and we had JUST missed the one that ran instead.. we actually saw it pulling away.. if only we had taken the bus! It was seriously only a matter of being there one minute earlier. Instead we had to wait like an hour and a half until the next chance we could get to Chiusi (connection on the way to Orvieto), and it wasn't even by train, it was by bus. Once we got to Chiusi we learned that the train we wanted to Orvieto, was delayed an hour and 20 minutes. Yay!

We finally got to Orvieto and took the funicular up to town (Orvieto sits atop this big hill). Only one of our guidebooks covered Orvieto, and even then there was only a tiny paragraph about it. Luckily it did list a cheap place to stay though, and we found it easily because Orvieto is pretty small! The hotel was kind of rickety, but our room finally had a heater that worked! We spent the afternoon walking all around..the weather was great, and we had some good views of the other towns down below. All we had been eating lately was pizza and we felt like a more hearty meal so we went and found a decent place. It was ok.. but just kind of plain. We've been staying in cheap hotels lately instead of hostels so we haven't had a kitchen to cook our own meals in a while which we miss! We also toured the.. wait for it.. cathedral! heheh.. it was another really nice one and probably the biggest building in town. Orvieto was really cute, with endless twisty turny streets and little stone houses. We stayed two nights, and on our second day we took a day trip to the nearby hill town of Civita di Bagnoregio.

part of the hill that orvieto is on

part of the hill that orvieto is on
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

main square, piazza duomo

main square, piazza duomo
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

orvieto

orvieto
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

cute street!

cute street!
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

orvieto's cathedral

orvieto's cathedral
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

siena, italy

It was a bit tricky to get to Siena, and we had to make a few train changes. We finally got there though. Siena's train station is actually just outside of the main city, so we still had to take a bus up the hill and into town. We had our trusty Rick Steve's guidebook, which said to get on any bus marked with one of three piazza names and get off at the last stop. Well, we kept waiting and waiting and waiting for that last stop, until Siena became a tiny dot in the distance and we were out in the tuscan countryside. Oops. Turned out we had missed our stop somehow and were on our way to a neighbouring city. With the help of a nice lady that spoke only a little English, we were told to get off and wait for a bus going back in the other direction. Two hours after we had arrived in Siena the first time, we arrived in Siena again (and managed to get off at the right stop!) and found a relatively cheap hotel. It probably wasn't the cheapest we could have found, but at that point we were exhausted from lugging all of our gear all over town and just settled on it. That night we just walked around a bit and went to a few bookstores looking for Rick Steves' Rome guidebook which we luckily found, and spent some time.. ok a LOT of time on the internet.. haha..

The next day we did all of our Siena sightseeing. We were staying right near the main square, Il Campo. Every year in this square they have a horse race that the whole city goes crazy for. I guess there are multiple districts within the city, and each district has it's own horse (which they take to their church to have blessed beforehand!). The race takes place around the actual square, and only lasts about three minutes, but it's a huge deal! That would have been really cool to see, but it takes place during the summer. We also toured the Duomo (cathedral) which was really impressive. We actually first paid for and went into the Baptisery, which we THOUGHT was the entrance to the cathedral, lol.. oh well it was cool too. Inside the actual Cathedral there was so much tiled mosaic work on the floor. They were SO detailed and the tile pieces were so tiny. It must have taken forever to make all those scenes! Attached to the church was the library, which had some really cool, huge old song books that were all hand drawn and painted. We also went to another church, where they had the actual head and finger of Saint Catherine on display. It was... weird. The head was kind of far away on an altar in one of the side chapels, so it was hard to make out details..but it was definitely a head! The finger just looked all dry and shriveled..yick. The day was pretty rainy and miserable and short.. I don't think we did much else that night besides planning and reading up for Rome.

song books at the cathedral

song books at the cathedral
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

siena

siena
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

siena rooftops

siena rooftops
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

il campo

il campo
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

city hall at il campo

city hall at il campo
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

cinque terre, italy

After having a McDonald's breakfast (the first with proper hashbrowns that we've had over here!), we made our way to the small area on the Italian Riviera called the Cinque Terre (5 Lands). We had read all about the area in our Rick Steves guidebook and were pretty psyched to finally be going there. The Cinque Terre consists of 5 tiny towns, all along the coast, that you can even hike between all in one day- Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso. We chose to stay in Vernazza which is probably the most touristy, but even then that's not saying much because all of these towns were quite off the beaten path! Once on the local train that ran between the towns, we were talking about where we were going to stay (we hadn't booked a place) and this old man overheard us say Vernazza and pulled out his business card for his little hotel. He said it would be 25 euros each per night, and when we said we were looking to only pay around 20, he said ok ok that would be alright. Giuseppe led us from the station to the place, it literally took only about 3 minutes to walk across the whole town!.. hehehe. We were very pleased with the room, it was huge! One big room with a half wall divider and three beds. We also had a nice bathroom and the BEST shower we've had yet on the trip. It turned out that the hotel was actually in our guidebook, but while skimming for places to stay we had bypassed it because it was too expensive. This listed price for that room (the "family" room) was 110 Euro a night... here we were paying only 40! Thank you off-season! hahah..

