We landed in Milan, after starting the European leg of our trip in Greece, and headed straight for the main train station - and on out of town. We only had Tom with us for another 12 days, and our priorities were (1) the Cinque Terre, (2) Tuscany and (3) Venice. We were headed south to Genoa, jumping off point for entering the Cinque Terre the next day. Our first night in Italy was spent in a beautiful (and inexpensive) suite in an old Italian boarding house near the train station, complemented by a fantastic meal of pasta and pizza in a simple trattoria. Good start.
In the morning, we took the train to Vernaza, the second of the Cinque Terre's five villages, and Tom and Colin settled in at a cafe with a view of the village's castle overlooking the small harbor while I scouted for a room.
We decided on a pair of rooms in private rental apartments (one for 2 nights, and another for our 3rd night) and after hoisting our bags up the many, many stone steps required to reach ANYplace in in Varnazza, we enjoyed the rest of the day clamboring around the harbor rocks, lounging on a small pocket beach, and drooling over all the local produce, cheese, wines and salumis beckoning from every shop window and spilling out onto the cobblestone streets. There are practically no cars in Varnazza, as the villages of the Cinque Terre are 5-10 minutes apart via the frequent trains connecting each of the towns. Alternatively, you can walk from one to the next via the cliffside trails – breathtaking views and heart stopping drops in 15 minutes to one and a half hour hikes each. I decided that a couple of those hikes were at the top of my “to do” list while we were there.
The next day, I started off early to hike to Monterosso, encountering a very wild dog or possibly a wolf, in the mountainous forest along the way.
Fighting off my vertigo, I oogled at the views from the trail, which hugged the cliffside, with only token wooden barriers providing a false sense of security. In fact, at the one place where my foot slipped on the slick stones that formed the trail, the lower wooden railing had fallen away – right where my fall sent my leg over the precipice! It wasn't too wet, and I didn't slide far, but it took me a good 10 minutes sitting on a rock at a wide point in the trail to slow my heart rate, regain my confidence, and continue on. I met Tom and Colin getting off the train in Monterosso, and we beelined for the Farmer's Market I had seen at the trailhead when I entered the village.
We browsed through all the yummies and came away with bread, cheese, salami, fruit and wine to enjoy as a picnic lunch along the waterfront, and visited one very bizzare church dedicated to the dead.
Tom returned to Varnazza via my hiking trail – in reverse – while Colin and I hopped the 5 minute train back to town.
Buoyed by the beauty of the previous day's hike, I took off again the following morning to hike in the opposite direction to Corniglia – again an hour and a half hike along steeps cliffs. This time, I encountered a pair of wild boar along the trail – I was apparently a magnet for the local wildlife.
Again, I headed to the train station upon arrival to intercept Tom and Colin and save them the hassle of climbing the steep steps leading up to the town where we had agreed to meet – Corniglia is the only of the Cinque Terre villages perched high on the cliffside, rather than snuggled down in the harbor. Unfortunately, this time they had arrived on an earlier train and we freaked each other out by not being where we were expected. Two hours later, we were finally reunited in Varnazza, after frantic searching on both sides, and after calming down I had to do a “mea culpa” since I was the one not at the agreed meeting spot in the town square. But seriously, when is Tom ever early?!?
Determined not to let the mix up ruin the day, we hopped the train to Manarola, the fourth village in the chain, and enjoyed a late lunch at a quintessential Italian cafe while a rainstorm scoured the town and left the cobblestones gleaming.
Then together, we all walked the trail – an easy and short one – from Manarola to Riomaggiore, the last of the villages, timing our walk with the sunset and passing through the trail zone known as Lover's Lane - where local couples affix padlocks as a symbol of their love (or lust) along the fencing installed to prevent rockslides from barricading the trail or knocking smooching couples on the noggin.
Reluctantly, we left the Cinque Terre the next morning, continuing along the rails to Pisa, where we took a picnic lunch break on the lawn at the Field of Miracles, shadowed by the Tower of Pisa, before continuing on by bus to the town of Volterra in the Tuscan hills.
We hiked from the bus station out of the Volterra's fortified castle wall to the Monastery overlooking the valley below, where we had booked a
room.
After a walking circuit around the beautiful old stone town (where, incidentally, the Italian part of the Twilight trilogy is set), we settled in for some food and wine at Vena di Vino, a hole-in-the-wall cafe/wine bar with dozens of bras hanging from the timbered ceiling and a rock cave basement boasting a home-made karaoke machine crafted from a personal computer and a dentist's chair (it's one of Rick Steve's favorite stops in Tuscany). It was love at first sip, and I knew that even though we only had a few days in Volterra, we'd be back, again, and again, and again....
.... starting with lunch the next day.
We returned to Vena di Vino after visiting the Duomo (cathedral square) and original Estruscan Arch forming one of the entryways into the village.
The entire town is surrounded by the old castle wall, with an impressive Roman ampitheather and bath ruins set into the southern section. We also visited the archeological park within the walls on day three, and Tom and Colin toured the archeological museum while I stole some quiet time for myself. 
Our last dinner found us back at Vena di Vino, because we couldn't bear the thought of leaving the next morning without one last visit. Each day that we went, the owner brought us more gratis snacks with our chosen wines, until on our last visit he gratised us so thoroughly that we had an entire dinner for free. Gotta love a place like that!
