Mystery Trip: The Riviera

Alright, everybody thought we were crazy and I cannot say that they were wrong. We signed up for a mystery trip. It's exactly what you think. Neither of us knew anything about the trip (Lee had to know a few things for work but did no research on them) and had somebody else plan it for us. We just filled out an online questionnaire and just went with it! So bear with me, it's a long post (mainly pictures!) but the trip was two weeks long!

Tearing up the information packet at the airport was nerve-wracking. Ultimately, we learned that we were going the the French and Italian Riviera.  Yup, it could be worse. We headed out to catch our plane to Pisa. We had a late flight since we never know what shift Lee will be working so later makes sure that they are all covered.

After arriving at the airport, we had to pick a way to get to the hotel. We decided to take the travel agent advice and get a taxi. That was a terrifying experience! The stereotypes of Italian drivers definitely showed with this driver and the roads as well! Cars were parked wherever they wanted, streets were tiny and pedestrians didn't have a care in the world. Somehow, we made it to the hotel without dying and checked in for the night.

The next morning we headed out to explore Pisa. Obviously, the first stop was the Leaning Tower. I didn't expect to like it as much as I did. It was so cool to see this world famous attraction that I never thought I would see in my life. There were quite a few building to explore that were in the same complex. One that we went into was the cathedral. It was beautifully painted, basically like a museum but not behind class.

Per usual, we managed to hit the main sites before the mobs of tourists and enjoyed the great picture opportunities. And no, we did not do the typical shot with the tower but we did take pictures of silly people doing just that!

In Pisa, we had our first experience with gelato. We both found a new love.  It is so good! In Pisa, my flavors were so rich that I had to drink water with it. After this, Lee refused to go a day without the amazing ice cream!

Everybody doing the pose!

Cathedral near the tower

It's a walled city

After wandering around Pisa some more, we headed to the train station to head to our next destination: Cinque Terre! Cinque Terre is actually the name of a group of 5 cities that are interconnected by trails and are very similar. I knew that I wanted to go there so I was really excited to be able to experience the towns. After arriving at the train station, we started our walk to our hotel. That may have been a slight mistake. This hotel was up a hill but not any hill. The whole town is built into/up the hill and our hotel was almost at the top. It is also an extremely steep hill and it was extremely hot out. So here we are, pulling our suitcases up this super steep hill, sweating like crazy. We could not have been more excited to get into some air conditioning!

After recharging ourselves, we headed down to reception and got all the info we could want about the hikes in the area. Deciding we would leave the hikes for the next few days, we headed out to get some dinner. We went to a restaurant that the hotel recommended that was a little further up the hill. It was a good choice, we got there early so we had a pick of tables. Of course, we picked one with the best view. We got to see the sunset over the town with some great food. After dinner, we continued into town.  The town we actually stayed in was called Riomaggiore. On this night, I was determined to find a good location to take some nice pictures of the town. So we went down the waterside and wandered all around until we found a semi-hidden staircase that led to a nice spot on the water with great views of town. We went there almost every night after that.

View from dinner

Can you guess who took the bird pictures? ;)

The next day we got up early to have breakfast in the hotel (more like bed and breakfast). It seems like a typical Italian spread is different types of croissants, other pastries, meat, fruit, and cereal. Not the healthiest at all but definitely tasted good. At this hotel in particular, they had these donuts hole type things that had a filling and were warm. Those were amazing! Anyways, after breakfast we headed back to the train station to go to Monterroso to start our first hike. We read online that this particular portion of the hike was the most difficult so we thought we would do it first to get it out of the way.

When we first got to the town, we decided to explore first. There were a ton of paths all around the town so we climbed them and often found a church at the top or a cemetery. After a while, we decided it was time to start the hike. We thought it would be hard but really did not expect how terrible it was.

We found the path and immediately started climbing stairs. And it continued that way for the next hour. Of course, per usual, I was dying and Lee was practically running up the stairs. I swear, he will never truly be out of shape. The path was small and often didn't have any railings, with the ground quite a bit down. So I spent a lot of time focusing on not tripping and falling over the edge (stupid fear of heights). At least the view was beautiful. The sea was crystal clear and mesmerizing shades of blue. There were vineyards and beautiful hills all around, also the weather was perfect, if a little too warm.

