the end of the vacation

Two months after our return from Spain and Italy, I've finally finished editing and posting all of my trip pictures—the ones worth posting, that is. I whittled them down from over 9000 images to about 550. Not bad for 4 weeks away. And this is the last blog entry for the vacation!

Our last Saturday in Rome covered a few obligatory tourist sites and pretty much none of the places to shop that were on my list. First, we walked up to Piazza del Popolo. Although we poked our heads into Santa Maria del Popolo for a second, we didn't linger. There seemed to be a wedding either getting ready to start or in the last stages of winding down, and the Chigi Chapel looked like it was under construction anyway. So we continued up a set of stairs to the Villa Borghese Gardens. There, we took a few pictures from the terrace and walked around for a bit. Post-gardens, we headed to the top of the Spanish Steps and proceeded to walk down them. The place was crawling with tourists and really pushy, obnoxious rose sellers, so we didn't stick around any longer than we needed to to get the pictures I wanted.

Lunch was next; we went to an okay pizza and pasta restaurant near our apartment, for lack of better ideas. In the afternoon, we took a little break, got gelato at Grom, and went to see the Trevi Fountain. This was our second visit to the fountain, but it was our first in the daytime. It was definitely more crowded than it had been at night. (The actual square it sits on is way smaller than you'd expect for such a landmark.) To get my pictures, I had to work around hoards of people, including tour groups with their guides holding umbrellas or sticks with scarves tied to the ends. It was challenging, but I got a few pictures worth posting. When it was all done, we even managed to get close enough to toss our coins in.

Dinner that night was at L'Asino d'Oro, a restaurant with a chef from Orvieto. It had been on my list of places to try anyway, but our new love of Orvieto and its food cemented our need to go there. (You know, when in Rome... eat food from Umbria...?) It turned out to be a good move, even though it was a little out of the way. The food was tasty and maybe a bit more inventive than what we had in Orvieto. Of course, my favorite thing was the pasta with the black truffles; I was glad to have one more version of it.

281/365 fontana di trevi

Because we had switched my itineraries for Friday and Sunday, Sunday became our Ancient Rome day. We decided not to go to the Forum, after seeing how long the lines were. (I'm not convinced that Rick Steves' suggestion of buying tickets at Palatine Hill is up to date; it looked like there was only one entrance for Palatine Hill and the Forum.) Anyway, if we were going to wait in line and see one thing, it was going to be the Colosseum. That line turned out to be pretty badly organized, but we eventually made it in. (Hint: if they tell you to fill in the corners around the right hand side of the line, do not do it. You will end up much farther behind those who stay where they are, because you end up fighting with many more people for the single ticket window furthest to the right.) So... we got into the Colosseum, looked around, and took more pictures. It was big, old, and pretty cool. And it mostly made up for the annoyance of the line.

Theoretically, we could have used the same tickets from the Colosseum to go to the Forum too, but I had had enough of the crowds for a while. Unfortunately, things weren't really looking up when it came to our lunch. It wasn't crowded, but we had the single worst meal of the trip at Urbana 47. Since it was Sunday, it was apparently brunch day. That wouldn't have been a problem, but they had the most confusing prix fixe menu ever. Add to that the insanely bad/slow service, high prices, and really mediocre food. We were glad when we finally left.

Back to the area around Via dei Fori Imperiali, we did some more looking around the ruins (see below). From there, we walked up to Piazza del Campidoglio, and finally to an overlook on the Victor Emmanuel II Monument, via a Rick Steves' shortcut. (At least he came in handy once that day...) It was rather chilly and windy by that time, so we made our way back to the apartment to get warm again.

We also had to track down a pay phone so that we could call and confirm our dinner reservation for that night at Glass Hostaria in Trastevere. It was kind of a pain, but it was totally worth it. The restaurant was one of the better meals of the trip, for which I was incredibly thankful after our craptastic lunch experience. The dishes at Glass were perhaps the closest to American fine dining that we found in Italy, probably because the chef worked in America for several years. Everything was done well, several of my favorite ingredients were featured, and portion sizes (split by the kitchen, since we were sharing) were perfect. We later found out that they have a (well deserved) Michelin star.

282/365 ruined

For our last day in Rome, my plan was to go back to Trastevere by way of Aventine Hill and Testaccio. When I was figuring out the itinerary, I assumed that we'd take the Metro, but we ended up walking instead. In fact, we never took any public transportation while we were in Rome. Places were generally much closer than they appeared on the maps, so we just walked everywhere. (Better for avoiding pickpockets anyway.)

So our first stop was Aventine Hill, where we found the keyhole with a view at the Villa del Priorato di Malta. The place is a private garden belonging to the Knights of Malta, but the view through the keyhole is St. Peter's Basilica, perfectly framed by the shrubbery. I waited in line three times to get the shot, since I had to use some trickery/trial and error to get my camera to expose it correctly.

After Aventine Hill, we walked down to the neighborhood of Testaccio, where we looked around a food market and eventually had a lunch of panini and arancini at 00100 Pizza. From there, we walked over the river to explore Trastevere. On the whole, I didn't take as many pictures that day as I probably could have; I think I was getting a little burned out after several weeks of sightseeing. But we saw the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere, and we were able to make dinner reservations for that night at Osteria La Gensola.

La Gensola was where Dan and Carmen went for Dan's birthday two years ago, and it came highly recommended online as well. We got our seafood and some more pasta, which was good, but it didn't quite compare to the previous night's dinner at Glass Hostaria. Still, a respectable last meal for the trip.

