Italy - Super Tuscan Vino, The Italian Job & Tom Hanks

Florence (with hiking back packs)

View of Florence before
entering the Tuscany region

          Italy was part one of our two week honeymoon tour back in October of 2013.  As you may have noticed we have a theme of traveling in October.  Let's face it, October is the best month out of the year, its the month of my birthday (October 25), has my favorite holiday (Halloween), the leaves change in my home state of Michigan which peppers the forests with beautiful colors the entire month and for the most part, you can enjoy good weather all over the world.   I would also like to add that this was the first two week vacation I had taken EVER.  And just for reference we are about to take another two week trip to Scotland at the end of July 2014 (stay tuned).  I want to say how incredibly fortunate Sarah and I feel to be able to explore the world in this capacity and also have the time to do so, it is truly a gift we do not intend on wasting.

Vineyard during Vespa tour

Well deserved beer in Florence
 after the Vespa tour

          Another theme you may notice in my entries is that they orbit around movies.  The cinema is a particular hobby of mine and I spend more time than I would like to admit capturing every minute detail of my favorite movies.  When it comes to travel nothing pleases me more than to visit the film sites of my favorite movies, it becomes even more exciting if there is no mention of the site and I have to seek it out by other means (usually by seeking the help of locals).  A good example is (in my Greece entry) the scene at the end of the first Jason Bourne movie where Matt Damon's character finds the woman he had been traveling with on an island running a moped  / cafe shop.  The location was Mykonos, Island off the coast of Greece in the Aegean Sea.  The film site was in a place called the Sea Satin Restaurant right in front of the famous windmills, one of my favorite movie film sites (more details in my Greece post).

Piazza San Marco

Venice at night

          Our first leg of the trip landed us in Florence, which is a vibrant city full of many options depending on your cup of tea. Carrying our trusty lonely planet guide we started scoping out the quality B&B's in the area.  We made our way into the heart of the city towards our B&B of choice (The Hotel Accademia).  The sun had already gone down and we had our first experience of the emerging Italian night life.  As we started to learn, in Italy people stay up very late and dinner time starts around seven, eight and even night o'clock.  Our B&B was down this series of cozy narrow cobblestone streets, warmly lit by the emerging pubs and cafes.   For us Florence was really just a base to get to the surrounding country side, specifically the Tuscany region.  Sarah had a particular interest in renting a Vespa in Florence to go cruising out through the Tuscan valleys from winery to winery.  So I had the pleasure of giving it the good old college try by test driving it in the Florence traffic.  Now I will be the first to say that driving is not the best in Abu Dhabi, but driving in Italy was not much better by comparison.  After I navigated us out of the city, it was smooth sailing along the country roads with nothing but greenery and vineyards to look at.  We did make a quick stop at a scenic look out of

Smaller Venice Canal at night

Grand Canal

Florence (which was beautiful) before we made it to our first winery.  Riding out to the Tuscany region is a wonderful experience that I would highly recommend.  We stopped by three or four wineries throughout our Vespa ride and made many pit stops to just sit and look at the beautiful views.  While in Tuscany I also found my favorite wine to date, I describe it as "life changing" in the world of wine tasting for me.  We found this wine at one of our stops at a winery called Terreno, it was classified as a Super Tuscan and the name was Momento Massimo.  If you are ever in this region and love red wine, you must go here and try this wine, you will not be disappointed.  I bought a bottle for the road and enjoyed it frequently throughout the day (a small glass at 9 a.m. on a train, a splash for lunch and finished it off at dinner in Piza) as I kept it corked and stuffed in the side pouch of my hiking pack (using hiking packs was the second stage of our evolution to become the most efficient travelers, it was better than hauling a role away, but was still not the most ideal way to pack).

