San Marino

Robbie ended up with a few days off right around Easter and he had been wanting to go visit San Marino for a couple of months.  San Marino is a tiny little independent republic located right in the middle of the Italian coast.  Some friends of ours had been already and we had so many questions. Did we need our passports? Do we have to go through customs? Do they take Euros even though they're not a member of the European Union? As we tend to do, we didn't look too carefully into any of these questions before we left and figured we'd wing it once we got out there.

I'll admit that I wasn't too excited for this particular day trip.  I hadn't really heard of San Marino before and didn't know anything about it or what there was to see there.  By the end of the day, I was impressed and it actually turned out to be one of my favorite day trips we've done so far.

San Marino is the most famous for the three towers that sit on the three peaks of Monte Titano.

We parked and hiked up the mountain a little way until we got to the old stone walkways that led to the towers.  They were really cool and old looking, plus had amazing views in every direction.

Before heading inside the towers, we walked around a little bit and enjoyed some of the beautiful spring weather and scenery.  The trees and flowers were blooming and it made for a relaxing walk.

The first thing we came across was the Basilica of San Marino.  I don't think you're supposed to take pictures inside, but Robbie can't resist.

Then we walked back up to start the tour of the towers.  By that time, it was already kind of late in the day so we were only going to have time to see two of the towers.  I think why I liked these so much was because besides the ticket-takers at the gate, there wasn't anyone else around.  The towers were just open to explore, climb around in, and have fun without having to do any "tour" kind of things through it.

We took turns climbing to the top of the tower since it was too steep and narrow to bring Michael up in the hiking backpack and enjoyed the views from the top:

Room at the top of the tower

Narrow walkway around the tower

We had a little snack and played around a big in the courtyard of the first tower and then moved onto the second.

The second tower was set up a little more like a museum with various weapons, shields, and armor on display.  Some of the swords were bigger than me!

We climbed around on the tower of this one too, and actually all made it up at the same time with Michael.

On a clearer day, I think you would have been able to see all the way to the coast.  It was a really fun, laid-back, and relaxed day.  Sometimes it's nice to travel without a strict agenda and just see where you end up, and this was one of those days.

And, in case anyone was curious, you don't need a passport or to go through customs to visit San Marino, they do accept the Euro, but our cell phones only work in Italy so to use them in San Marino we would have had to upgrade to the European travel plan!

Porto Venere and Pisa, Italy

During our Cinque Terre stay, we opted to stay in nearby Porto Venere instead of in one of the five towns. It was more accessible (you can't drive your car in the towns), and another town to visit.  We left after work on Friday and arrived just in time for sunset.

Our friend Sally had found the hotel we stayed in and it was amazing.  Even Michael got excited and started running around when he saw our balcony.  The owners were probably in their 70s, and got such a kick out of Michael's reaction they told our friends all about the other "American baby" when they checked in.  He said they had the balconies extended a few years back, so it was almost like having a little yard overlooking the water and the main part of Porto Venere.  We had some deck chairs to relax, and a road ran right under the balcony which provided endless entertainment for Michael watching all the cars and bikes.  At one point, he woke up from a dead sleep, sat straight up and yelled "BUS!" when he heard a bus drive by.

The first night we all settled in, had a laid-back pizza dinner on the balcony, and enjoyed the view.  Living in a foreign country can be stressful and overwhelming sometimes--everything becomes complicated when there's a language barrier and a process for accomplishing things you're not familiar with. We don't always realize how stressed we get until the stress is gone, and it seemed like for all three of us in our family, it melted away as soon as we stepped out on that balcony.  It was a nice change!

We spent all day Saturday exploring the five towns of Cinque Terre, so Sunday we opted to explore Porto Venere a little big.  We had a nice lunch with our friends at a little restaurant by the water.

Michael loved watching everything happening around the water; the waves lapping up on the rocks, the birds flying around and landing in the water, the sailboats drifting by.  He had a great time running around watching everything and climbing things.