283/365 trastevere

That brings me to the journey home. We woke up in Rome at 7:30am local time on Tuesday and didn't get home until about 12:30am San Francisco time. In between, we walked from the apartment to Termini train station, took the Leonardo Express train to the airport, rode in a shuttle bus or two to get to the terminal and gates, and waited for our plane, which was almost two hours late. We were getting worried that we'd miss our connecting flight at JFK in New York, but we made it. The pilot had made up some time in the air, and we were greeted with bright orange envelopes to expedite things once we landed in NY. There was even time to go to the restroom before we had to get on our flight to SFO. Finally, upon arriving in San Francisco, we collected our bags and took BART back into the city. It was a long day of traveling, but we were happy to have made it home.

The picture of the day? It was from a little walk around the Rome airport concourse, looking for something worth photographing. There wasn't much that captured my interest, but I got one final picture of the ubiquitous Italian Pinocchios.

284/365 last chance souvenirs

Then it was Wednesday, and I had zero desire to go anywhere or do anything. I'm not even sure if I touched my trip pictures that day to get started on editing. I did not, however, get a break when it came to taking pictures. Something had to be done, so I shot some of our souvenirs: the linen napkins and small watercolor prints that we bought in Florence. At some point, I'll get frames for the tomato and olive prints and hang them in the dining room. The tiny one of the countryside will probably go in a scrapbook or something. It was only 1 euro anyway.

285/365 pieces of florence

Back to the land of the living on Thursday, I went for a walk with Carmen and Elsa down Valencia Street. A new home store, Aldea Home, had opened while we were gone—a nice surprise. So much good stuff there and certainly worthy of a picture.

286/365 aldea home

And Friday was the day when we gave Carmen, Dan, and Elsa the little souvenirs we had bought for them in Italy. The packages had made it back with us mostly intact, so I took a quick picture of them all together. For Carmen, we got a Vespa figurine from Orvieto; for Dan, a police cat bottle opener from Rome; and for Elsa, a couple finger puppets from Florence.

287/365 fun for the whole family

So that was the Europe trip! If you'd like to see more of the pictures, the entire set is here. I hope to make a nice Blurb book with all of them sometime in the new year, but I'll settle for finishing the 365 project in the meantime.

tour d'italy

Wow, back to Florence. While I was getting towards the end of Rome in my photo editing and posting, it was back to Florence for the beginning of this post.

That Saturday seems like a long time ago, and in fact, it was a little over two months ago. It was our "shopping day" in Florence, since many stores would be closed on Sunday. We began by finding a fancy linen store called Loretta Caponi, which was recommended by Carmen. It ended up being a bit too fancy and expensive, especially when we were just starting our shopping. I wasn't ready to commit to buying anything when there were more stops to make. So we continued down my list and looked at a couple more shops in the same area, including Letizia Fiorini, where Dan and Carmen got my Pinocchio figure two years ago. There were more of them in the window, but we selected a couple finger puppets for Elsa.

Lunch was next; we stopped for sandwiches at 'Ino. (Very tasty.) After that, we made our way across the Ponte Vecchio to the Oltrarno neighborhood. We visited a different linen store, Busatti, where I got a couple nice napkins to use for food photos. Then, we tried to go to a children's store called Britta in Bicicletta, but it was closed for the Italian equivalent of the siesta.

To kill time, we decided to walk up to Piazzale Michelangelo to see the view of the city from there. (It was on my itinerary for the next day, but we were pretty close anyway.) On the way, I took the picture of the day (below). A little farther up, we found a Japanese girl selling little watercolor paintings from a tiny store. We bought a few—7 euros total—on our way back down the hill. Britta in Bicicletta was open when we got back, and we were able to find some cute clothes there for Elsa's Christmas present.

The rest of the afternoon was spent getting gelato from Carapina—our favorite in Florence—and ducking into the courtyard of Palazzo Vecchio for a few pictures on the way back to our apartment. Dinner was at a restaurant called Io - Osteria Personale. It started off great, with lots of promise, but it was ultimately disappointing. The first couple courses were wonderful and inventive, and then the food quality and service both suffered as the dining room filled. For an expensive place, that's not cool.

274/365 florentine

Sunday was park day. But first, we popped across the street to see Michelangelo's David. (You know, just a regular Sunday morning...) The Accademia was pretty enjoyable, since it was a more manageable size than the Uffizi Gallery. We saw the exhibit on musical instruments, another on a specific sculptor, and of course, David and the other Michelangelo works. The downside was that I left my sunglasses in the metal detector tray, since I hadn't brought a bag. I was too busy catching my camera on the other side of the conveyor belt to remember to pick up my sunglasses, and I didn't realize it until we had left the building. We ended up just going to La Rinascente—a department store—and buying a new pair.

But back to park day. Steve and I went back to the Oltrarno so that we could visit the Pitti Palace's Boboli Gardens. It turned out to be a lot of walking around in the hot sun, but I got a few pictures out of it. Near the little porcelain museum, there was a terrace with a nice Tuscan view, which ended up becoming my picture of the day. If nothing else, it was a good contrast to the city street scene from the day before.

Once we finally found our way out of the gardens, we had to find lunch. That turned out to be quite a challenge, since everywhere that sounded good was either closed or looked way too busy. When we finally settled on a place, it was pretty mediocre, but at least it was food and a place to sit.

The rest of the day, with the exception of a gelato stop at Carabe, was spent chilling at our apartment. We had dinner at Cipolla Rossa, not too far away, and it turned out to be mediocre as well—like they were catering to tourists and not keeping the standards very high. Anyway, it was time to move on from Florence.

275/365 tuscan countryside

On Monday, we took the train to Orvieto, via Firenze Rifredi station. I didn't know a whole lot about Orvieto going into the trip planning. It was one of the hill towns between Florence and Rome, covered by Rick Steves in the Italy book, and I had seen some pretty pictures from Flickr contacts who had been there. It may have started out as the wildcard pick of the trip, but it quickly turned into our favorite place. It was small, charming, and not chock full of tourists. I think most of them were daytripping in, and it was probably moving into the off season anyway. There were souvenir shops and even a few Italian clothing chain stores along Corso Cavour, but it still felt authentic rather than cheap. (And yet, prices there were some of the most reasonable on the trip!)