Venice

Pisa

          Following Florence we decided to make our next stop in Venice.  For my first movie reference of the post, this is where they filmed part of the movie The Italian Job.  It was absolutely beautiful to visit, seeing Piazza San Marco (which is this huge square with a giant clock tower) by itself makes the trip to Venice worth it.  I would also recommended arriving to Venice in the evening, we just happened to take a late train from Florence and had the pleasure of seeing a calmed down, less touristy version of Venice as we rounded the city to our port in a water taxi.  In the evening San Marco square has a series of  outdoor restaurants that welcome you from your water taxi drop off point with the beautiful sound of live piano and violin classical pieces being played throughout the warmly lit square.  It was very romantic and lucky for us the late Italian night life kept us from missing our dinner in front of restaurants with these great performers.  Following dinner we made our way over the small passage ways and crossed our series of bridges to get to our Venice B&B (The Bel Sito Hotel).  We only spent one day in Venice, touring some shops and having lunch in a waterside restaurant overlooking the Grand Canal.  We were happy to arrive in the evening as Venice is very touristy during the day, mainly because that is when the cattle gates to the massive cruise ships open to unload thousands of Hawaiian print shirts and fanny packs with their all you can eat buffet colored wristbands attached (It is not surprising if you do not hear an Italian accent all day, did you notice I do not like cruisers and cruise ships?).  This is yet another reason why Sarah and I prefer to escape large cities as soon as possible for more culturally authentic samples of countries, because if there is a port, there might be a cruise ship and that could ruin your day.  Sarah and I both agreed that we would have a different overall opinion of Venice had we arrived in the middle of the day versus our romantic arrival in the evening.

Sarah & the best vino
ever (La Mescita, Pisa)

Chinque Terre

          We had a recommendation from some fellow travelers back home to visit the region of Chinque Terre, which is this geographically rugged portion of the coast on the Italian Riviera.  We were fortunate enough to make a pit stop in Piza since it was on the way to visit the famous leaning tower of Piza.  The town of Piza itself is quite clean with the standard well kept historic European look to it.  The tower which is part of a large cathedral (The Piza Cathedral) it towards the back of the city.  A fact to which I was unaware at the time is that you can actually buy tickets to climb to the top of the leaning tower.  The climb is interesting and at times it is hard to keep your balance as you are walking at an angle most of the time, but the view and experience in general is worth it if you are in the area.  After the climb we had a bite at a local restaurant called La Mescita which was delightful, the manager of the shop even let me finish the last of my Momento Massimo with my meal and gave us complimentary Limoncello (an Italian lemon liqueur) shots for dessert.  We spent a night at the Royal Victoria Hotel in Piza and in the morning started off to Chinque Terre.

First look at the Colosseum

          When we got off the train in Chinque Terre we had a short walk through a tunnel and up some stairs before we were able to view the classic picture you always see of the rocky coastline peppered with terraces colored with an array of bright pinks, oranges, reds and many other contrasting varieties.  Trains are the only way to get to the "five lands" of the region as you pass through tunnels carved into the rocks.  We decided to only spend a day here as there way not much else to explore after viewing the scenery, also it seemed to be the "Florida" of Italy and by that I mean there were lots of people in the age range of fifty to seventy years old.  Not that it was a bad thing, but its popularity with the senior population speaks to the limited activities of the area.  If you enjoy the relaxing beach type vacation for a long period of time, Chenque Terre would be a good option.

Saint Peter's Basilica

Inside the Colosseum

          Following Chinque Terre we bought our train tickets to make the long night journey down to Rome.  I had been longing to see this amazing ancient city for many years.  I have had dreams of the day I would look upon the Colosseum.  When we arrived we took a subway tunnel to the exit labeled in Italian "Colosseo" (guess what that means!).  We got off the train and walked up the stairs to street and I became speechless.  The Colosseum slowly reveals itself as you climb the stairs from the subway, hundreds of lights shining on every detail.  I knew it was big, but as I am sure everyone knows, pictures typically never do anything true justice.  I must have stood frozen, staring at the Colosseum for thirty minutes (maybe not, but it was one of those frozen in time moments) until Sarah led me forward to find our hotel at a very late hour.  We came to our hotel to find that they only had one room available (we stayed at the Hotel Smeraldo) and it was a single bed about the size of a standard military issue cot.  We were confused as to why it was so busy in Rome, but we were about to find out the next day.