We were only staying for 2 nights, so we made the most of our afteroon by going on the hike from Vernazza to Monterosso. The whole area is a national park, and we had to pay 3 euros to use the trails. It was a small price to pay! It was a beautiful hike, and the view of Vernazza as we were leaving was amazing. It's such a cute little town, all the pastel colored buildings crammed together at the bottom of the hill, right on the water. We ran into a few cats on the path, and there was even one area with a little shelter set up with a big bucket of cat food saying to please take a minute to feed the stray cats. It was so cute! It only took about 2 hours to hike to Monterosso, and even less time to walk around and explore the actual town. Montorosso is more the beach town of the 5, and had it been nicer weather we probably would have gone for a swim.. We waited till just after sunset before catching the 2 minute train back to our town. We got a pizza and some pesto foccacia bread for dinner and that was that.

The next day we took the train to the first, most easternly town of Riomaggiore and planned to hike all the way back to our town. We had to take the train between Manarola and Corniglia though, because of a landslide blocking the trail. We had breakfast in Riomaggiore, and gelato in the second town of Manarola. In Manarola we also whipped out our sketch pads and attempted to pastel what we saw. It was extremely difficult and frustrating, so I resorted to more of an abstract impressionost method and just did my best without getting too technical... haha. Each of the towns were so adorable. The houses were so cute and everyone so friendly. We passed multiple people, including one really cute little old man, who would shout buon giorno (good day)! at us as we passed.

It was already getting dark by the time we got back, so we just grabbed some dinner, the same thing as the night before, and made it an early night.

riomaggiore

riomaggiore
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

manarola

manarola
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

corniglia

corniglia
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

vernazza

vernazza
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

monterosso

monterosso
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

monterosso at night

monterosso at night
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

hiking between the towns

hiking between the towns
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

our hotel (the yellow building!)

our hotel (the yellow building!)
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

pisa, italy

Up until now we have been pretty lucky with the weather. It's been darn cold, but we've managed to avoid the rain. It did rain the day we made our day trip from Florence to Pisa though.. Luckily I had brought my umbrella because the walk from the train station to the leaning tower was pretty far. By the time we got there though, it had cleared up pretty nicely and we were able to get some good pictures!

I don't really know what to say about the tower other than.. it leans! hahaha. We didn't actually climb up the tower because they were charging 15 Euros to do so.. what a complete money grab! Instead we hung out with the gazillion tourists below and took a gazillion pictures, including the obligatory "haha, I'm holding up the tower!" pose, lol. It was pretty funny to watch every single person take that shot; their hands above their head while the photographer directed which way to move them. We spent some more time walking around the grounds and the church as the sun set.

After that, there wasn't much else left to do in Pisa besides grab some gelato and head back to the station and back to Florence.

the leaning tower of pisa

the leaning tower of pisa
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

man am i strong!

man am i strong!
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

church grounds

church grounds
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

pisa

pisa
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

florence, italy

We arrived in Florence with no where booked to stay (as we seem to be doing a lot lately!). Our guidebook listed quite a few cheap places all around one area though, so we headed there to check a few out. As always, Rick Steves didn't let us down and we found a great place that was one room of a three bedroom apartement.. it even had a little kitchen. We got there in the afternoon, and headed out to see what sights we could still cover that day. We did a walk all around the town, heading towards the Cathedral and all the many streets and squares around it. There also turned out to be no huge line at the Uffuzi Gallery (as all the guidebooks said there would be), so we walked right in and saw a ton of Italian paintings, including one of my favourite, The Birth of Venus by Botticelli. Since our place had a little kitchen, we made pasta for dinner and I also had some broccoli, which I hadn't had in SO long.. mMmmm

In the morning we headed straight to the Accademia Gallery, which is where Michaelangelo's David is located. I feel silly saying this now, but I didn't realize it was of David as in David and Goliath. I just thought it was some dude! The statue is actually clutching a rock (in an englared right hand as to symbolize the strength given to him by God). Again, there was absolutely no line and we walked right in. You weren't allowed to take pictures, but by now we have both become pretty good at spycam-ing it. You just have to think about it as being your trip and your memories. To me it's worth getting tsk tsked at by the guard person if it means I can have a picture of the David statue! Who knows if I'll have such a chance again.. The statue was pretty impressive.. like 13 feet tall, with so much detail. It was even more impressive because in the room before the one he is in, there are some of his unfinished "Prisoner" statues which are pretty much still big blocks of marble. It's hard to imagine how you would even begin to go about making something so detailed from one giant piece of rock! After that we crossed the Ponte Vecchio bridge and toured the Pitti Palace. We also climbed up the hill to Piazza Michaelagelo for an awesome view of Florence.