Early the next morning, we had to catch a bus for Florence, where we had a simple room for one night near the open market and an easy walk to the Cathedral and Leonardo da Vinci Science Museum. Then it was on to Venice – perhaps the only remaining city in the world that I can honestly say was on my “bucket list” (mostly filled by visits to wild and remote places). It was stunning.
From the moment we stepped off the train, I was smitten. Instead of the usual bustle of traffic and cars outside of the train station, there was only the quiet gliding of boats on a wide canal and occupied the corridor which in any other city would have been a noisy, horn-honking street.
We boarded the public ferry “bus”, disembarking ~50 meters from our guest house and settling in without even breaking a sweat. Our room overlooked the city's produce and fish market, with a view of the grand canal itself. We needed only to cross the bridge or follow the narrow walkways along the canals to find fantastical pockets of old Venice, tiny cafes, inviting shops (for Colin – he's the shopper in the family), and gelato stands.
We started with a visit to Piazza San Marco, fed the pigeons, and felt like we were in a classic Italian film. It only got better from there. We spent three days indulging all senses in the wonders of Venice, walking everywhere, and having some of the best meals during our entire year of travel.
Highlights included a visit to the Jewish Ghetto and – for Colin – Venetian mask browsing, in shop, after shop, after shop.... It was wonderfully romantic, but also bittersweet, as it was Tom's final few days with us before he had to return home.
On day four, we retraced our steps (and the canal) to the railway station and boarded a train back to Milan, checking into our hostel with no great expectations. Dinner that eve, however, took an unexpected twist....
We asked at the hostel desk for a recommendation for an inexpensive dinner nearby. We were directed to an Italian pizzeria a couple of blocks away. When we arrived, we were bustled to a table along the back wall by some very frantic waiters, who immediately asked us what we wanted to eat. Saying, in our rudimentary Italian, that it would be nice to see a menu first, a waiter brought us one, but shouted out suggestions before we had a chance to look it over. We had to repeat three times that we'd like a minute to think about it before they left us for two(!) whole minutes to decide. They then came back and shouted suggestions again, but this time in a more demanding tone. The waiter was certain that we couldn't read a single item on the menu and asked where we were from. When we said “The United States” he said, “Oh, I'm from Iraq! I kill you! Bang, bang!” with his fingers in the shape of a gun pointed at our heads. “Ha! Ha!”
We had stumbled into an Iraqi owned and operated Milanese pizza house, and were clearly out of our cultural element. We finally managed to ask for three items that looked good – linguine con vongole (clams), a pizza, and spaghetti bolognese. I also asked for a small pitcher of the house red wine – a failproof strategy for a decent vino throughout our travels in Italy. The wine came first. I sipped. It fizzed. Fizz??! I tried again, and it fizzed more. Uh-oh. Reluctantly, I called the waiter – who was now bustling and shouting at a half dozen other tables – and said that I was very sorry, but I didn't expect the red wine to be fizzing. Could I please have a decent bottled red instead.... um, Please?
The waiter was suddenly struck dumb – dead silence. And the evil eye. Oh, crap. He recovered himself, rolled his eyes, shouted something I'm pretty sure was offensive (about me) to his colleagues, and strode off with the fizzing pitcher in a huff. But he did bring a nice bottle of red wine, and miraculously, a friendly attitude with him when he returned. And a free platter of flatbread. And a few moments later, the largest platters of food I'd had ever seen. The vongole could easily have feed four, the pizza took up an entire table, and the bolognese would feed our whole family for dinner and lunch the next day. Instead of cold-shouldering us for the rest of the meal, he kept coming back to our table for chit-chat, back-slaps, and an offer of a job in the kitchen for Colin.
The capper came when we stuffed all we could of the feast on the table into our bellies, and quietly asked the waiter if it would be alright if the stupid Americans took some of the leftovers with them, though we know its not usually done in Italy. We could see take-away pizza boxes stacked up in the kitchen, so thought it was worth a try. “No problem!” he said. He arrived at the table with boxes, and prepared to take the whole shebang into the kitchen with him. Not wanting to be any trouble, and generally preferring to box up my leftovers myself, I told him to just leave the boxes and I'd take care of it. With a little hesitation, he did so, and I – stupid American – proceeded to box up our leftovers with the blessing of the restaurant staff.
We hadn't asked the neighboring tables, though. Through my entire proceeding, the woman seated next to me stared vehemently with shock and disapproval. Conversation stopped. Eyes were averted. I finished, we left an inappropriately large tip, and the three of us shuffled out with our hands full of boxes. No regrets, though: after taking Tom to the train station first thing in the morning, Colin and I got both breakfast and lunch out of our take. And we returned for dinner again the next evening – sharing just one pizza and a salad. We still couldn't finish it all, and once again took the remains for our morning breakfast, heads held high.
Prepared for several days of low spirits after saying goodbye to Tom for the next three months, we aimed next for a quiet place to lay low, landing at a small rooming house above a cafe in Varenna on Lake Como - a short train trip out of Milan. But without Tom, our travels had lost a bit of joie de vivre, and so as not to spoil a perfectly good blog entry, we'll pick up again in the next installment....
Up Next: “Travel fatigue in paradise.”