Such clear water

People do love locks on the trail

Monterosso

The hike afforded us beautiful views of Vernazza, it was picturesque. Once we arrived in this town, we went straight for some gelato since we definitely deserved it. We explored the town and it became on of our favorites.

Vernazza

Eventually we returned to our hotel via train and decided to search for pizza since we were in Italy. Of course, the pizza was great! Overall, it was a great day but difficult.

The next day we took on another hike. We hiked from Vernazza to Corniglia. Again, there were stairs. We became so sick of stairs. But again, at least it was totally beautiful! Corniglia was built up on a cliff so it gave some great views of the crystal clear sea.

Vernazza

Corniglia

We stopped to see Monarola on our way back so that we could see all the cities! It was a good choice. The city was beautiful.

One thing we saw on this train trip back to our hotel/Monarola were gypsies, pickpockets, and beggars. I'm guessing this is only really in tourist areas of Italy but that wasn't too fun. Gypsies would aggressively put their hands in your face trying to get money. As for pickpockets, I saw one in process of trying to steal from a backpack and of course I called her out. I told the guy what happened and told everyone around me that she was a pickpocketer. It just made me so mad! After all that, we really became travellers!

We loved Cinque Terre. The cities were laid back and beyond picture perfect! But we were ready for something new the next day. We decided to take a spur of the moment trip to Florence. It was about a 3 hour train ride away. Anyone who knows me knows that I am not spontaneous so not having plans kind of freaked me out. When we arrived in Florence, we just headed toward the main site: The Duomo. You always see pictures of it from far away but at least I've rarely seen pictures of it up close. I had no idea how detailed it is! The outside is just fantastic!

We decided to head inside the Duomo and it was very pretty. The most beautiful part was inside the dome, the paintings on it looked like they belonged in a museum.

In the Duomo

After spending time wondering around the Duomo, we headed to go see David. We got in line at the museum and waited. It was well worth the wait! David is such a big piece of artwork! Personally, I thought it was life size but it's like 17 feet tall. Pictures do not do it justice. Michelangelo sculpted the human body to perfection. You can see the veins even, really awe inspiring to see in person.

After all that, we were ready for the long train ride back, promising ourselves we would be back to explore the rest of the city one day and be prepared!

The following day we left the Cinque Terre and headed to Santa Margharita.  It was only about an hour train ride north. We spent a few relaxing days in this town. It really is picture perfect. The buildings are beautiful colors and are artistically painted. It looked straight out of a fairy tale! We spent days at the beach (rocks not sand!), exploring the city, taking walks along the oceanfront and just being happy with the amazing weather! It is a very wealthy town and everything is extremely expensive!

Love the painted details

Christopher Columbus!

After a few days in Santa Margharita, we took the train four hours up into France. We were at Nice, France next. It is a big, lively town.One of the days, we headed up to a park that has great views of the city. The park has archeological remains of a castle that are being excavated. Again, it was more stairs. So sick of stairs. But the views were so worth it!

It was so hot!

Another day, we wandered the narrow streets. They were such a maze, you could really get lost in them!

One of our favorite parts on Nice were the plazas. They had statues, fountains, and awesome water features. Our favorite were misters! They felt so nice on the really hot days and made for some pretty good pictures!

We also visited the archeological museum. It has Roman ruins and artifacts. That meant that so far we have seen Roman ruins in England and France but not Italy. Go figure.

Eventually our trip out come to an end and we had to leave Nice. We really enjoyed spending time together exploring and trying new things. Living in Europe is giving us so many wonderful opportunities to travel and we are so thankful. Right now, we have a trip to Paris over Thanksgiving in the books and are trying to decide where to go the week after Christmas! And don't forget falconry and our little weekend trips around England which will continue. Yay!

Hiking and camping in The Lakes District!

I have been wanting to go to The Lakes District National Park for quite a while. It's in the north of England, near the boarder with Scotland. According to photos, it looks absolutely beautiful and a great outdoors destination so I knew that I would have to see it. Over the last long weekend holiday for Lee we did just that! Also, Lee told me that has never done "real" camping before, in a tent! Nor had he done long hikes (I've gone backpacking). I was super excited to introduce him to a few new things that I love. I found a great campsite that didn't allow any campers which is just what I wanted. It has clean bathrooms and great views. What else could you want in a campsite? So Friday morning we headed out.