After dinner we walked up the hill a little ways up to the old city, built on the rocks overlooking the ocean.  The rocky cliffs reminded me a lot of the beaches we left behind in California and I think that made us feel even more at home.

There was another old, small church there too, right on the side of the cliff. It was really pretty inside, and you could climb up to a viewing platform on top for even better views of the coastline.

After lunch and a little exploring, we got gelato (we always get gelato) and then started back to our cars so we could head home and recover before everyone had to return to work the next day.

Robbie and I decided to take a little detour on the way home to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It was only about 40 minutes out of the way, and we've heard that while it's cool to see, there isn't much else to see in Pisa that would make it worth a 6 hour round-trip drive from Ferrara.

We got there and parked without incident.  We had a grumpy baby on our hands so we took our silly tourist pictures holding up the tower, walked around the Field of Miracles for a few minutes, then just decided to head back towards home before Michael totally lost it on us.

I would have enjoyed going inside the church and the baptistery.  Apparently the acoustics in the baptistery are such that you can sing harmonies with yourself.  This is (so I hear) demonstrated by a guard every 15 minutes or so.  The line for tickets was pretty long, and we didn't think anyone would want to hear Michael screams echoing around and around, so we skipped it.

Maybe sometime if we're in the area again, we'll try again.  Pisa was very impressive, the buildings were massive, and it was fun to see and cross off our list of places to visit.

Cinque Terre, Italy

I've  been eager to visit Cinque Terre since we moved to Italy, having learned of its existence while wasting my life away on Pinterest.  Lucky for me, I actually have the opportunity to visit some of these awesome Pinterest places!  This will be a very picture-heavy post because you really can't describe a place like this.  I'm not sure pictures can do it justice either!

We headed out to Cinque Terre in the middle of March with a few of our American friends from Ferrara.  We stayed in a nearby town called Porto Venere (a separate blog post coming soon) and took the train up to visit the five towns.

First up, Monterosso al Mare!  This was our first destination. We arrived mid-morning while the haze and morning fog was still lingering around.  

Probably the most striking thing about this town was this giant statue standing on a hillside overlooking the water.

is what it used to look like, apparently:

We grabbed a light lunch, walked up and down the sidewalk and enjoyed the ocean and this cute street musician and his dog.

I tried on the backpack for a little while and Michael and I cruised around!

The water was pretty and blue, but we didn't have much of a view because it was still so hazy.  I think one of the things that makes Cinque Terre so beautiful (and so iconic in all those pictures you see) are the colorful houses on hills next to the ocean.  Monterosso al Mare looked more like a normal little beach town.  Had it been warmer and a little later in the year, this would have been the best place for lounging on the beach and playing in the water.  It was beautiful, and beaches are definitely our happy-place.

But, we still had four other towns to see.  We headed back to the train station and waited to catch a ride to the second town.

Vernazza!

We got off the train and were walking through the little street and saw a big hole in the rock face.  We had to explore and found this cute little beach.  There were only a few other people there, and we spent about 20 minutes relaxing and collecting rocks, sea glass, and pieces of broken painted ceramic tiles.

This picture shows kind of the "back side" of Vernazza-- the cave-like hole is where we came through to get to the beach.

I probably could have stayed on that beach and found little ceramic treasures for an hour, but we wanted to see the rest of the town too.  There's lots of fishing in this area, so tons of little boats all around. During the high tourist season, you can get boat rides out to see the towns from the water, but none of them were running this early in the year. The colorful little rowboats all added to the charm of the town.

Here's the water's edge in Vernazza.  There's a piece of land that juts out into the water that you can see in aerial photos of Vernazza, and kind of seen here in this picture:

There was also an old church built right on the edge of the water.  A small stone outside the door had the date 1201 carved into it.  It was very peaceful sitting there by the water and listening to the church bells ring.

We traveled with two other photographers, so we got some good family pictures.

Michael and Robbie sat by the water and enjoyed the view, watching for birds and boats.

