It’s the perfect sunny Italian day outside with gentle breezes blowing in from the sea (drying our sheets and towels!!), my tummy is full from good coffees, yummy bread and pizza, and life is good!! Don’t be jealous though because this perfect day comes after a challenging (intense but interesting) week, with the best of plans waylaid by “Severe/EXTREME, thunderstorms, wind and rain” (to quote the Italian Meteorologists), delayed trains, and trouble with my “good knee”!! 🥴
As it turns out there was a completely different way to go that had no stairs (which we found on the way back to the train station), but looking back I realized that we would’ve missed out on the whole “climbing the wall” experience if we had gone the easy way!! By the time we had walked and walked (up stairs and down hills) and found a lovely place for lunch, I was done-in and could barely walk!! So I nursed my coffee and chatted with other tourists and the lovely waiter (who is of Moroccan descent and speaks 5 languages) while my travel partner wandered around Lucca and took pictures!! It was a win-win to our differing personalities - I’m all about “being” and she loves doing! 🏃♀️
The next few days, we stayed closer to home and explored Viareggio during moments of sunshine! We experienced severe wind and thunderstorms and my knees enjoyed recovering! We found a cute boat/restaurant that had fresh fish (kinda like a food truck on water!!), we enjoyed gelato when the sun came out (of course), and wandered around with Dora for a bit taking pictures for the kiddos!! 🤓😜
On Friday the storms were supposed to be all over with, so we figured we would head to Portofino! But the travel gods had different plans for us and we ended up in Florence instead!! First, we decided to try the bus to the train station (even though it’s only a 20 minute walk, I was hoping to save a bit of wear and tear on my knees so I didn’t have a repeat of my day in Lucca)!! Unfortunately, after waiting almost 30 minutes (NOT helpful for my knees!!), we found out the bus wasn’t coming due to street construction so we hustled and walked quickly to the train station!
As we were walking, we got an email from TrenItalia (but it was in Italian so we didn’t bother translating it until we were at the train platform), telling us that our train was going to be 70-100 minutes late!! (Turns out it never showed up so it’s good we made other plans!!) 🤓🙄
Getting to Portofino was going to require a 2-hour train ride to Rapallo followed by a ferry (or bus) to Portofino, and we were afraid it wouldn’t give us enough time to really enjoy it! So we quickly changed our plans and hopped on a train to Florence (about an hour and a half away)!! We met some fun people along the way and enjoyed our chats!
First things first once we arrived was finding a bathroom (which had a very helpful and friendly attendant, requiring us to pay one euro each for entry… I can’t imagine how people cope with an emergency!! 🥴😳)!! Second, of course was lunch, and we found a great place with gluten-free pizza about 10 minutes from the station! We enjoyed eating al fresco on the sidewalk (even when it started to rain - but it was just light rain so not bad)!!
By this time, it was almost 3:00, so we found the “hop-on-hop-off” bus and saw a few sights the quick and easy way! And FYI, some of these buses have a discount if you’re just going for the afternoon instead of buying the 24-hour pass, so that worked well for us!! 👏👏
We saw quite a bit of Florence and heard all about the homes and piazzas as we drove by, and we even saw a bronze replica of the statue of Michelangelo’s David! Check - Florence done and no need to return to this big Italian city! Every time I travel to bigger touristy places, I remember that I love the smaller places the best - the least touristy the better for me)!! 🤷♀️
On the train ride home we were ready to just chill (although that was kinda hard cuz the train was HOT until it got up and moving - about halfway home)!! It was a busy Friday evening so all the seats were filled (ours with two woman chattering away in Italian as fast as they could before getting off at different stops)!!
Whew... almost home! We had to stand in line at the train station to get them to refund our unused Portofino tickets, but it went surprisingly well! And then we found the SWEETEST taxi driver to take us home, chattering all the way with his best English (and my smidgen of Italian), and he gave us his card so now we can WhatsApp him anytime we need a ride (like if we have an early morning train and lots of walking planned for the day)!! I just love making those kinds of connections!! 💙🌎💙
Cinque Terre and Portofino are on the agenda for next week, and the weather is supposed to be better (hopefully)!! The train workers are on strike starting tonight at 9:00 pm, and hopefully it will only last 24 hours. They seem to do strikes in a very civilized way - announcing it on the train (in Italian only) and also on their website. And they do it from Saturday night to Sunday night to limit the people affected (turns out it’s mostly tourists who don’t know about the strike and show up at the train station…. Yikes)!! 😳🚊
Sorry if this has been a bit long and complain-y, but that’s been my week! It wasn’t the easiest one, but there have been some really fun things too (like finding focaccia bread with cheese and Panatone at the store) both super soft, yummy and the Panatone especially is to DIE for…. Amazing!!! I’ve decided I can’t live in Italy because they do my 2 favorite things too well - bread/pizza and COFFEE! They make me happy and I don’t know that I could limit myself if I lived here! 🤪😂🤷♀️ In the meantime, I will continue to enjoy them until it’s time for the next place on my Adventure!!