The Pantheon

Pope Francis walking out
of the Basilica

           After a semi-sleepless night of synchronized turning on our single bed (we had to coordinate our roll overs to avoid "nerd" tossing the other person onto the floor) we woke up to plan our exploration of Rome.  We only had one day before beginning our second part of the trip in Greece, so we decided to cover the mostly the Vatican.  I was pleased to see many of the Tom Hanks Angels & Demons movie film sites as we walked though the city.  Rome is incredibly rich in ancient history and the unique part about it is that many times you see ancient ruins integrated with the modern parts of the city.  There are cleared areas all over the city where established ruins from the Roman era are located and also many new sites being excavated (these sites are often discovered by construction workers during renovations).  When we arrived at Saint Peter's Square in Vatican we wanted to do two things: go through Saint Peter's Basilica and the Sistine Chapel (the Pope's official residence in Vatican City).  Sadly we found out the day of that the Basilica was closed off so we were only able to see the Sistine Chapel.  The Chapel was amazingly beautiful with only natural light to illuminate the paintings the encircle the room, no cameras are allowed in this place.  The only setback is there is a bottle neck through the fenced off area and it was extremely crowded (we found out why later).          

Castle Sant'Angelo

          Following our tour of the Chapel we made our way back to Saint Peters Square where an even larger crowd was gathering.  At this point you could not even get in to the main part of the square without going through a metal detector.  After seeing this I was curious if we could penetrate the layer of security to get in to the square, so we tried our luck and sure enough we passed through.  We slowly began to realize why the Basilica was closed as we learned there was a ceremony about to take place.  My theory was that we were about to see the Pope and to our surprise towards the middle of the program Pope Francis walked through.  So we were unable to see the Basilica, however we traded it in to see the Pope so I thought that worked out nicely.  After the ceremony we walked down to Castle Sant'Angelo (also a featured scene in Angels & Demons) and over to the Pantheon (built in 126 AD) which comes from a Greek word meaning "common to all gods".

Sarah prepping for our flight
to Athens, Greece

Post Rome Tour

          Italy and specifically Florence and Rome were amazing for us.  Our short week left much more to be discovered in a return visit (I could have spent months in Rome).  Italy is rich in culture, heritage, and ancient history.  The local Italians are extremely friendly and very fun to get to know.  It is likely we will be making a return trip to Italy in the not so distant future to cover  yet another unexplored portion of the country.              
       
             
             
             
       

       
               

England - Stone Henge, Gandalf & The Prime Meridian

Inside Eagle and Child

          With Ireland behind us (again writing this July of 2014 from our vacation in October 2012) we now had five days to explore the U.K.  When we arrived in London we took the underground to the heart of the city and then through on to Oxford.  We had a particular reason for visiting this area as I was interested in going to a bar by the name of the Eagle and Child.  The two very brilliant authors of the Chronicles of Narnia and the Lord of the Rings:  J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis used to be part of a writers group called the inklings and their primary meeting place was the Eagle and Child Bar.  To be there and sit in the same place as these literary geniuses where they likely discussed parts of their books (like Frodo and Gandalf) while in the making was an excellent experience.  The bar itself with an obvious

Salisbury Cathedral

collegiate like atmosphere had excellent food as well.  I must say I was happy to cross that little visit to the birth place of the Shire and Narnia off my list (although the movie Shire is in New Zealand, stay tuned).

          After a day in Oxford we made our way to the town of Salisbury which is the gateway town that offers tours of Stone Henge.  Stone Henge was a great site of the world to check off the list, the landscape around it was very nice apart from the large road system around it.  Sadly you cannot walk through the ruins due to foolish tourists wishing to chip pieces off for themselves, taking the magic away from everyone else.  So from the ropes we took our photos and traveled back to Salisbury.  We only dropped by this area to see the main attraction of course, but to our surprise the town itself was remarkably rich in history.  It was a beautiful town and also had the fourth largest cathedral in Europe.  After we toured the beautiful cathedral we walked around the town for a bite to eat.  We found this great pub / restaurant called The Bishops Mill where you had to cross a turbulent river over a bridge to get to.  We had great food and great service, I also enjoyed my favorite beer (Leffe) there in a proper glass as well.  

Front Lawn Bishops Mill
Salisbury

Stone Henge

          We only spent the day in Salisbury so after lunch we caught a train back to London to spend the remainder of our days. The first day in London we covered some of the basics but no doubt left room for a return.  We walked along many of the bridges over the river Thames.  We went up on the London eye to get a better view of the city and caught a great picture in the glass bubble as it was descending down in front of the parliament building.  We also went shopping for clothes and take away's for those awaiting our return.  We used the Big Bus tour system to get to various sites in London which also included ferry tickets up and down the Thames.  I also wanted to pay a visit to the British museum as it contained an artifact I have wanted to see for a long time: the Rosetta Stone.  This stone with various languages (Greek being one of them) on it all with the same text, provided the key to the modern understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphs.  An absolutely amazing and crucial piece of preserved history.     