The drive took longer than expected because of traffic. Neither of us are used to the amount of traffic they have here but it is an island and there are only so many different ways to get places. When we got close to the campsite, we headed off of the motorway and onto some interesting roads... It was at least a two lane for a while but there were some major inclines/declines like 12%! I was very glad that Lee was driving. Other than that, it was okay until we turned onto a one lane road. Oh gosh. Can you say hairpin turns on one hundred foot drop offs with no guard rails? And of course, I was on the side of the car with the drop offs so I was slightly terrified. Also, remember that it was a one lane? That was fun. But somehow we survived the harrowing journey and arrived at the camp.

We set up tent and started to set up camp and realized we forgot a lighter for the grill. Crap. We had to head back on my terrifying road to the local store. Luckily it was close so crisis adverted. After setting everything up we decided to head out for a bit of a hike. We found a bunch of trails just a short walk away from our campsite so it was great fun. On the trails, you had to be careful because there were sheep everywhere! And they poop. A lot. But other than that, it was a great time just exploring around. Since there was no light pollution, the stars were amazing! We didn't get any pictures because we were too huddled up inside the tent but oh well, next time!

Going over the fence!

Eventually we headed back to camp. It got freezing in the night so we had to put on a ton of layers to not become icicles in the middle of the night. Definitely not Florida weather. We woke up bright and early the next morning to head out on a long hike. We packed our day bags with all the essentials and headed out. It was beautiful out! We were lucky because there was a 50% chance of rain but the weather that weekend was just perfect (although warmer could be better!).

Basically to find a hiking spot, we headed toward the hills and tracks that said "not suitable for cars." We figured that was for us! We started out on a paved trail going up and didn't know what we were in for. Eventually the paved trail turned into a rocky trail. And big rocks too! You could not look up from your feet for risk of messing up an ankle. Also, this trail the whole time was going up. There were no flat parts, it was just up, up, up! My legs were burning! Every little bit felt like a mile! I sure was breathing like I was doing a marathon... but we kept it up!

Going up!

Those views!

Once we got the the top of the first hill, we realized that it was a baby hill, we had a lot higher to go. We continued on up and as we went, it got colder and windier! At the top of the next hill, we took a break and kept going. There was always a taller hill to climb and it was great fun (as long as I didn't have to get too close to the edge!)! And always good spots to set up the tripod for some couple shots! At some parts there were some hand over hand climbing on rocks so it was really exciting. And the views were fabulous! We could even see our campsite which looked tiny!

Super cold and windy!

On top of the world!

Something random that we both liked was how friendly the British hikers were. Normally British people don't smile and say "hi" on the street like Americans. They're not being rude, it's just not their culture. But all the hikers did! It was like a "hey, you're crazy like me so I will acknowledge you!" So it was fun talking with everybody. Anyways, for the record, we never stopped going up the whole time. Eventually we got as far was we wanted to go because we wanted some dinner and turned around. Also, it was super freezing and windy!

Our day in a nutshell.

Coming back, I had to climb to the top of a rock formation that I avoided doing the first time. My fear of heights was a slight issue there but luckily I had Lee to help me through it. For some reason, we thought that going back down would be easier than going up. Probably just a lie we told ourselves to make ourselves feel better. Doing sports my whole life, I've kind of killed my knees. I even tore my meniscus in pole vault. Going downhill was terribly painful on my knees since it was so steep and nonstop. Ugh.

On top of my dreaded rock formation.

Breathtaking!

During the whole hike, Lee was a tracker on his phone going to record our stats. We started at 493 feet elevation and climbed to 2,490 feet! And we were hiking for a total of 6.5 hours! it was about 7 miles total! The whole climb was either uphill or downhill! After returning to the campsite, we went to a local pub since neither of us felt like cooking and had a wonderful meal. We also had ice cream cones since we deserved it. We headed back to camp for good and relaxed for a while. At one point, a British couple offered us two burgers with all the trimmings (they had more than they could eat) so we took those and made them some s'mores as a thank you. S'mores aren't a thing here so they had never heard of them but really enjoyed the treat!

Some sunset from camp

All in all, it was a great weekend! We had a great time! I am super sore today and my knees are shot (I'm hobbling today) but it was so worth it! It was so pretty there!