A ciascuno il suo: To each his own @eminflorence-blog - Tumblr Blog

Posts

The Five Towns on the Seaside

Make lists of the must-sees

take note of the delicacies-that-must-be-tasted

find the formula for the essence of this place

so that you can take it home with you

in a TSA-approved container.

It will live on your bedroom shelf

and remind you of the exotically local flavor

that you never really understood in the first place.

The sea-side villages of Cinque Terre are for real the most beautiful destinations of Italy off the regularly-beaten tourists' track. These towns are set into the craggy sea cliffs of the Italian west coast, which turn streets and alleys into stairways and landings. Trust me, you will have buns of steel after a week here ;) The endless climbing up and down the towns will remind you

that you are just a

lump of an American

that spends 70% of their

waking hours at a desk.

My girls and I went to Corniglia for the fresh pesto that makes them world-famous, and Vernazza for the sought-after vino bianco

for a classy lunch or boozy dinner,

both of which will make you

just tipsy enough

to become

that one annoying tourist

to the locals.

While hauling your ass around the towns can totally tire you out, traveling in between the towns is a total breeze. The train departs every twenty minutes, so it will take you no time at all to get your beach-bunny on in Monterosso, with its sandy shores and coral-covered diving rocks. Take note, this is a topless beach, so feel free to let loose. Just remember that sunscreen for those sensitive zones! ';D Nevermind that

you've been taught all your life

that nipples are the devil's eyes

and you've only ever seen

a half dozen female pairs

besides your own.

The houses and businesses of each village are painted quaint colors of oranges, yellows, lime-y greens and shades of sea-blue. These colors will be trendy and exotic to your eyes. The streets and stairway-streets are narrow and the buildings are tall, giving you the feeling of walking through a winding, oddly cube-ish ravine, and the hot air above you is flapping with the drying shirts and shifts of the people who live here. This will provide you with a thousand perfect photo opportunities

and it will escape you

that these are just

people doing their laundry,

a thousand miles away from

your dingy coin-op, and yet

back-to-back

with the daily rhythm

that you also know.

One of the villages with rather agreeable tourist lodgings is Manarola, with its scooped-out bay lined with perfectly chaotic square houses, which cling to the cliffside like cube-ish colorful clams. Take a selfie with this panorama, and

your great big dome

stuck up in front of

the humbly trendy village

will tell all your friends at home

that you are a worldly traveler,

above the usual tourist traps and tropes.

The sapphire-blue waters are perfect for swimming, if you're not afraid of sea urchin. D:) This village has a gelato shop and a number of unfailingly delicious restaurants along it's main street, which by day is populated by

locals going about their routine

and by night sparingly filled

with locals winding down

from their routine.

Half an hour prior to sunset, sit on the stone ledge on the bay with your travel mates with the vino bianco you bought in Vernazza six hours ago. Drink it straight from the bottle. Pass it around. This will give you just enough time to start getting a little funky with your friends for the night, but still be sober enough to appreciate the sun setting over the sea

and realize that this sun

set hours ago for your sister,

for your mother and father,

a third of the way around the globe

from you.

And as you feel the space between

you and

this blazing star we call

the sun

yawning away

over the cusp of the horizon,

you also feel the space between

you and

these people, yawning,

stretching immeasurably

in both miles and minutes,

and you feel no anchor to this place

you came today

and will be gone tomorrow.

#WR400 #miad #seniorwritingseminar

(photo credit: Laura Horton, of Manarola in Cinque Terre)

If you’re spending a sizeable time in Florence and need to escape the city for a while, here’s some places I visited on my weekends that could an option for you:

Cinque Terre: These are a series of 5 small fishing villages, which you can take a train to from Florence. This place is the polar opposite of Florence—for one, WAY fewer people. Also, you can swim in the ocean, which is a great reprieve from the heat. However, be warned; they do not have streets. They have stairs. (well, some streets, but not many). So to prepare for this trip, make using a Stairmaster your foremost hobby.

(For more info, Google it/see my other posts about Cinque Terre)

Sienna: This is a step closer to ‘city’ then Cinque Terre, but still rural and calmed down. Sienna has a history as rich as Florence, and their cathedral is breath taking. I’ve even heard people cried when they saw it. Nice people, nice restaurants, nice bars. You can get here by bus.