While we were walking around near the Cathedral, we saw this film crew set up, so we wandered over to see what was happening. Turns out we became extras in a documentary being filmed for the Discovery Channel. It was about the senses, and there was a blind man from Turkey who had just then drawn the Baptisery (part of the Cathedral) in perspective by feeling a model of it. We were both standing right behind the professor who was narrating, so there's a chance we could be in it, hahah.. It's due to air next year some time so I guess we'll have to keep an eye out for it! In the evening we walked around the huge outdoor Central Market on the way back to our place, where we finished off that bag of spaghetti for dinner. The next day we had a day trip to Pisa planned, which would only be a short train ride away.

uffizi gallery

uffizi gallery
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

mmm.. gelato!

mmm.. gelato!
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

florence

florence
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

pitti palace

pitti palace
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

michaelangelo's david

michaelangelo's david
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

one little monkey jumping on the bed

one little monkey jumping on the bed
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

ponte vecchio bridge

ponte vecchio bridge
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

duomo

duomo
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

venice, italy

Venice was AMAZING. I think if you could only ever go to one city in Europe, it should be Venice. It felt like we were in a completely different world! As soon as we stepped out of the train station we were walking along the Grand Canal. I'll admit we had both been feeling a little lazy as of late, but Venice kind of kicked us in the butt and gave us a new burst of energy. We felt really excited and giddy to be there. We dropped our stuff at our hotel and got going again right away, getting lost in the huge maze of narrow streets, crossing little bridges left right and center and wandering around in amazement. We got some food and continued wandering around until we came across St. Mark's Square, pretty much the center of the town. You can't really get lost in Venice though, because it's an island and eventually you'll find your way! It's really easy to get disoriented though, there are literally hundreds of different bridges and canals.

We suddenly stumbled upon St. Mark's Square and that's when our jaws really dropped. It was gorgeous, and right on the water! The sun was just setting, which made it even more awesome. There must have been a million pigeons in that square, and there were little stands where you could by a whole bag of corn feed for only 1 Euro! (take that, guy in Milan! pfft). These pigeons were crazy and would attack you as soon as they saw the little white bag that the feed came in. The lady who was selling the feed even had a fly swatter to shoo the birds away, hahah. We had so much fun playing with the pigeons, I swear we were there for well over an hour...I have a couple videos of us with them, one where it's still light, and another when its already gotten dark, hehe. They would swarm you, landing anywhere they could and fighting each other off even. It was a blast! We decided to do our laundry on our last night in Venice in case we got crapped on at all. It took us quite a while to make it back to our hotel that night cause we kinda got lost. (crossed the Grand Canal when we shouldn't have!) We stopped into another hotel and got directions so it was all ok! There were so many more guys selling black-market designer purses in Venice as well. They would set all their things out on bedsheets on the street and relentlessly hound you as you walked by. At the sight of a cop though, they would be packed up and off and running in the blink of an eye. It was pretty funny to see. One minute they would be there and the next they would be gone. Since we talked to that guy in Milan we were more tolerant of their harassing, and even stopped to talk and joke around with them. It was pretty funny.

The next day we bought a vaporetto pass (water bus!) and went for a ride down the Grand Canal from the train station to St. Mark's Square. The actual gondola rides are really expensive, like 100 Euros, so we settled for the vaporetto! It was almost as good and we got a nice tour of the place. The do everything on the water! Police boats, post office boats, delivery boats, it was really cool! The Grand Canal was like a freeway. We saw most of the sights that day, including going inside St. Mark's and Doge's Palace. We did a lot of strolling around and gelato eating as well. We found a really cheap gelato place by the Rialto Bridge. Time really flew by just walking all around. And I can't forget about the pigeons! We played with them some more as well..including throwing pigeon feed in front of the feet of unsuspecting tourists walking through the sqaure and watching the chaos unfold, muhahaha.

