After a week in Greece we were planning to spend another week in Italy visiting the smaller towns as we made our way back to Spain. Our first stop was the town of Salerno. Salerno is in southern Italy about an hour from Naples. It sits with the coast on side and with mountains and extinct volcanoes on the other. We arrived at night and after walking down the main road through the center of town, we decided that just staying one night in this town would not be enough. Salerno was one of the quaintest and peaceful little towns we have visited. Everyone we met was friendly regardless of our inability to speak the language, and nowhere else could we buy a whole pizza for less than 4 Euros!
From Salerno we took a day-trip to the town of Pompeii. Famous for being destroyed by Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD, the city of Pompeii is a sleepy little town with an extraordinary tourist attraction on one side. One inside the old city, it is amazing to think that this was once buried under 20 feet of ash. Everything is so well preserved from the grooves in the stone of the streets to the mosaic tile floors, to the bodies lying where they fell the day Vesuvius erupted almost 2000 years ago. Most of the ruins that we have seen up to this point were, well, ruins. This city looks as though it could have been lived in only 50 or 100 years ago.
After enjoying the peacefulness of southern Italy, we made our way up to Siena to spend a few days in the Tuscany region. And while in Tuscany, we had to go to a vineyard. Our trip to a wine tasting began with a short tour through the rolling hills and small towns. There were only three of us on this tour, and the third person was a rather eccentric, if not amusing, elderly woman from California who was originally from Spain. While she certainly had the gift of gab, we all had a great time going to the less-touristed places and had a chance to sample some amazing wines.
From Siena we took a trip over to Florence and spent a day wandering through the medieval streets and going to see Michelangelo’s David. And David was an amazing sight to see. The statue is much larger than we thought it was (it’s over 15 feet tall), and the level of detail blew us away. You could even make out the veins running through David’s arms and legs! After seeing such an amazing work of art, we still had a little time to kill, and decided to rest after the 1 ½ hour wait just to get into the museum.
This is where we learned a vital lesson when traveling. Always, ALWAYS, know how much something costs before you buy it. After finding a cozy little café along the side of the river, we ordered a couple of beers. When asked if we wanted to small or large, we, of course, said large. These large beers, which were average size for most beers that you could buy, ended up costing 12 Euros each. i.e. - WE PAID $30 FOR TWO BEERS!! After being outraged and Rob threatening to knock things over in the store, it was time to leave Florence before we went broke, or got arrested.
Our last stop in Italy was in an area called the Cinque Terre, or five lands. This is an area in northern Italy often referred to as the Italian Riviera. These are five small fishing villages sandwiched between the mountains and the Mediterranean Coast. Trains connect all five towns, but so does a hiking trail that takes visitors along 5 miles of the most beautiful scenery in Europe. And this really was the most beautiful place we have been to date. Hiking along the trails brings you up the sides of the mountain and along cliffs above the sea. The entire area is picture-perfect and nowhere else have we seen such an amazing landscape surrounding quaint little towns. We even met some of the friendliest people.
When arriving in the Cinque Terre, we were a little confused on how to get to a recommended hostel. Standing there at an intersection with our large packs on, we were approached by woman who asked us (in Italian) if she could help. We pointed to the name of the hostel on our sheet of paper, and she took her time to walk us to the staircase leading to where we wanted to go. (Yes, it was a staircase. Half the town was build on the side of the mountain, so many of the houses and hotels could only be reached by going up stairs carved into the rock.) When we arrived at the hostel, we found out from the owner, who actually showed up 5 minutes behind us, that it was booked. However, he had just spoken to the woman who led us here, and he told us that she was waiting for us down at the street to take us to another hostel which probably had room. Sure enough, our guide was there and she led us to a hotel with a free room.
Leaving the Cinque Terre was very difficult, but we had friends to meet in Barcelona. So it was back to Spain for us, and time to start thinking ahead to the next leg of our trip: Scotland.
