Cinque Terre

Well it seems that I am running two cities behind, which tells me that if I am going to blog my travels I need to travel with a keyboard. Blogger doesn't work well on a phone but I wanted to travel very light, so here I am blogging on my phone. That is a first world problem if there ever was one, but I digress...

Cinque Terre is more beautiful than advertised. I spent my time there wandering through the towels. Each has a slightly different character and a different story to tell.  The towns are built into steep hillsides which plunge into the Ligurian Sea.  It has access to the rest of Italy by railroad cut through the cliffs, and there must be a road because there are a few cars. Life is very vertical there. Here are the stairs to our apartment:

As with all the places we have been, the people have been friendly and the food had been amazing. Hint: eat local. The local food is fresh and tasty.  Food from far away is less tasty. So in Cinque Terre order anchovies, not tuna, and it might be a good idea to ask if vegetables are fresh or frozen.

Speaking of taste, here is a taste of the visual splendor that is Cinque Terre.

 

Venice

Time flies when you're having fun. It's been a whirlwind of exploring and activities and food, sooooo much food in Venice and Cinque Terre.

We began our time in Venice with a newbie mistake. After sitting on a plane and then a bus, I was itching to walk, so instead of following the apartment manager's very clear instructions to take the Vaporetto to the apartment, I suggested we walk and Google maps said it would take 20 minutes. Google did not seem to realize that we couldn't walk on water.  Oops. For future reference, the Vaporetto works as advertised...

We had a glorious, if rainy, couple of days wandering around on foot and by boat. Murano and Burano were amazing.

 

Lido was fun too, and we saw many of the main sites in Venice, especially around San Marco.

 

Venice was challenging in one unexpected way. My sense of direction, usually fairly good when outside, was not up to the task of efficient navigation. One evening after hours of wandering, Laurie and I decided we should find a place to eat close to our apartment. For the sake of expediency, we used Google Maps...I know, I know, we checked for mysterious water crossings...and it turned out we were only three minutes away.

Next post will be all about Cinque Terre.

The swing

There's something about a swing that I love. The motion is soothing but a little bit exciting at the same time. You are in control of how high you go but you have to go with the flow on speed and direction. So you can imagine my excitement when 2/3 of the way up a hill Laurie made me climb I found a swing just hanging from a tree begging to be ridden.

And so I got to swing for a few minutes and feel inspired by the motion while looking over Barcelona from high above the city.

Then we got back on the trail to the top of the hill, which was totally worth the climb. We could see all of Barcelona from the hills to the Mediterranean Sea. What a beautiful day.