London Eye

Parliament Building

          On our second day in the London we used our ferry tickets to travel up the Thames to Greenwich.  We found a nice B&B called The Mitre where we put in for one night.  One reason to visit Greenwich is the London observatory, the Prime Meridian runs right through it so you can do the classic two places at once picture on the Meridian itself.  I really enjoyed Greenwich, it almost reminded me of a smaller version of Salisbury also containing some nice pubs and restaurants with a very classic sophisticated with age feeling.                 After our night in Greenwich we went back down the Thames to spend one more night in a place I booked in advance (another violation of our rule) in an area called Harrow on the Hill.  I booked this area because it was closer to the airport which we had to get to in the morning.  I knew

British Museum
Rosetta Stone

Tower of London

I had made a mistake when we arrived when no one had a British accent.  Our accommodations were not much better, we were led of the stairs of a B&B that had clearly been converted from a series of flats.  As you walked down the hall way motion lights turned on.  This proved to be our bane in the evening as they continues to turn on throughout the entire night.  Which led us to believe that someone was walking up the stairway to our room or the light was broken.  We chose to believe the first theory which resulted in maybe one hour of sleep and a speedy exit at dawn.  We probably made it ninety percent worse than it was, but it was creepy none the less.  

Prime Meridian

Royal Observatory

          We get on our train to the the airport to find our line was under repairs.  We ended up missing our flight and were forced to book a flight the next day.  Luckily I had a diamond status with Hilton so we booked a room in the executive level while enjoying ourselves to free dinner and drinks in the executive lounge.  I was actually happy to end our trip with this scenario versus the sleepless scary night we had before.

          

Tower Bridge

           The U.K. left me wanting more.  This large country has much to be explored in many regions we simply did not have time to visit.  I (Sarah not as much) really enjoyed London and would love to go back again.  The weather, the scenery and pleasant manners of the local Brits is enough to make anyone feel at home.

Ireland - Guinness Gravy, Harry Potter & Jameson

          Guinness Gravy, Harry Potter & Jameson: now that seems like an ideal setup for a movie night to remember (or not remember), however, I experienced these delights one after the other as you will come to realize...
          Ireland and the United Kingdom (UK) have long been on my list of places to visit.  So I decided to use the excuse that I was turning thirty and I needed an adequate distraction to forget the sad three decade turnover of the age clock that was my life.  Sarah and I decided to break the two countries into five day sprints.  It was the first time we decided to implement our agile method of traveling which mean we basically booked nothing but a flight to Dublin, Ireland and a return flight ten days later out of London, England.  I would like to add that this little agile experiment sparked the evolution of our travel, from roll away suitcases bouncing on cobble stone streets, to using hiking back packs in Italy and Greece to now using our back pack sized "e-bags" which we have trained ourselves to live up to two weeks out of.  This was the beginning of our mastery of travel to which we owe our thanks.  I would also like to point out that I am writing this in July of 2014 and the trip was back in October of 2012.

Guinness Observatory

Jameson Distillery

          When we arrived in Dublin we took a bus from the airport that took us into the heart of the city.  As always we were accompanied by our lonely planet guidebook without which we would not be able to conduct our agile travel experiences (these books are a must have for travel).  So once we read some listings of bed and breakfasts (B&B's) we made our decision of where to drop off our bags at Grafton Guesthouse and start touring the city.  In Europe B&B's are a healthy affordable in between of hotels and hostels.  And unlike hotels the always offer breakfast free with your stay (hence the name), they are homey less hotel like, but a far better option for quality and comfort than a hostel.  We found some items of interest in the big city, however I would like to point out that typically we try to vacate large cities as soon as possible.  This being because generally we prefer the laid back towns or villages where we can mingle with the what we would call the true locals.  Granted there is an exception to every rule but so far our theory has remained true.  Besides I absolutely love the local pubs that you find in classic, well kept European towns and villages, I can never get enough of them.