Arriving on the train, we had to take the funicular up the hill to the old, walled city. From there, we caught a shuttle to Piazza di Ranieri and found our B&B apartment nearby. It was a cute little one-bedroom place, right near one edge of town. That meant that there were views of sweeping countryside not far from our door. After checking in with Sabrina, we went out to look around.

It took some wandering, but we found Via del Duomo and eventually the Duomo itself. It certainly wasn't as large a cathedral as Florence's Duomo, but it was rather big and ornate for such a small town. We saved our visit to the Duomo for another day; the gelato shop nearby was higher up on our list for that afternoon. And with that accomplished, we were re-energized enough to walk around town some more. We looked at several shops, walked some tiny side streets, and strolled the main street through town, which was a bit more commercial. What really captured my interest, though, was a street called Via Michelangeli, the apparent home of the city's woodworking family. There was wood art everywhere, as well as a shop or two—of wood art, of course. I settled on the below picture of a puppet in the shop window as my picture of the day.

That evening, we went low key for dinner, giving the restaurant on the corner of Piazza di Ranieri a try. Sabrina had recommended it, and it was nice and close to our place. At Al Pozzo Etrusco, we sat outside and each got a pasta dish. Then, we shared the osso buco. It may have ended up being the least notable meal of our time in Orvieto, but we thoroughly enjoyed it. By the time we had finished eating, we had shared a small bottle of syrah and gotten a couple free shots of an interesting local liqueur. Then, Steve ordered a shot of local grappa, and they gave us a couple shots of cream limoncello. It was a good thing we didn't have to walk very far to get home...

276/365 orvieto

The next day, we decided to do laundry. There was a washer in our apartment, and Sabrina showed us how to use it. She also provided some clothespins so we could hang our clothes outside. There was a drier elsewhere, but the sun was cheaper and more efficient. There happened to be a tour group nearby while we were hanging our stuff up, but oh well. It ended up being our easiest laundry experience of the trip, since we didn't have to wait for a free machine or hang damp clothes all over our room. We just came back later, rotated the clothes that were still wet, and took them all in when we found them dry.

Other than that, it was a big food day. Sure, we climbed to the top of the Torre del Moro to look at the city from above, and we explored the Duomo (no pictures inside); however, the word of the day was "truffles." We ate our lunch in the lovely backyard garden at I Sette Consoli, where there was a special white truffle menu. I got the risotto with white truffles shaved on top (see below). It smelled amazing and tasted even better. Possibly the best spent 25 euros of the trip. The rest of the meal—Steve's ravioli and our shared tiramisu—was also wonderful, as was the service.

That afternoon, we set out to take a walk all the way around the city on the wall's trail. We got maybe a 1/4 or 1/3 of the way around, and then we took the wrong fork. That led us back up to the square near the funicular station instead of continuing around the city. Deciding we had had enough walking for the day, we just made our way back up the main street. It was time to check on our laundry anyway. We went back out later for dinner at La Palomba, where I had pasta with black truffles grated on top. It was a very truffley day.

277/365 truffle heaven

For Wednesday, we had plans to go to Civita di Bagnoregio by bus. It was supposed to be a cute little town, connected by a long footbridge to Bagnoregio. That didn't end up happening, though. Once again, we had had enough of traveling for the moment and wanted to stay put in Orvieto. After all, we liked it so much, and we hadn't come close to exhausting the sightseeing and picture opportunities there yet.

In the morning, we went down St. Patrick's Well, which was interesting but too dark for pictures very far down. Then, we walked back up the main street again, taking side streets to see where they would lead. We stopped for lunch at a little place called Trattoria dell'Orso and shared a couple of the pastas they were making that day. There was the usual tagliatelle with black truffles and cheese, and there was a filled pasta with vegetables. Both were relatively simple and completely wonderful. If we had had another day in town, I would have loved to go back for dinner there. The host was charming too, and he told us we should take the bus to Civita di Bagnoregio... Next time, I guess.

The afternoon was spent wandering around some more. We walked along the wall past our apartment, in a direction we hadn't gone yet, and found some really pretty streets, including the one pictured below. I could have kept walking for longer, but the wine from lunch caught up with me. We had to go back to the apartment for a pit stop. Rather than retrace our steps, we returned to center of town for a little shopping. I was thinking that I hadn't really taken many pictures of Via del Duomo and its shops, so I remedied that too.

Finally, dinner that night was at Trattoria del Moro. It had been on my list of restaurants to try in town, but it wasn't quite as exciting as the other places we had gone. It certainly wasn't bad, though. While Orvieto wasn't very cutting edge culinarily, it easily beat Florence for us. There's something to be said for simple, well balanced food, especially when there are truffles.

278/365 orvieto afternoon

After our few days in Orvieto, we reluctantly headed back to the train station on Thursday. Our train wasn't until noon, so we had time to stroll leisurely down Corso Cavour one last time with our bags in tow.

When we arrived in Rome in the early afternoon, we dragged our bags from the train station to the office of Rome City Apartments to pay and get the keys for our apartment. We were a little apprehensive going into it, since it was a pay-up-front-in-cash thing, but it all worked out fine. They didn't even charge us the deposit that our information had mentioned. With keys in hand, we set out across the city to find our apartment, over a mile away in the neighborhood of the Pantheon. It wasn't the nicest building ever, but the apartment itself was fine, and the neighborhood felt safe. It wasn't far from the Parliament building, and there were little guard houses scattered about. Thankfully, the whole Occupy movement was only just getting started at the time, so we didn't really have to contend with any of that in the area.

