Oh Dear!

Oh dear what is this:

I discover the next morning that I have a nasty head cold.

Let's see, I have come all the way to Italy and I have my day pass (see previous post) for the hop on hop off train to the charming Cinque Terra Villages...Yep, I went anyway.

So, we started with the village that we had heard the most about,Vernassa.

Right away I knew that I was going to like this place when I spotted several charming houses.

 

Santa Margherita di Antiochia Church

 

It was a short walk, gently down hill to the beach. Notice the lack of people. We happened to go on a day that there were no large cruise ships in nearby ports. You can check the cruise

schedule for La Spezia for the whole year , if you want to plan your trip accordingly.

 I am sorry, but the lack of crowds made it even more enjoyable for us.

I think most of the people on the beach were locals.

From what I had read, you had to climb to the top of the village to find a restaurant with a water view, so finding this one on ground level was a nice surprise.

Next we back tracked on the train to Manarola which you reach through a tunnel after exiting the train.

Even in late September there were flowers blooming everywhere.

Here we didn't walk down to the water, but climbed up to get the view.

 By this time...I am feeling worse, so Tom rode back to the hotel with me and searched everywhere for some chicken soup...he by the way is a keeper.

I did a lot of research before going on this trip and it seems that if you want to do any of the hikes, you have to get a separate pass, well not so. That day pass we bought entitled us to hike the trails between the villages. Tom and Phil returned to Vernassa that afternoon and hiked from there to Monterosso, which was on both of their bucket lists. It is the most daunting of the trails, actually one of the toughest in Europe. I am very proud of these guys considering their ages.If you want to stroll along the coast on the easier paths do the southern most ones.

For those wanting to see the villages from the water, there is also a ferry that will carry you up and down the coast.

Time to get the car out of the parking garage, we are headed east across Italy...stay with me.

Next Stop La Spezia

Continuing along on our recent European trip: We left Pisa and decided to go over to the road that hugs the coast instead of driving on the autostrada. It took a bit longer to get where we were going, but hey we were on vacation!

                                                          You can click on any picture to enlarge it.
To give you an idea, we were along the western shore of Italy. I have circled Carrara, because we found it to be very interesting.

We had noticed the the tops of the mountains were white and looked like snow, but it was actually white Carrara marble being mined. There were huge blocks of marble on both sides of the road for miles. I have friends who have Carrara marble countertops  and I suppose this is where it comes from.

 There were also very pretty beaches along the way, and even in late Sept. people were still swimming.....and no that is not me.

For those that don't know, this map shows where the Cinque Terra is located. There are five small villages( notice red dots) that almost hanging off of the cliffs above the Mediaterrian Sea. Starting at the top with Monterosso and ending at the bottom with Riomaggiore. We chose instead to stay two nights in La Spezia at the bottom of the map, and slightly east. We had one person who had difficulty with stairs, plus we were in a car that is almost impossible to park very near the villages.

The hotel we stayed in was perfect. They had parking and it was directly across the street from the train station. There is a train that leaves La Spezia several times, all day long, and stops at all of the villages...the first one only taking six minutes.

I by the way adored the hotel and with it's old world charm.

The first thing we did was to walk across the street and purchase our 12 hour train pass that would take effect the next morning. For seniors the all day pass is only 13E, giving you on and off privileges. When we saw the long lines the next morning, we were so happy that we had gotten ours the night before.

Next I will show you a bit of the Cinque Terra.

Our day in Pisa

I guess any post regarding Pisa, Italy would not be complete without a trip to see the famous Leaning Tower,

and we did walk over a couple of times since it was an easy stroll from our hotel.

There are several other buildings on what is called The Square of Miracles.
Tom seen here walking in front of the beautiful Baptistery. A place where baptisms took place. Notice two things: That the Baptistery is also leaning since it was constructed on the same unstable ground as the tower, and that there are no crowds. Having stayed overnight we were able to walk over before the buses had arrived.

This is a shot inside the Camposanto which sits also on the square and was built in 1277 to accommodate tombs.

and of course there is the beautiful Duomo. I got a kick out of this picture. Tom was gazing up at the tower. I refer to it as "Leaning Tom".

Later in the day we returned and the crowds had arrived. Which even a block away you wouldn't notice.

So we decided to take a different way back to the hotel, and not fight our way back through the crowds, which doesn't always translate to a shortcut.

 We did stumble onto Piazzas dei Cavalieri,

'

where there was a vintage car show going on.

Along the way, I got a kick out of this mailbox. Maybe installing one of these would cut down on junk mail? Our different way back to the hotel ended up being over 8,000 steps according to our friend's app on his phone. Me oh my was I ever tired,

 but watching the sun set over Pisa from our hotel's little rooftop deck was the perfect way to relax.

But wait!. Now for the real adventure. We depart Pisa in a rental car....oh my this could get scary!

