Mini-Vacation to Firenze and Cinque Terre (with loads of pictures!)

Hello everyone!  We have been incommunicado these last few days, in large part because we were out and about travelling.  Wednesday (15 August) is a national holiday here in Italy for the Feast of the Assumption.  As such, this was the vacation time for the volunteers.  We had the weekend and the first half of the week off, so we decided to do some travelling.  A great big huge grazie mille to Mel and Peter's generosity  in sending us to Firenze (Florence) and Cinque Terre.  Both were beautiful and wonderful experiences that we could not have done without their help and support.

After going to the doctor Friday morning (no worries, Leah is ok, it was just a precautionary thing!), we got on a train after lunch to go to Firenze.  We were lucky to be able to have time off at the same time as Maureen and Stu (very good friends from back home who are now in Germany), so we got to meet up with them in Florence Friday afternoon.  It was really nice to spend some time with friends from home, and we got to see some amazing things in Firenze, as well as eat some really superb food (thanks Mel and Annie for the recommendations!).  If any of you ever visit Florence, make sure to stop by a gelateria called Vivoli.  They have the best gelato we have had in Italy, and some very interesting flavors, like sesamo nero (roasted black sesame seed), ricotta e ficche (ricotta and fig, with whole figs!), and even gorgonzola!  Florence is so full of history, art, and culture that you could spend months there and not see it all.  We did really enjoy the sights we were able to see, but we hope to be able to visit it again sometime and see some of what we missed.  Some of the highlights were the Duomo, sunset from Piazzale Michelangelo (a piazza up on a hill across the river from the main city with a breathtaking view), and all the sights and sounds of the crowded markets near the city center.  We met up with Ream (one of the volunteers who will be going to Togo with us) on Sunday.  We stayed in Florence until Monday afternooon, during which time we probably walked 20 miles all around the city.  We said goodbye to Maureen and Stu Monday morning, as they had to be back in Germany for work on Tuesday morning.

Leaving Firenze, we (Leah, Ream, and Tim) got on a train to head to Cinque Terre (literally: Five Lands), which is a national park here in Italy as well as a UNESCO heritage site.  It is a superbly beautiful area with rugged, mountainous terrain right on the seaside (of the Mediterranean) where there are five different villages (Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso, from south to north) nestled amongst the hills.  There are footpaths in between each town, and you can start at either end and hike to them all.  We started at Riomaggiore and hiked all the way through to Vernazza on Tuesday.  We originally planned to hike all five in one day, but we went to lunch at a restaurant in Vernazza called Il Pirata delle Cinque Terre (The Pirate of the Five Lands).  Il Pirata is owned and operated by two Sicilian twins (Gianluca and Massimo), and their food is amazing.  They are also very friendly and full of good humor.  If you ever find yourself in Cinque Terre, stop by; it's worth the trip up the hill.  After lunch, which took nearly two hours (Italians dine at a different pace than Americans), we needed a little siesta.  We stayed in Vernazza for the rest of the day and had a swim in the sea and jumped off of a small cliff (25 feet or so).  It was a very relaxing way to end the day before we took the train and bus back to our hotel.  We took the train straight to the fifth town the next morning (Monterosso), and then after seeing the sights there, we went back to Vernazza for lunch at Il Pirata once more.  Gianluca was pleased to see us again and even gave us a small bottle of prosecco to take home with us.  We went for a swim again and then got back on the train and came back to Rome.  Cinque Terre has been our favorite experience of Italy so far.  It is just so beautiful, the food was excellent (we ate all kinds of seafood, mussels, squid, octopus, anchovies, tuna, salmon, lots of which was all mixed into a single seafood salad), and all of the people we interacted with were friendly and funny.  We took quite a lot of pictures, and I will post a few of them here, but pictures don't do it justice.  If you ever have the chance, go visit.

We are back in Rome now, continuing our lessons with the sisters.  We were sorry to leave Cinque Terre and Firenze, but it's good to get back to preparing for our mission.  Sorry for the two week absence on the blog here, but internet was very spotty along the way.  Stay tuned for further updates!

The view out of our hotel window in Firenze.

A statue of Perseus having removed Medusa's head on display outside the Uffizi.

Looking down the side of the church (Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore or Cathedral of St. Mary of the Flower) from the door where you enter to climb the Duomo.

 The front of the church.

Looking back at the Duomo from the campanile (belltower).

The Duomo through a grated window during the climb up the torre (tower) of the Palazzo Vecchio (Old Palace), Florence's longstanding center of local government which now contains a museum full of Medici influence and history.

 The Duomo from the top of the Palazzo Vecchio tower.  It's framed in by the rock forming the battlements on the top of the tower.

Leah at the top of the tower with the Duomo in the background.

The center of the ceiling in the Salone dei Cinquecento (Hall of the 500), which was the place where the ruling body of the Republic of Firenze met.  The man in the center is Cosimo I, the Medici who was in charge at the time.  He had the ceiling raised and put himself right in the center.

The ceiling and wall of one of the rooms in the Museo Palazzo Vecchio.  Not fancy, ornate, or ridiculous at all.

 Niccolo Machiavelli, just chillin' over in a side hall in the Museo.

The frescoes on the inside of the Duomo.  Unlike most big, beautiful churches in Italy, most of the ceiling on the inside of this one is bare.  Only the inside of the dome itself is really decorated.

The little marina at the bottom of the first of the five villages, Riomaggiore.

Looking up the hill from the marina at Riomaggiore.

Sunset through a pine tree shot from the balcony of the little hotel we stayed at, Due Gemelli (Doo-ay Jim-ell-ee, Two Twins).

The night sky from our hotel balcony.  Sorry for the washed out/fuzzy aspect, I didn't have a tripod or a proper lens hood.  Still, you can see how clear the sky was, and how little light pollution there was. You can see in the middle on the right where there is a satellite tracking down through the picture.

The gate at the beginning of the trail from Riomaggiore to the rest of the towns.  The trail is called the Via delle Amore (the way of love).  You see people put padlocks with their names on them all over tourist attractions throughout Europe as a way to commemorate their love.

The Via delle Amore just beyond the gate, headed towards the second village (Manarola).

Looking back up the path towards Riomaggiore.

Tim and Leah sitting on the bench with the silhouette of the kissing lovers, sort of an icon for the Cinque Terre trails.

A small fence along part of the trail where you can really see how popular the padlock thing is.

The pathway leading out of Manarola.  You can see all the terraced vineyards up in the sunlight on the hill.

In the three preceding pictures, you can see the grapes and olives that grow all over the place in the hills all around Cinque Terre.

The three preceding pictures are all looking back down the trail at Riomaggiore from high up on the mountain.

Looking down at Corniglia as we are hiking towards it.

Looking down at a boat in the water on the hike towards Corniglia.  The water was beautiful.  Blue-green and just that clear as far as you could see.

Looking down the hill at Vernazza, the fourth town.  Vernazza was our favorite of the five.  Very picturesque (although aren't they all), great food, nice places to swim, delicious gelato, what's not to love?

This is the frutta di mare (literally: fruit of the sea) appetizer that the three of us split at lunch at Il Pirata.  Yes, all that fish is raw, and yes, those are anchovies.  Also, it was delicious.

Leah and Ream happily celebrating after jumping off of the small cliff in Vernazza.

Looking across the water from Vernazza to Monterosso with some boats in the foreground.  Cinque Terre is a big vacation/tourist spot, but as you can see in most of the pictures, since it is a national park, it has not been overdeveloped.

Our last view of Riomaggiore before taking the train back to Rome.