The logical place to start sightseeing was the Pantheon, since we were already nearby. But first, some gelato from Il Gelato di San Crispino on the way. (I got their basil and honey flavors.) Then we went to the Pantheon (below) and looked around inside. After that, we walked down to Largo di Torre Argentina to see the ruins and cat sanctuary. Not quite as exciting as it sounded, since you can't actually go down into the ruins where the cats are. Still fun to see, though.

Later, we went to Renato e Luisa for dinner. We didn't have reservations, so we arrived right when they opened and managed to snag a table, even though it had a reservation card on it. (That strategy worked out pretty well for us on this trip, although we did make a few reservations at the nicer places.) There was a couple waiting by the time were done with our dinner, so we made sure not to linger. The food there was quite good, and we were able to check a couple classic Roman pastas off our list of things to try.

279/365 rome (if you want to)

And Friday. A change of plans was in order when I saw that the weather said rain for the whole afternoon. I decided to trade Friday's itinerary (Colosseum, Forum, etc.) with Sunday's, and we were set. We managed to fit in a walk to Castel Sant'Angelo and the Vatican before it started raining. The threat of a storm was enough to make us not take the time to go in anywhere, but as an added bonus, it made the light really interesting for photos outside (see below). I had been on the fence about going to the Vatican anyway, since we're not Catholic, and Dan and Carmen said it was one of their least favorite parts of their Rome visit. (Too crowded.) I had already decided that seeing the Sistine Chapel wasn't enough incentive to wade through the rest of the Vatican Museum to get there. I would have at least gone into St. Peter's Basilica, but it was late morning and the line stretched across St. Peter's Square. Not worth the wait, especially if the weather got bad.

As it started to drizzle, we headed back to the apartment. On the way, we stopped to pick up a couple paninis and a bottle of white wine at a random store that we passed. It made for a nice lunch break at the apartment during the rain showers.

It looked like it was going to be dry for a while in the late afternoon, so we headed back out for our daily gelato. This time, we went to Gelato del Teatro, which we had passed earlier. Then, we checked out Piazza Navona with its many fountains (and tourists) and Campo de' Fiori with its mostly packed away food market.

I had no plans for dinner, so we picked a restaurant from the Eat Rome app on my iPhone. We chose Osteria dell'Ingegno, in Piazza di Pietro, across from Hadrian's Temple. I had my second pasta Cacio e Pepe (cheese and black pepper) in two days, which made me happy. And a post-dinner stroll to the Trevi Fountain rounded out the day.

280/365 rainy friday

Well. Thus ends what's probably the longest post of the 365 project. Only a few days of the trip left to cover, and then I'll have to catch up on all the days that came after. But don't worry, I won't remember what I did most of those days, because I was too busy editing vacation photos to actually do much that was very interesting or worth talking about!

onward to italy

Okay, back for more! The last entry began with the most prolific day for pictures; this one begins with the most pathetic.

Saturday, September 24, we left our pensión in San Sebastian before the sun came up. Steve and I rolled our bags over the bridge to the train station in the dark and got on our Renfe train back to Barcelona. Aside from some bereted Basque soldiers walking around on the train, it was a pretty uneventful trip. I only took a couple pictures, leaning over Steve when we were stopped. The shot below was of an old and busted Renfe train. (Thankfully, our train was more modern and not busted.)


When we got back to Barcelona, we took a taxi from Sants Station to our hotel near the airport. There was pretty much nothing else in the area, so the rest of the afternoon was spent either in our smokey smelling room or eating mediocre food at the hotel restaurants. I had written the day off as a traveling day, but it turned out to be exceptionally unpicturesque too.

267/365 renfe

The next morning, we got up early again to catch a shuttle to the airport, where we saw the sunrise from the terminal. We flew Air Berlin to Dusseldorf, got sandwiches in the airport, and then took a tiny plane to Florence. Next, we caught a bus to Santa Maria Novella train station. We had some trouble retrieving our prepurchased train tickets from the ticket machines, but we were more successful at the actual ticket counter. We were also able to buy the rest of the tickets on my list for our time in Italy.

With that done, we still had a while before the first of our trains to Cinque Terre. It was raining, but we went across the street and ate some sandwiches, huddled under the awning of the food stand. When it had stopped raining, it was decided that we should walk around a little, rather than hanging around the sketchy train station. So we walked toward the dome of the Duomo, which we could see over the buildings. If nothing else, I hoped to get a better selection for picture of the day than I had the day before. We soon found ourselves at San Lorenzo, and we walked from there down a little street with touristy restaurants. (See picture below.) We did eventually find the Duomo after reaching the end of that street, and then it was time to drag our bags back to the train station.

It took us three trains to get from Florence to Riomaggiore in Cinque Terre, switching in Pisa and La Spezia. However, we managed to get there at 9:30pm—exactly the time I had promised the hotel. The change of trains in La Spezia was rather hurried, as we hopped on it before the usual double or triple check, but it was the right train.

268/365 florence sneak peek

That brings us to Monday, our first day in Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre is made up of five towns on the Ligurian coast, and we were staying in the southernmost, Riomaggiore. Since there aren't a lot of tourist attractions there, as opposed to the bigger cities, I had left our itinerary pretty vague for those days. Monday's plan was to look around Riomaggiore and the next town, Manarola. If there was time, we could perhaps go to the third town as well. As it turned out, the two towns were enough for one day. We spent the morning just walking around in Riomaggiore. It was small enough that we could wander somewhat aimlessly, following the pretty. And before long, we were at the tower above town, with a nice view. Then, we found the beginning of the Via dell'Amore trail that leads to Manarola.

The trail was pretty and quite easy—a nice paved cliffside path with lots of locks and other tokens of young love. Many pictures later, we had made it to Manarola. Our choices from there were "up" or "down." We went up, since the one restaurant I knew of in town was supposed to be up on a hill somewhere. The road led us to the little square at the back of town, with the church and the bell tower. From there, we found stairs and a narrow street with a sign that said Trattoria dal Billy this way. That was the restaurant I was looking for. We found it and had lunch there, complete with trofie al pesto and some limoncino at the end. Since it was so good, we figured we might as well eat there again. (Several people on Chowhound and TripAdvisor had eaten there multiple times during their visits too.) So we made a reservation for the next night's dinner.

