Italia Due: Mambo Gelato

After an even longer hiatus from blogging (due to a conflagration of Rhodes Ball planning, travel, visitors, and thesis writing, but that's fodder for a later date), I wanted to take a walk down what is now memory lane: the second half of my Italian trip, all the way back in April.

Now, when I left you last, Joe and I were getting ready to head to Milan to meet his family. I'd oversimplified that explanation a bit, so let me give you the full details of the complicated maneuver we had to pull off to get everyone in the same place. The schedule we had in front of us looked something like this:

-5:45 am: we head to the airport in Rome
-8:00 am: our flight leaves for Milan
-10:00 am: we arrive into Milan Linate airport
-12:00 pm: Joe's father arrives into Milan Linate airport
-12:30 pm: Joe's brother (Ben) arrives  in Milan Malpensa airport (40 km away)
-2:00 pm: Joe's mother arrives by train into Milano Centrale (in the center of town, 20 kms from each airport)
-ASAP: pick up the rental care from Milan Linate, drive 2 1/2 hours to La Spezia

Needless to say, we had to come up with a plan to round up the troops, especially since 3 out of the 5 people in our group had no way of contacting the other members! What we eventually settled on was Joe staying at Linate and working until his father arrived, me heading into town to meet his brother at the drop-off point for the bus from the other airport, and then locating his mother at the train station to head back to Linate, meet everyone, pick up the rental car, and drive to La Spezia.

Although just writing that sentence makes me tired and a bit stressed, the whole maneuver went off surprisingly well. In fact, I even had time to go to the Duomo, a beautiful church that also featured prominently in one of my art history books, for obvious reasons:

Mrs. Riley's train was delayed, so it was almost 4:30 by the time we got back to the airport. The family obviously had to have a brief reunion, but we hurried to get out of Milan before rush hour traffic got to its full Italian fury. And once again, luck was on our side; we made it out into the beautiful countryside without much problem, and drove almost straight into the sunset until we reached La Spezia, just in time to pick up our key from the apartment owner and make it to an authentic Italian restaurant where we finally could relax, catch up, and (naturally) eat far too much cheese and carb-y deliciousness.

I wouldn't be surprised if you haven't heard of La Spezia. The city itself is quite small, besides the large port; actually, it's known primarily as the entrance of a place you most likely have heard of: Cinque Terre, or 'Five Lands' in Italian. In case you're geographically inclined, here's the area on a map:

We spent the first morning in La Spezia, walking through a small market that was populated with some of the most adorable elderly Europeans I've ever seen:

And then we headed into the park via a short train ride. And let me say that the map above doesn't even come close to doing the place justice. Each one of the 'Lands' in Cinque Terre is a tiny cluster of brightly-colored houses built into rocky hillsides overlooking the sea and surrounded by the terraced hillsides that gained the whole area designation as a a UNESCO World Heritage site. In between each town are trails that wind up the mountainsides, each one taking about 1.5-2 hours to hike. We took the train out to the farthest town, Monterosso al Mare, and then hiked to the next town, Vernazza, which was my personal favorite:

 Then we took the train through Corniglia to Manarola:

 And hiked the last trail to Riomaggiore, but took a bit of break to enjoy some scenery :)

After watching the sun set over the water there, we went back to the city to eat at one of the most famous restaurants in town, which only opens if a critical mass of people book tables, and serves the chef's choice of the freshest seafood around.

The next morning, we'd decided to head into Florence, but a strike of railroad workers threw a wrench in the works, and we had to eventually drive there ourselves, so we only had a rainy afternoon to work with. Having to prioritize,  we first grabbed pizza for lunch and then headed to the Duomo, one of the most intricately-decorated churches I've seen in my long history of intricately-decorated churches.

 Then, of course, we had to have our daily obligatory gelato, which we ate while waiting in the long, rainy line at the Galleria dell'Academia, the home of Michaelangelo's David.

Luckily, though, we were able to pass some time by admiring some of the more amusing souvenirs we'd seen in our travels. Apparently, people are willing to pay exorbitant amounts of money to bring back a piece of the masterpiece for themselves!

I had heard many people say that the David is a piece of art that is better seen in person, but after having been to the Louvre and realizing that the Mona Lisa is about the size of an iPad (with much less color), I was skeptical. But let me tell you, conventional wisdom is completely correct in this instance! The David stands almost 20 feet tall, and the marble is worked so perfectly that you can see the anatomically correct veins and tendons in the man's hands. Unfortunately, no photos are allowed in the museum, so you'll have to go to Florence and see it for yourself if you want to verify my account.

Once we'd emerged back into the clearing sky, it was almost sunset, so we decided to take a quick walk down to the river banks and see the famous bridges before heading back to La Spezia. This one was my favorite, taken from the Ponte Vecchio and showing two other famous bridges across the Arno River:

Unfortunately, we had to hurry to drive back to La Spezia, because we were set to leave early the next morning to drive to Venice. Although one can drive along the highways and get there in less than 4 hours, we'd decided to make a day of it, and spent the morning winding through small villages in Northern Tuscany, up and over the Appenine Mountains.We stopped for lunch in a small town called Reggio Emilia for lunch, and strolled through the town square, finding the sweetest elderly couple on their own stroll.

 By the time we made it to Venice, the sun was setting, and the water bus we took through the canals to get to our hotel passed all of the lights blinking on. We were somehow exhausted after our entire day in the car, so we went straight to bed after we ate dinner, so that we could wake up the next morning to spend a whole day exploring the maze-like streets of the city.

We started with the Palazzo Ducale in St. Mark's Square, the home of centuries of doges, the rulers of Venice when it was the most powerful city in the world, at the center of both an unprecedented trading empire and the culture of the known world. We got there early enough to dodge the worst of the crowds, and even got to walk through the Bridge of Sighs, the link connecting the judicial wing of the palace that served also as the final court for all Venetian criminals, and the prison. It was said that passerby could hear the sighs of the prisoners as they looked through the barred windows to see the sky for possibly the last time...so naturally we walked by the outside to see what exactly it was they would have seen.

 After the Palace and St. Mark's Basilica, which was awash in gold, mosaics, and gems (and also prohibited photography), we wandered through the streets, finding beautiful little houses, gardens, and waterways around every turn. I'd heard mixed reviews on Venice, but I think it was one of the most enchanting old cities I've seen, and definitely the most unique due to all the water, which somehow is a different shade of blue in every canal. We even did the cheesy tourist thing at the end of the day, and took a gondola ride through the back canals with a very nice Italian man named Marco.

Although we were very reluctant to leave the beautiful watery city, we had a flight to catch the next morning in Bergamo, so we had to take the train back to the mainland and pick up our car to drive to our airport hotel. The next morning, we were set to fly to Greece. I was sad to leave Italy, but then again, I know that I'll be back.