Enjoying a bacon steak
at a local Killarney pub (yes that is
a piece of bacon)

          While in Dublin we decided to tour the Guinness brewery and the Old Jameson Distillery.  The brewery was very impressive covering a great deal of landscape in the city.  The tour was a pretty standard brewery walk through of the process of fermenting, the ingredients and the final product.  The brewery has a bar in a tower at the center that has an impressive three sixty degree view of Dublin.  At the top I used my complimentary beer ticket to enjoy some foreign extra, which is not available in the states.  After the brewery we made our way to the distillery to begin our second tour of the day.  The Jameson tour was similar to the brewery going through equipment and fermenting processes.  There was a hint about the tour in the lonely planet book to "volunteer" on the tour.  Its vague, but when you do volunteer they give you this stick and at the end you get to go through a whisky taste test against the best in the market to Jameson.  So if you do go make sure to put in your lot for a whisky stick and you will get to try some great whisky.

Killarney Pub

Another Killarney Pub

          Before leaving Dublin we enjoyed some of the night life and I sampled perhaps the best beef stew I have ever tried.  It was close to a shepherds pie with beef and mashed potatoes, but the kicker was the Guinness beer reduction poured over the top.  When served to me it looked like they poured tar (the reduction) over your mashed potatoes.  Let me tell you the flavor of that reduction was amazing and something we have never been able to replicate at home.  It was served at a place called Turks Head Bar (part of the Paramount Hotel) and the name of the dish was beef and Guinness casserole, if you are in downtown Dublin go there and order this meal, you will not be disappointed.

Downtown Killarney

Ring of Kerry

          After our tour of Dublin was complete we made our way to the train station and bought a ticket to Killarney which is a lovely little town in the south west part of Ireland.  There you can find many well established accommodations and Irish Pubs winding down many cozy streets and corridors.  When I was there I could not help but contain this warm fuzzy feeling inside.  A detail I forgot to mention is that the Irish are extremely friendly and will generally go out of their way to help tourists.  While in a pub in Killarney we mentioned to a local that we were later headed to London, he proceeded to give us his underground (London Subway) card as he told us it was an ordeal to apply.  While in Killarney we went on a tour of this beautiful scenic area called the Ring of Kerry.  The landscape around the ring is absolutely beautiful.  There is also a monk island called Skellig Michael which was not in season for tours, but holds a

Ancient burial site

Cliffs of Moher

monastery dating back to as early as the sixth century.

          Following Killarney we made our way to a site I had been waiting to see for a while, the Cliffs of Moher.  We took a late night bus from Killarney to Galway where we based ourselves for the tour of the cliffs.  Galway is somewhat like a smaller version of Dublin, but has more of a college town feel.  It is a nice clean city with a river running through it.  The bus we rode on took is to various sites with a slightly different type of landscape than Killarney.  Diverse landscapes in close geographic regions is a general theme of Ireland.  If you are a Harry Potter fan as I am, you will recognize the Cliffs of Moher in movie The Half Blood Prince.  The cliffs are an amazing site and stretch for miles along the western coastline.  After sometime along the cliffs we

Castle on the way back to Galway

Moher

made our way back to the city and to Dublin.  We had arranged a flight earlier from Dublin to London which in fact violated our agile travel approach.  We learned that we could have arranged the same flight from Galway which was the first time we learned not to violate our rules of travel and it would not be the last.  Every time we have violated our rules we have slightly regretted it on a trip.  Even though not planning far ahead is difficult as many times our fear of the unknown trumps our logic, we are still learning to not let our emotions betray us in these scenarios.  It is an ongoing challenge because of course there are scenarios where some advance planning is necessary, it is deciding when it is absolutely necessary that is the trick.  Don't us fool you, we do a great deal of research before going somewhere despite our cavalier travel methods, we just like to have all the options we can in our back pocket.  

Moher

          At the moment Ireland (and the surrounding regions) is at the top of my list for travel destinations and retirement.  The people, the landscape, the food and the beer (and whisky) makes it a truly great place to be.  I would recommend Ireland to anyone looking to visit a part of Europe for the first time.  There is no language barrier and the locals are very welcoming and accepting.  You will enjoy every minute of it of your Ireland adventure.