After lunch, we continued to explore Manarola. We found the vineyard walk from the Rick Steves book and followed it around the hill above town. Steve wasn't a big fan of the height, but he did fine. The walk eventually took us to the town's cemetary, which had a fabulous view of Manarola (see below), so it was all worth it. We walked back down to the harbor from there and looked at that part of town before returning to Riomaggiore along the Via dell'Amore again. Once in Riomaggiore, we walked down to the tiny harbor there, which we hadn't seen yet.

For dinner, we entertained the idea of purchasing a few things from the markets and making our own caprese salad or having pesto on bread. Then we realized that although we had a mini-fridge in our room, we had no plates or silverware. We decided to bail on that idea and just go to La Lampara, a restaurant not far from our hotel. It wasn't the most amazing meal ever, but the penne with shrimp and tomato-cream sauce was quite good. I was quickly becoming enamored with the subtle, perfectly balanced pasta in Italy.

269/365 manarola

The next day was supposed to be market day in Vernazza, so we took a train there that morning. (There were a few extra vendors selling things along the main street, but nothing too exciting.) While in Vernazza, we did more uphill climbing to get pictures. First, we walked part of the way up the hill toward Corniglia, practically to the official start of the trail. Then we went back down, walked to the back of town, and climbed up the hill on the other side to their cemetery. Unfortunately, neither of those was quite the iconic view I was looking for. We probably would have had to go up the trail toward Monterosso, and the German tourists were making things pretty crowded by the time we found the start of it. It was also about lunchtime, so I settled for a shot of Vernazza taken from the harbor as my picture of the day. We returned to the back of town and ate at Il Pirata, a place owned by a pair of Sicilian brothers. Gnocchi, risotto, and a good cannoli for dessert.

After lunch, we did one more climbing expedition in Vernazza—up to the castle tower—before taking the train back to Riomaggiore for our afternoon rest (and gelato). That evening, we went back out to the Via dell'Amore and took it to Manarola again for dinner at Trattoria dal Billy. Another great meal of seafood and pasta, including the crazy antipasto sampler with its parade of plates. The walk back to Riomaggiore in the dark was interesting, but there was just enough light that we weren't too scared of falling off the cliff. Of course, guard rails and the wide path helped.

270/365 vernazza

For our last day in Cinque Terre, we had two cities to cover; we still hadn't made it to Corniglia or Monterosso yet. But first, we needed to do laundry. Luckily, there was a small laundromat in Riomaggiore, because we had neither the time nor the space in our room for sink-washed clothes to dry before we had to repack it all.

Once the clothes were washed, we headed to Corniglia by train and proceeded to walk up the 382 steps to town. They just kept going... Finally, we reached the top and found our way to the restaurant I had my eye on for lunch. It was called Osteria A Cantina de Mananan, and it was a little place with the menu charmingly scrawled on a chalkboard. We got some local white wine, Steve had braised rabbit, and I got pasta with porcini sugo. It was all tasty, but the flavors of the things we got were more Steve's style than mine—slow-cooked and hearty. The pesto probably would have been more my style if they hadn't been worried about cross-contamination with walnuts.

There wasn't a ton to see in Corniglia after lunch, so we poked around a bit and then went back down all those stairs to catch the train to Monterosso. Monterosso is the most touristy of the towns, with real beaches and the resorts/hotels to match. We really didn't spend much time there. We saw the Il Gigante statue at the end of the beach, took a random walk up a hill, and then breezed through the old town area. Their old town was kind of like the other towns, but it did feel a bit more touristy. It seemed like there were more shops selling souvenirs there than in the others. After a quick look around, we decided to head back to the train station so we could return to Riomaggiore for dinner. We didn't have a reservation but we got into Dau Cila, a nice restaurant next to the harbor, by going on the early side.

Picture of the day: the beach at Monterosso. True, it wasn't our favorite stop of the day, but I liked that the other four towns were visible down the coast.

271/365 monterosso al mare

On Thursday, it was back on the train(s) for the trip back to Florence. This time, we left the train station, walked by San Lorenzo again, and found our apartment building across the street from the Accademia. We checked in, discovered that not one but two of the restaurants on my list were on theirs as well, and we were able to get our apartment hosts to make the reservations for us. I also noticed that the nearby focaccia place, Pugi, was on their recommended list. So we went and got a couple slices of pizza and brought them back to our apartment for a (rather) late lunch.

The apartment itself was fabulous. It had an actual dining table, a kitchen, and a sitting room with a couch. This was the point in the trip at which I was starting to get tired of doing the tourist thing all day every day, so it was nice to have a couch to come home to. In fact, we chilled for a little while that afternoon before it was time to leave for dinner.

We had a reservation at Trattoria Quattro Leoni in Oltrarno, which meant a nice little walk to get there. I was able to incorporate some of the Rick Steves' Renaissance Walk on the way, not that we listened to the accompanying podcast or read anything from the book while doing it. We went past the Duomo and the Baptistery, down Via dei Calzaiuoli with its many stores, past Orsanmichele Church, detoured into Piazza della Repubblica, continued through Piazza della Signoria with the Palazzo Vecchio, and finally went past the Uffizi Gallery to the river. The Ponte Vecchio (below) was in sight then, so we took some pictures and walked across it to the neighborhood of Oltrarno to find our restaurant.

