Sept. 22 - Along the Italian Riviera

On Tuesday we took the train to the northwestern coast of Italy to visit Cinque Terre (Five Lands).  This is also known as the beginning of the Italian Riviera beaches and resort area.  The five villages in the Cinque Terre National Park are unique and picturesque towns that attract thousands of visitors.  A local train stops at each town and we were only able to get to two of them today because of the crowds, trains running late and our time restraint to get the night train back to Florence.  However, we had a beautiful day and enjoyed our time there.  There are also hiking trails between the towns but I can assure you none of us took advantage of them!  We'll leave that to the youth and the Germans!  The first visit was to Monterosso al Mare which is right on the beach and you'll see that it was still being enjoyed by the beach lovers.  We spent most of our time in the charming town of Vernazza at the shops and restaurants.  People-watching is always a fun thing to do and there were certainly many of them to watch!  Thousands come to CT everyday during the tourist season.  The other "unvisited" villages are Riomaggiore, Corneglia and Manarola - maybe next time.  Enjoy today's photos - by the way Earl and Audrey stayed "home" today since they had already been to CT.  Come back later to see what's next . . .

Click here to see more Cinque Terre.  https://plus.google.com/photos/106242844572593515289/albums/6197800063550779313

 

Sept 21 - Now We're Cookin' !

If you're wondering where Sunday, Sept. 20 went, we took a day off!  It was one of our "free days" to do anything you please and that's what we did.  Everyone knows how to get around in Florence with no problem so we all pursued our own interests for the day.

On Monday morning we walked through town to the offices of Walkabout Tours where we met our guide, Gloria (same one we had for the Best of Tuscany Tour), and from there we followed her around part of Florence to hear food related history.  We stopped at a street-side market to buy beautiful tomatoes and basil for the cooking class.  Next stop was the bakery and coffee shop for the bread and a cup of coffee for us.  Moving on, we went into the huge central market to purchase cheese and meat for our upcoming meal.  A minibus took us up into the hillside outside Florence to the venue for our wonderful cooking experience.  On the menu for us was bruschetta, pizza, pasta, pork roast with potatoes, gelato and tiramisu.  They say a picture is worth a thousand words so I'll stop here and let you enjoy the photos to see how much fun we had!  Come back later to see what's up . . .

Here's the link to see ALL 100 of our photos today!
https://picasaweb.google.com/106242844572593515289/Sept21#6197600006436783698