The scariest part was trying to get all of our luggage in the car. Thankfully they all fit in like pieces of a puzzle...and off we go headed north to the Cinque Terra!

Time to Leave Paris

After five wonderful days in Paris with fabulous weather it was time to move on. Tom and I like to get around like the locals... it is cheaper...and cheaper translates into getting to go more often.

(this by the way is not an advertisement.)

We took Le Bus Direct from CDG into Paris, and now it was time to take another of their buses to Orly for our flight to Pisa. The bus company has several bad reviews online, but we had ridden this convenient form of transportation when it was the Air France bus and we experienced no problems this time with the new owners.

Our Easy Jet  flight was a nice experience. I had the most interesting seatmate that I will blog about later..

 

I made all of the plans for this trip and I was a bit nervous about the small hotel I chose in Pisa...well it was absolutely delightful...a little family run hotel. This is the comfortable deck at the back of the Hotel di Stefano, and yes that is the leaning tower, which was an easy walk.

Tom and I are early risers and we always enjoy an early morning stroll. As you can see it was barely daylight and no one around.

I took a few pictures along the way.

Little side streets can be a delightful.

Cloak of Conscience

by Anna Chnomy

This sculpture I found a bit spooky.

Pisa is on the coast, but we only walked as far as The Arno River, which reminded me so of Florence.

Same River by the way.

Tomorrow I will post a few more pictures of what else we saw in Pisa..

Thank you for coming along on my travels.

Paris High Line

I mentioned in my previous post that one of the things I had on my list to see in Paris was the Paris High Line. The French name for it is: Coulee Verte Rene-Dumont. Some refer to it as Plantee' Promanade, but I prefer to call it the Paris High Line.

Their High Line was built on an abandoned elevated rail line in the 12th arrondissement in 1993 and stretches over four km all the way to the outer Blvd. Peripherique.

You can locate the entrance behind the "new" Opera house which faces the Bastille Monument.

Completed in 1993 it is a beautiful linear park high above the busy city, and even though it is a long walk, there are many entrances and exits along the way.

There are also shaded arbors to give you a break from the hot sun. That's Tom walking ahead under a canopy of bamboo.

I was delighted to see that there were still flowers in bloom in late September,

which were responsible for me not keeping up. I was too busy stopping to smell the roses!

There were many interesting buildings  along the way. This one caught my eye, and rightly so. I researched and discovered that it is the police station in the 12th arrondissment and those statues along the top are copies of Michael Angelo's The Dyeing Slave which can be found in the Louvre.

Time to move on. Next we fly to Pisa, and I am sure you know what we saw there.

New York!

Okay, it's like I am trying to confuse you, but there is a method to my madness (a saying we have here in the states).

sorry for the blurry photo

You see back in 2011 my two grown daughters treated me to a whirlwind tour of New York City at Christmas time as a very special birthday gift. It included so many wonderful things, Broadway play, window shopping of Fifth Ave. and of course 

high tea at the plaza. Since they are known to do research before a trip, they had read about the new elevated park that was once an elevated rail line.

 A little history here. You see back in the 19th century there were trains at street level in New York City. So many pedestrians were run over by the train (over 500) that Tenth Ave. at the time was referred to as Death Ave. So, they had a cowboy that would ride ahead of the train warning folks to get out of the way.

 Long about 1934 to solve the problem they raised the tracks about thirty feet in the air. Trains ran on those elevated tracks until about 1969.

 Left abandoned, the tracks were an eye sore. This was taken in about 1999.

 Local citizens banded together to save the tracks, but not before large sections had already been demolished. To everyone's delight the Highline Park was born. Running over a mile and a half across the city.

 The first section of the park opened in 2009, so when we were the in 2011 it was relatively new. Since it was December though...the plants were dead and it was very very cold,

 

but that didn't keep us from having a great time. 

 

So, when I discovered on our recent trip that the French had a Highline which the New York City one was modeled after.  I knew I had to see it.

I will give you a glimpse of Plantee' Promenade on my next post since this one is getting way too looooong!

Canal Visit

On our recent visit to Paris I decided we needed to do and see things we hadn't done on previous visits.

So, we took the metro to the St. Martin Canal. Back in 1802 Napoleon built a series of canals to bring drinking water into Paris. This particular canal runs just over four km through prime real estate in Paris.

We visited on a Sunday which I think is the perfect day to do so.

There are several pretty old iron bridges along the way

and gardens

also families enjoying their city without throngs of tourists about.

You can take a boat ride from the Seine to the canal which takes you through a tunnel under what was the Bastille.

Back in 2001 they decided to drain and clean the canal. It's rather amazing the things they found at the bottom .. The list is quite long but to give you an example: A car, bathtub, gold coins, bikes of course and a shell from World War I.