At dinner, we had the dish I had read about from other travelers: a pear-stuffed pasta with taleggio cream sauce and asparagus. Everyone insisted it was amazing, and indeed it was. Sweet pear with creamy, cheesy taleggio, and asparagus to round it out. For a second course, we shared a kilo of Bistecca alla Fiorentina. (A kilo was the minimum.) It was large chunk of beef, but we did a pretty good job with it. A nice chianti helped too. :) And for dessert, we got our first tiramisu in Italy.

272/365 ponte vecchio

When planning our time in each of these cities, I tried to figured out which were the necessary sites to see. There were many—mainly museums—that we skipped, but we checked off a few of the big Florence must-sees on Friday. We started with the Duomo, waiting in line so we could go in and look around. Then, we went to the Campanile (bell tower). You can climb to the top of the Duomo dome or to the top of the Campanile, and I had decided that I'd rather climb the Campanile so I could get pictures of the Duomo dome from there. (Steve stayed on the first level while I went up three more levels to the top.) After coming back down, we went inside the Baptistery, where I took pictures of the mosaic ceiling.

Next, we walked through the San Lorenzo Market (flea-ish) to the Mercato Centrale (food-ish). My plan was to get food from a popular vendor there, but it turned out to be a little too popular. The line was so long that we decided to just walk around the market and buy some stuff to take home and eat. We ended up at a meat and cheese counter with samples and bought a couple things that we liked: salami finocchiona (Tuscan fennel salami) and a rather tasty pecorino (sheep) cheese. A piece of focaccia from another counter rounded it out, and we had a nice little "picnic" lunch in our apartment. I probably should have taken pictures of that, but I was too hungry at the time.

Back to the sightseeing that afternoon, we headed toward the Uffizi Gallery with a stop at the Straw Market (Mercato Nuovo) to see Porcellino. At our appointed time, we went into the Uffizi and spent a couple hours looking at the art. Luckily, neither of us is more into art and museums than the other, because we both got rather art museumed-out by the end. It was a lot of standing and walking, and that was without lingering much or reading many plaques.

For dinner, we went to a place called Gustavino, recommended by our apartment people and Dan and Carmen. Tasty, interesting food, but I was a little disappointed when my pesto dish apparently had some cross-contamination issues. I had to stop after a bite or two, pop a Benodryl, and trade dishes with Steve. Probably my own fault for not mentioning my nut allergy, but we had been lucky before in Cinque Terre. Other than that, it was an enjoyable meal.

273/365 duomo day

And so ended the month of September! I'm so behind... I'm hoping to catch up by Christmas or maybe New Years, but we'll see. More Florence, Orvieto (our favorite stop!), and the beginning of Rome next time. For now, here is the (very late) September mosaic.

spain week

Not too bad: It only took me about 12 days to post enough trip photos for another weekly post. (Actually writing the post, however, took much longer...) This was the week of Spain—continuing in Barcelona and finishing in San Sebastian.


That Saturday, our second full day in Barcelona, we had a very busy itinerary. I had planned for us to visit all the main Gaudi sites: Casa Batllo, Casa Mila (La Pedrera), Sagrada Familia, and Park Guell. Somehow we managed to get to them all, although our feet were very tired by the end. I also ended up with over 900 pictures—by far the most of any day on this trip.

The first stop after breakfast was Casa Batllo. Of the two Gaudi-designed apartment buildings we visited, this was the one I was most looking forward to seeing, mostly for its whimsy. It's colorful, has a roof that looks like a dragon's back, and the balconies look like skulls. It didn't disappoint, although I did wish that I could have spent more time in there, with a tripod and no other tourists.

From there, we walked over to the other apartment building, Casa Mila. We saw the rooftop with its chimneys and made our way more quickly through the attic's exhibits to the apartment. It was a little different from visiting Casa Batllo, because Casa Mila's exhibited apartment still had its period furnishings. That was cool to see, but I preferred the bright colors and polished wood of Casa Batllo's interior to the more muted, natural palette of La Pedrera.

Next, we took the subway to the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's grand unfinished church. I wasn't exactly sure what to expect from the interior, having seen video of people walking amongst scaffolding years ago. But the main part of the church is mostly finished now, so it was clean and open inside. It was also huge and quite angular—all sorts of cool. The craziest part was looking at the church from the outside and then seeing the pictures and models of what it's supposed to look like when it's finished. It turns out, those huge towers that have been the focal point for so long are actually going to be the "short" towers. There are even bigger ones being built in the middle.

So once we had seen the big church and gotten some lunch nearby, we took a bus to the side entrance of Park Guell. The park was supposed to be a housing development back in the day, but it never really took off. Now, it's one big photographer magnet. There are several areas, each just begging for pictures. While I had no shortage of images to choose from for the shot of the day, I chose one of the ones that showed both a close up of the mosaic work (of which we saw lots that day) and a bit of one of the gingerbread-like houses (which drew my attention when I first saw pictures of the place). It's also one of the shots that feels less like something I've seen before from every photographer who visits the place.

Oh, and that night we had a fancy tasting menu dinner at Cinc Sentits. Everything was very good, with a couple standouts, but I think the meal got overshadowed by some of our other dining experiences on this trip.

260/365 gaudi day

The weather said rain for Sunday, but we went ahead with our plans for the day anyway. We walked down the Ramblas, took a quick detour to see the Placa Reial, continued down the Rambla del Mar, and walked around the port until we got to the beach in Barceloneta. There was a little extra wandering as we (I) had trouble decifering the map and figuring out which street lunch was on, but we found it eventually. We got a nice table under the awning at Suquet de l'Almirall and proceeded to share a delightful seafood paella.

And then it started raining. Soon, it was pouring, and most of the tables on the patio got rained out. Our table was one of the few that stayed dry, except that the wind started blowing rain onto my back. Steve and I switched places while he had an espresso, and we debated whether it was better to stay put and wait it out or try to walk to the metro station. We decided to walk, and we got drenched. Or rather, Steve got drenched, and I got drenched from the knees down. We had one umbrella, which I carried to keep my camera bag dry. Of course, by the time we came up from the subway by the hotel, it had stopped raining entirely. We could have gone and done more stuff that afternoon, but we decided it was a good day to do our first load of laundry in the hotel sink. (Good thing too, because it took an entire day to dry.) At dinner time, we went out again and got some good food at Paco Meralgo.