Once we had all explored a little and taken some pictures, we walked back up to the train station and headed to the next stop... Corniglia!

Unlike the other towns that are all right down on the water's edge, Corniglia is situated up on a hill. The train still lets you off near the ocean, then there is a shuttle to take you to up to the town.  Alternately, you can opt to take a route with a few hundred stairs instead. We thought we were tough enough to walk, ended up going up the wrong set of stairs for a while, missed the bus, and then hiked up the steep, winding hill instead.

It was a good work out, and we were ready for lunch when we got to the top!

There were some pretty amazing views and one spot in particular where you could stand right on the edge of the cliff and look out over the ocean. On a clearer day, you might be able to get some good views of the neighboring towns as well.

There wasn't a whole lot to see in Corniglia except for the panoramic views which were lovely, but didn't take much time.  By this time it was a little past lunchtime and we were all hungry.  We stopped at a little restaurant for lunch, got some gelato, then found the correct staircase to walk down back to the train.

I guess three lands were about all Michael could handle.  With a full tummy and chocolate gelato all over his face, he completely passed out in the baby backpack and stayed that way until halfway through the next town.

Next up was Manarola. I think this was my favorite of the five, and I was thankful some other Americans at the gelato shop in Corniglia spoke up when we were discussing possibly skipping this one to make sure we made it back to the hotel in time for our dinner reservations. Manarola, to me, was what I think of when I imagine Cinque Terre.  The brightly colored buildings perched on the side of a hill overlooking the beautiful sparkling water with little boats, and rocks, and walking paths.  There was even a park with what is probably the best park view in the world!

Michael woke up in time for us to hike up the hill a little ways and get a good picture with Manarola in the background.  Leading back from right where we are are walking trails that connect the towns.  The walk between Manarola and Riomaggiore in particular was short and we were all excited to do it. However, some landslides had taken out parts of the trail and they were closed for walking so we had to jump back on the train.

The last of the five towns was Riomaggiore.  By this point we were rushing a little bit to try to see everything before heading back to dinner. We were all tired and the trains were getting pretty packed.  We got off the train and walked through this long, mosaic tunnel into the town.  Unfortunately for us, we made the mistake of following the crowd and hiked up a really steep hill further into the town.  We realized our mistake after about 15 minutes and walked back down to the water.

This town had a boat ramp with lots of rowboats pulled up on it. It also had some freshly painted buildings that were a little more vibrant than what we had previously seen.  One of the guys also found some amazing strawberries here. I gave Michael a bite and he shoved the whole thing in his mouth and was stained with strawberry juice all over his face, clothes, and hands for the rest of the afternoon.

We booked it back to the train station to get a train back just in time for dinner, but it was delayed for ten minutes.  Then ten more minutes.  Then 30 minutes. It ended up being late by over an hour. By this point we were all pretty exhausted.  Michael was especially not fond of sitting in one place waiting for the train.  When it finally came, it was packed and we all had to sit apart from each other.  Thankfully we sat across from a nice tourist couple who didn't seem to mind getting kicked in the knees by a tired baby the whole ride back!

Overall, it was a beautiful day.  There was a lot of walking, lots of hills to climb, and not a lot of rest except for the 3-5 minute train rides in between the towns.  Among our group we were split on our favorite towns between Manarola and Riomaggiore.  While we were disappointed we couldn't get on a boat to see any of the town from the water, I'm glad we were there during the off-season when it was a little less crowded and we could take our time and enjoy the scenery.  

We went straight from the train station to dinner, then I walked up a big hill with Michael back to our hotel when he wasn't quite cooperating with a nice, long Italian meal. 

 I had every intention of putting him to sleep and then going out to enjoy our ocean-view balcony with our friends, but once I sat on the bed I couldn't move. I can't remember ever being more exhausted in my life!  I guess that's the mark of a successful trip, and if we ever decide to go back and experience it at a more leisurely pace, it's only a 2.5 hour car ride away!