Seems like ages ago, but it was only last Monday when we trudged into Lucca since we wanted a “gentle day trip” not far away!! With only light rain predicted, we figured it would be fine... until we got soaked!! I would love to be an outdoorsy type of person, but I’m really NOT (unless it’s sitting outside at a cafe sipping a cappuccino)!! ☕️
The rain threw me off-kilter and all I could think about was getting dry and sitting down, so when Google Maps directed us towards the huge wall that surrounds the old town of Lucca (directly across from the train station), we headed that way! Turns out we had to climb ALL the stairs to get through the wall and then down the hill to get to old town!! (It was exhausting, but kinda cool imagining what it would’ve been like in the Middle Ages rambling up and down those stairs, protecting the walled city!!)
The rain threw me off-kilter and all I could think about was getting dry and sitting down, so when Google Maps directed us towards the huge wall that surrounds the old town of Lucca (directly across from the train station), we headed that way! Turns out we had to climb ALL the stairs to get through the wall and then down the hill to get to old town!! (It was exhausting, but kinda cool imagining what it would’ve been like in the Middle Ages rambling up and down those stairs, protecting the walled city!!)
As it turns out there was a completely different way to go that had no stairs (which we found on the way back to the train station), but looking back I realized that we would’ve missed out on the whole “climbing the wall” experience if we had gone the easy way!! By the time we had walked and walked (up stairs and down hills) and found a lovely place for lunch, I was done-in and could barely walk!! So I nursed my coffee and chatted with other tourists and the lovely waiter (who is of Moroccan descent and speaks 5 languages) while my travel partner wandered around Lucca and took pictures!! It was a win-win to our differing personalities - I’m all about “being” and she loves doing! 🏃♀️
The next few days, we stayed closer to home and explored Viareggio during moments of sunshine! We experienced severe wind and thunderstorms and my knees enjoyed recovering! We found a cute boat/restaurant that had fresh fish (kinda like a food truck on water!!), we enjoyed gelato when the sun came out (of course), and wandered around with Dora for a bit taking pictures for the kiddos!! 🤓😜
On Friday the storms were supposed to be all over with, so we figured we would head to Portofino! But the travel gods had different plans for us and we ended up in Florence instead!! First, we decided to try the bus to the train station (even though it’s only a 20 minute walk, I was hoping to save a bit of wear and tear on my knees so I didn’t have a repeat of my day in Lucca)!! Unfortunately, after waiting almost 30 minutes (NOT helpful for my knees!!), we found out the bus wasn’t coming due to street construction so we hustled and walked quickly to the train station!
As we were walking, we got an email from TrenItalia (but it was in Italian so we didn’t bother translating it until we were at the train platform), telling us that our train was going to be 70-100 minutes late!! (Turns out it never showed up so it’s good we made other plans!!) 🤓🙄
Getting to Portofino was going to require a 2-hour train ride to Rapallo followed by a ferry (or bus) to Portofino, and we were afraid it wouldn’t give us enough time to really enjoy it! So we quickly changed our plans and hopped on a train to Florence (about an hour and a half away)!! We met some fun people along the way and enjoyed our chats!
First things first once we arrived was finding a bathroom (which had a very helpful and friendly attendant, requiring us to pay one euro each for entry… I can’t imagine how people cope with an emergency!! 🥴😳)!! Second, of course was lunch, and we found a great place with gluten-free pizza about 10 minutes from the station! We enjoyed eating al fresco on the sidewalk (even when it started to rain - but it was just light rain so not bad)!!
By this time, it was almost 3:00, so we found the “hop-on-hop-off” bus and saw a few sights the quick and easy way! And FYI, some of these buses have a discount if you’re just going for the afternoon instead of buying the 24-hour pass, so that worked well for us!! 👏👏
We saw quite a bit of Florence and heard all about the homes and piazzas as we drove by, and we even saw a bronze replica of the statue of Michelangelo’s David! Check - Florence done and no need to return to this big Italian city! Every time I travel to bigger touristy places, I remember that I love the smaller places the best - the least touristy the better for me)!! 🤷♀️
On the train ride home we were ready to just chill (although that was kinda hard cuz the train was HOT until it got up and moving - about halfway home)!! It was a busy Friday evening so all the seats were filled (ours with two woman chattering away in Italian as fast as they could before getting off at different stops)!!
Whew... almost home! We had to stand in line at the train station to get them to refund our unused Portofino tickets, but it went surprisingly well! And then we found the SWEETEST taxi driver to take us home, chattering all the way with his best English (and my smidgen of Italian), and he gave us his card so now we can WhatsApp him anytime we need a ride (like if we have an early morning train and lots of walking planned for the day)!! I just love making those kinds of connections!! 💙🌎💙
Cinque Terre and Portofino are on the agenda for next week, and the weather is supposed to be better (hopefully)!! The train workers are on strike starting tonight at 9:00 pm, and hopefully it will only last 24 hours. They seem to do strikes in a very civilized way - announcing it on the train (in Italian only) and also on their website. And they do it from Saturday night to Sunday night to limit the people affected (turns out it’s mostly tourists who don’t know about the strike and show up at the train station…. Yikes)!! 😳🚊
Sorry if this has been a bit long and complain-y, but that’s been my week! It wasn’t the easiest one, but there have been some really fun things too (like finding focaccia bread with cheese and Panatone at the store) both super soft, yummy and the Panatone especially is to DIE for…. Amazing!!! I’ve decided I can’t live in Italy because they do my 2 favorite things too well - bread/pizza and COFFEE! They make me happy and I don’t know that I could limit myself if I lived here! 🤪😂🤷♀️ In the meantime, I will continue to enjoy them until it’s time for the next place on my Adventure!!
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