261/365 beach day in barceloneta

Monday was our last day in Barcelona, so it became the day to do the things we had missed on previous days. Luckily, I hadn't filled up the day's itinerary very much in advance. We began with a nice little wander around the Barri Gotic, near the cathedral, to catch a couple spots on the Rick Steves walking tour that we hadn't found on Friday morning. After that, it was off to the El Born neighborhood to begin Monday's assigned sights with Santa Maria del Mar, one of the churches that supposedly inspired Gaudi's Sagrada Familia. Lunch came next at La Torna in the Santa Caterina Market, followed by a visit to the Barcelona's museum of chocolate to see the fancy chocolate show pieces. Since we were nearby, the Parc de la Ciutadella and the Arc de Triomf were checked off of the to-do list from Sunday. All we had left then was a mid-afternoon dessert at Bubo, back in El Born. We thought about going to Barceloneta again to look around the streets, which we had missed after the rain on Sunday, but I was ready to go back to the hotel and be finished with the walking for one day. That is, until dinnertime. We went to La Taverna del Clinic and had what was probably our favorite meal of Barcelona. (Thanks to Brett for the recommendation, since we might not have made room in our schedule for it otherwise.) It was a nice little neighborhood restaurant with some interesting twists on the Catalan classics.

262/365 wandering the barri gotic

On Tuesday morning, we got up early, checked out of our hotel, and took the subway to Sants Station to catch our train to San Sebastian. We arrived around 1pm, walked from the train station to our pensión, checked in, and found lunch nearby. Then, we set out towards the beach to explore for a while. The main part of the city is built around a bay, lined with a beach (or two) and a promenade. On each end is a mountain. We walked to the right, past the port/harbor to the foot of Monte Urgull. It was hot, so we didn't want to commit to walking up the trail to the Christ statue at the top. Instead, we went to explore Old Town with its shops and pintxo bars (their version of tapas). 

At the end of the day, we returned for some pintxo hopping. Despite having several bars on my list, our "hop" was pretty stationary. We went to A Fuego Negro, which had rather inventive pintxos, and found that there were several things we wanted to try. The one pintxo per stop rule? Made to be broken, right? We got a spot at the bar and took advantage of it. We did go to La Cuchara de San Telmo after that for a couple things, but it wasn't as exciting as A Fuego Negro.

263/365 san sebastian

Wednesday was the day of our fanciest meal of the vacation. San Sebastian has a few 3-star Michelin restaurants, and after some research on Chowhound, I decided that Akelare would be the best one to visit. It was up on Monte Igueldo—a very reasonable taxi ride away from where we were staying. I had gotten us a 1pm reservation, so we had a nice big lunch, sharing one of each tasting menu. (There were two.) Lots of seafood and some really creative presentations. I probably drank more wine than I needed to, but it was all very good.

When we got back in the late afternoon, we went out for a walk along the beach, to the left this time. We walked toward Monte Igueldo, saw Miramar Palace and the other beach, and eventually reached the Peine del Viento sculptures at the end of the path. I knew that the ironwork of the balustrade in the picture above was one of the city's symbols, but our pensiónkeeper told us that this was another. Sure enough, I saw stylized drawings of it on a sign or two around town. Good enough for the picture of the day.


Later, we went back to A Fuego Negro for a light dinner. We were going to try another pintxo bar from my list, but between them being pretty crowded and the menus not appealing as much, we just went to our favorite again. Totally worth it.

264/365 peine del viento

We took a bus to Bilbao for the day on Thursday. The main draw was the Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Gehry. However, we decided not to actually go in the museum... They don't allow pictures inside, or bags as large as either of my camera bag options, and we're not the biggest museum people anyway. I was actually content to walk around the building and take pictures outside. Not visiting the museum also left us time to walk down the river and see Bilbao's Old Town. Despite the drizzly/misty weather, it was a nice walk. The Old Town was somewhat similar to San Sebastian's, but the river and the contemporary architecture along it were an interesting change from San Sebastian.

265/365 bilbao

Another day trip was on my itinerary for Friday, this time to the small town of Hondarribia, but we decided to stay put in San Sebastian instead. We weren't in a big hurry to do more traveling, and we needed to do some laundry that afternoon. That left us the morning to see a little more of our corner of San Sebastian, and we quickly found ourselves at one of the trailheads for Monte Urgull. We had already climbed up one steep set of stairs to get pictures, so why not walk all the way up to the Christ statue? Part of the way up, we got a nice view of Santa Klara Island and Monte Igueldo, which was a pretty easy choice for picture of the day.

For lunch, we found that A Fuego Negro was open, so we went there one last time to get some more of our favorites and try one more new thing. Then, it was laundry time. We packed up our laundry and walked across the river to the neighborhood of Gros. We had to wait a little while for a washer to free up, but we got our load washed and dried. (And we got some ice cream and pictures up the river while we were waiting.)

Dinner that night, and the previous night for that matter, was a bit underwhelming. We went to Ni Neu on Thursday night and Bodegon Alejandro on Friday night. Both seemed like they were trying to be fancy and foodie-friendly, but the quality wasn't consistent enough to justify the relatively high prices, especially at Bodegon Alejandro. I took pictures of both meals, but I'm only posting the pictures from the meals that we liked for this trip.

266/365 little island

That about covers it for Spain. On to Italy in the next post!

we're back

So the Europe trip happened. We got back last Tuesday night, and I'm finally feeling like I'm in the right time zone again. The trip itself was pretty awesome, but I'll get to that. First, I need to recap the beginning of the week that we left, which seems like a very long time ago.

