Venezia

Ah, the city of Venice. What makes this city so special? It has a different feeling to it that you can't quite explain. I love all of the beautiful bridges, the warm colors of gold, rust, orange and the streets that wind all over the city.

I love that there are no cars and so many beautiful boats and gondolas to ferry you around. I love the wide open St. Mark's square and the intricate Byzantine architecture of the cathedral with its colorful murals.

I love the smell of the sea air and the romance of the old city. Who wouldn't fall in love with this place?!

Tuscany

After the Cinque Terre we headed to Pisa. Of course it was pouring rain the whole time we were in the car and then it suddenly stopped as we pulled into Pisa. Mike and I have been to Pisa before, but we didn't get the chance to go up the tower. We got our tickets and were able to go up after only a short wait. The stairways are pretty narrow.

It was funny walking up because you would be totally hiking up the steep stairs and then you would get on the opposite side of the tower and it almost felt like you were walking down. A lot of people were pretty dizzy and disoriented by the time we got to the top. The view was beautiful!

Here is a picture of the baptistry and the duomo. You can see that the lawn was being mowed while we were there. That's a serious mowing job! Here is also a picture of part of the city.

We did a little shopping in Pisa and then we drove to Siena. I called the hotel as we were getting near Siena so I could ask for directions. The guy at the front desk was oh so helpful. I told him where we were getting off the autostrade and I asked him the best way to get to the hotel. He asked, "You aren't here?" Ah, duh! I couldn't understand anything he was saying! We finally got there while it was starting to get dark. We walked to the city center, got a little bit lost, but had a fun time. Siena is such an interesting little town. The old city looks like it is probably the same as it was when it was first built. The streets wind around and all empty out into the main square. It was too dark for pictures so we investigated the city and had some wonderful dinner.

The next morning we decided to make a stop in Florence on our way to Venice. We hadn't had too much luck in the shopping department so we were happy to find a huge open market in Florence. We found some great stuff and took a little walk to see the duomo, bell tower and Ponte Vecchio.

This is inside the dome of the duomo. The paintings are probably seven stories up!

I love this bridge, it is has such character. Florence is one of my favorite places to go in Italy. I could spend days wandering around this beautiful city.

The Cinque Terre

Well it's been about a month now since we got back, so I thought I would get a few pictures up of our trip. We went with our good friends Steve and Laura. We had so much fun with them. They definitely made the trip one of the best vacations we've ever had. Thanks guys!
When we flew into Venice it was raining. And it rained the entire drive down to the Cinque Terre. Not just drizzling or light rain, no, it was pouring! We were thinking this wasn't going to turn out to be such a fun trip. When we got to our hotel it was clearing up a bit and by the time we were ready to go to dinner it was just lightly raining. We had a great time and enjoyed the old city of Monterosso. The next day we woke up to, you guessed it, more pouring rain. We decided to give it a go anyways and grabbed our umbrellas and headed for the train. By the time we got off the train in Riomaggiore the rain had stopped. We were blessed with fairly clear skies the rest of the day. How lucky we were!
We had planned to hike between the cities, notice the shorts, but there had been so much rain that all of the trails had been closed for fear of landslides. The Cinque Terre is made up of five little towns along the coast of Italy. There are trains and hiking trails that connect each town to the next. Each town is built right into the hill and usually runs right down to the water. They are these tiny little towns that look like they haven't been touched in centuries. It's so beautiful! We had a great time exploring the towns and eating some yummy food. Here is Mike having his afternoon treat or should I say treats. I think we had gelato about two to three times a day. It's a wonder that we all didn't have to be rolled off the plane when we got home. Maybe all the walking helped burn off all those calories. Here are the steps we had to climb to get to the city of Corniglia. It is perched on top of these cliffs.
Unfortunately we were only able to stay here for a day and a half. We would love to spend a week here. The last time we were here it was early fall and the water was very calm. Being November the area is a lot more stormy and the sea was pretty rough and choppy.

One night we were there a huge storm rolled in. When the thunder boomed it was so loud! It sounded like a cannon was going off. The town we were in sits in a canyon so the thunder was echoing like crazy. It was actually pretty cool but it scared our friend Laura to death!
If you ever take a trip to Italy make sure you put the Cinque Terre on your list.