Our vaporetto pass was good for 24 hours so we took it again in the morning to the Accademia Museum. We saw all the paintings there and then crossed the Accademia bridge and continued walking all about. We also tried taking the boat over to the next little island to climb the bell tower, but the church was closed! We were bummed, but heading back to the main town and got some gelato to feel better. hahaha.. We also found some really great chinese food for cheap and had a little feast for dinner. Since it was our last night in Venice and we wouldn't be playing with the pigeons anymore, we did our laundry and made it a bit of an early night.

st. mark's

st. mark's
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

pigeons EVERYWHERE!

pigeons EVERYWHERE!
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

mike and his new buddies

mike and his new buddies
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

st. mark's square

st. mark's square
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

view down one of the MANY canals!

view down one of the MANY canals!
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

the rialto bridge

the rialto bridge
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

bronze horsie at st. mark's

bronze horsie at st. marks
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

gondolier

gondolier
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

sunset in venice

sunset in venice
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

milan, italy

Boy were we glad that we had snagged a reservation for our train into Italy. The train was packed! It's a nice feeling knowing that the seat is yours and no one can boot you out of it! We had a hotel booked for Milan ahead of time as well, and hopped on a tram and found it no problem. It's been getting dark realllly early now, like around 4:30 so we haven't been having as much time to walk around and sight see as we used to. That evening we just went to check out an English bookstore and to the area of town nicknamed "little Venice" because of the couple of canals that are there. It was actually kind of gross because the canals were dried up and filled with garbage. We had a charming dinner at McDonald's before heading home for the night.

We had heard that in order to see DaVinci's "Last Supper" painting, you had to make a reservation months in advance, but we were hoping that since it was kind of getting to be the off season for tourists, we would be able to see it anyways. No luck there, they were booked up until the end of November. That was too bad because I think we will have seen pretty much every other masterpiece in Europe except that one! haha.. We then headed to Milan's huge cathedral, the Duomo. The architecture was so detailed and intricate; we were glad we spent the money to climb to the rooftop to get a better look at it as well as get a great view of the city. There is a huge square right in front of the church that is always has a fluster of activity going on. It was there that we experienced our first little scam artist on the trip. There were a ton of pigeons in the square, and this guy came up to me and put some birdfeed in my hand and was getting the birds to come so Mike could take a picture. Right away I knew this guy was going to ask for money, but I was ok with it because the pigeons were cool and I wanted a picture with them. Mike and I both burst out laughing though when he said we owed him 5 euros. 5 EUROS?! for a few kernels of corn? IIIIII don't think so.. haha. I gave him a few bits of change like I was planning on doing anyways and we walked away. There were also these guys that would ask if you wanted a free little braided bracelet for "luck" and put it right on your arm as you were walking by. Of course by free they really meant they wanted money. We saw so many people get sucked in by that one, mostly couples where the girl would be interested and the guy would start getting mad at the scammer and drag the girl away, haha.

We also walked around one of Milan's main shopping areas, although I think we missed the one main area somehow. Everyone in Milan seemed quite concerned with their appearances, and everyone was SO well dressed. Milan was also where we were introduced to the fact that Italian people like to STARE. It felt like everyone we passed would look us up and down, and you could see other people doing it to each other as well. While sitting waiting for the tram or train or whatever, just watching people walk by almost felt like you were watching a fashion show. It was definitely a different atmosphere! There were so many gorgeous stores with gorgeous clothes.. and the shoes! My goodness, shoe stores everywhere! If only I had a massive suitcase to store them in (and another suitcase full of money to pay for them, haha)..

We read in our guide book about a cheap restaurant where you could get really good pizza and pasta and we spent a good chunk of the evening trying to find the darn place. It was WELL worth it though once we finally tracked it down because it turns out you get pasta ON TOP of the pizza, literally! The pizza was huge and the pasta was delicious. Oh yea, and we had gelato! mmmm... On the way home we walked through this little night market thing which was full of guys from Senegal selling knock off designer purses, wallets, etc. They were so persistant and pesky. I guess they were just getting ready to pack up for the night so they were all the more desperate to make the sale. We actually started talking to one of the guys on the subway (they carry their goods around in these huge blue bags) and he was super nice. He told us how he came to Milan from Senegal looking for a better life. He was so genuinley friendly and we enjoyed talking with him. It was funny how talking with just that one guy changed our opinion on all the other guys that had been hounding us to look at their purses. They were just trying to make some money, and everyone would brush them away like flies. I guess we realized that all these people we look at as "scammers" are just that.. people. They don't mean any harm.

milan's cathedral (duomo)

milan's cathedral (duomo)
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

candles

candles
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

on the rooftop of the duomo

on the rooftop of the duomo
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

more shopping

more shopping
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.

one of the many shopping areas in milan

one of the many shopping areas in milan
Originally uploaded by shanonv123.