We start on the Saturday before the trip. With no ideas for a picture and no ideas for dinner until it was almost time to eat, Steve and I went to Heart that evening. We had a cheese plate, a couple glasses of wine, a sandwich, and some bland polenta that was absolutely drowning in truffle oil. Aside from that polenta, it was a good dinner. I guess we just stick to the cold offerings there from now on. It's all about the cheese plate anyway.

253/365 cheese plate

Sunday was a day that I had put on my calendar long ago, after counting out the numbers for my days. You see, both times that I've done a 365 project, I've kept an eye out for interesting numbers in the neighborhood. I hoped to use them for milestones like day 50, 100, 183 (halfway), 300 or 365. I never actually found the numbers I needed for those, though. This year, I noticed that an old wooden door down the street had the number 254 on it, and I put it on my list of ideas. Might as well save it for day 254, I figured. Well, day 254 came that Sunday, and it also happened to be September 11. The picture doesn't specifically reference the date, but I liked how it ended up with a little bit of shimmery bokeh through the broken wood of the door.

254/365

Monday's picture was an Elsa shot, since I watched her for a little while that day. She was being rather pleasant, so I put her on Dan and Carmen's bed for some pictures.

255/365 mama said knock you out

Tuesday, the day before we left, was extra busy and extra social. I met Flickr friend Suz and her husband Joe at Dynamo Donuts for breakfast with Ellie, who was in town. (Ellie started the 365 group that Suz and I both posted to for our projects.) We had a donut feast and a good chat, although I didn't take all that many pictures. This first shot of the day ended up being my favorite, even though I didn't try very hard to compose it and I forgot that my ISO was still turned way up.

256/365 donut feast

The rest of Tuesday was going to be spent packing, but I ended up going out for a sushi lunch with Carmen and a screaming Elsa at Hamano. Carmen spent the whole time trying to quiet Elsa outside the restaurant while I was eating my food. When I finished, I took the baby around the block in her stroller, pushing her as fast as I could up the bumpy hill. She finally fell asleep, but Carmen had already gotten her food packaged up to take home.

And then I spent half of the afternoon video chatting with Chrissy, while only sort of packing. At least I had that night and most of the next day to finish up.


Wednesday came and it was time to leave for the big Europe trip. Around 4:30pm, we said goodbye to Carmen and Elsa—Dan was at work—and we rode BART to the airport. Our flight was around 7pm, so I had some time to find a picture to take while we waited.

257/365 the beginning

We flew British Airways to London Heathrow and arrived at about 1pm their time. The flight itself was fine; we had seat-back entertainment systems, and I watched a Martin Sheen movie called The Way, about a guy walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain after his son dies. It was quite good, and it was fitting since we were going to Spain first. I slept on and off for maybe 4 hours on the plane, so it was short night.


The next day felt like it started in London, as we followed the signs to find our connecting flight. We had to change terminals by shuttle bus, go through security again, and then take another bus from our "gate" to the plane. But we finally made it to Barcelona that evening, taking the Aerobus from the airport to the city center.

We checked into our hotel in the Eixample neighborhood, and I promptly looked to see what the view was from the balcony. Not too shabby.

258/365 barcelona

After showering and changing our clothes, we went out for a late dinner at Tapas 24. (Late for us, but normal or early by Spain standards.) The food was good, but we decided that Contigo is better. Jetlag and smaller appetites may have played some part in that assertion... Still, Brett's food at Contigo seems to be balanced a bit better—maybe because of the Californian influence.


Moving on to our first full day in Barcelona. I actually had an easier time than Steve dragging myself out of bed that morning, probably because it was night time in SF. What didn't work in my favor, though, was my appetite. Those first couple days, I had a hard time finishing anything. I drank as much water as I could get my hands on, and then I would get full after only eating a little. Not the best situation in the land of salty and/or fried food, especially when the typically large lunch consists of two dishes and a dessert.

Anyway, that morning's itinerary included the Barri Gotic (Gothic Quarter) and the Cathedral of Santa Eulalia. We had churros and chocolate for breakfast at La Granja Pallaresa—Contigo's are better—and then we hit the cathedral. It was big and dark inside... and partially under construction. So I have no postcard-type pictures of the building from outside, and I had to avoid a few pieces of scaffolding in my interior shots. The place was quite impressive, though, and the cloisters were pretty.

259/365 barcelona cathedral

After the cathedral, we wandered to the big food market on the Ramblas, the Boqueria. I had hoped to get lunch there at one of the food counters, but it was really crowded, and the fruit there was the only thing that really sounded good to me. I mostly needed water, since the heat and jetlag were getting to me. We decided to head back toward the hotel and try to find somewhere to eat on the way. One half-hearted lunch (for me) later, we were back in our room for the nap time that I had scheduled.

I slept for a couple hours, and then we went back out in the late afternoon to explore the Eixample and the Passeig de Gracia. I had hopes of knocking one of the Gaudi houses off of my list a day early so that we would have a little less to fit in the next day, but no luck. One was closed for an event, and the other was closing soon. We settled for taking pictures of the exteriors and looking at the Casa Mila gift shop.

The plan for dinner that night was to take the Metro to Placa d'Espanya, go see the Magic Fountain, and then walk to Lolita (formerly Inopia) for tapas. The first part of the plan went fine, but Lolita looked really busy. I wasn't in the mood to fight through the crowds when we didn't know how the system worked. (Wait in a line for a table like at Tapas 24? Put our name on a list? Push our way to the bar and hover for a spot to stand?) We bailed and found a restaurant on the walk back. It was kind of mediocre, but it was low key. We needed that.


Well, that wraps up this post! I'm working feverishly on editing the approximately 9,000 pictures that I took in the last month, so hopefully I'll have enough uploaded to Flickr for another blog post before another month has passed.