Venice: This island-city/slowly-sinking-stone-barge is much more lively than the previous two, while still not being as rambunctious as Florence. Venice hosts another beautiful church (San Marco), and has it’s own series of tourist attractions, but beware that this is the most ‘touristy’ and most expensive Italian city I visited. If you want to go for a romantic ride gondola, you can forget it. Rates to ride are sky high and the canal water isn’t exactly purified. And I will restate it—this city is EXPENSIVE.

Now for places to go in Florence:

Top of the Duomo: If you want the best view of the city, climb the to the top of the cathedral dome. Sure, it’s a bit expensive. Sure, it’s a lot of climbing. But it is so worth it. It’s a huge part of the city’s history, and I think the only dome in the world that you can climb inside of and to the top of.

Mass in the Duomo: If you’re not religious, fine. But as a cultural experience, I recommend going to the mass in Italian where they use the organs. It sounds incredible—just think of the acoustics! Besides, the Italians are way more sensible than us, and their masses are 50% shorter.

San Miniato (church on the hill): It’s one heck of a hike, but it’s view is second only to the top of the Duomo. Beautiful church, too.

The Boboli Gardens: It’s a good place to take a break from the hubbub of the city, and to just meander through the labyrinthine paths. If you need something to keep your attention, do a personal scavenger hunt for the weirdest statue you can find. For example, the fat midget riding a giant tortoise. Go on, go find it.

The Academia: seriously, you can’t miss the David. But there’s a lot of other cool stuff in there, even if you’re not historically fluent.

Get Lost: Really, go get lost. It’s the best way to see the city. And try the coffee, for sure.

Now that it’s been a sizeable amount of time since I left the city of Florence and all it’s delicious gelato and aging museums, I think I can look back and accurately recognize my highlights of the trip, and which aspects I would recommend to other visitors of the city. So first, my favorite places to eat:

Gelateria la Carraia, which can be found at the intersection of la Ponte alla Carraia and Lungamo Guicciardini. This gelato shop offers a deliciously wide range of flavors—and what is more, you can get a scoop for one euro! Which is a great deal in Florence.

Just down the street is Dante’s Pizza on Piazza Nazario Sauro, 12. Delicious food, good prices, funny waiters.

If you want pizza on the go and for a little cheaper, still in that neighborhood in Gusta Panino as Via de’Michelozzi, 13. I heard about this one from a family friend, whose daughter also visited Florence. They have a large, fire-baked oven right behind the counter—it’s actually more uncommon to cook pizza not over a fire here, but the interesting part is that you can see the oven. Seriously, this pizza was delicious. The sauce… and the cheese… oh man.

Around the corner, the plaza in front of the Santo Spirito (which is a beautiful church on the inside) has a lot going for it. For one, every first weekend (or something like that, look it up yourself) there’s a cool antique market that goes on there. If you’re not going ot buy anything, it’s a great opportunity to just look around. Also, Pop Café is on that plaza, which was one of our favorite bars. Good deals on drinks, and the bar lights up and glows different colors. Rad, man.

Also next to Santo Spirito is the Osteria Santo Spirito, which has a great menu. I recommend any seafood dish there.

And last, you will most likely be not eating out for every meal, so a well-priced grocery shop with a good variety is Sarori Dintorni (part of the Conad chain). I couldn’t figure out the exact address, but if you head south across the Ponte Vecchio, turn immediately left once you’ve crossed the river, and then the grocery store will be on your right side.

justanothersimpsonsblog-bl-blog1

eminflorence-blog

So true. That darn Duetch lingo.

SECRET PHOTOS TAKEN INSIDE THE MAD KING'S CASTLE (No photos were 'allowed'... which translates, for tourists, to just being very sneaky about it.)

#Germany #Castle #Neuschwanstein

#Innsbruck #Austria #biking

This was a church we found that was very opulent, and looked a bit manneristic but also had a great sense of perspective in its paintings. The ceiling shot here is only a shallow bowl; it's painted to that from a certain spot, marked by a pattern in the marble floor, it looks like the interior of an actual dome.

#Innsbruck #Austria #church

#Innsbruck #Austria #Mountain

Morning on the Mountain

#Innsbruck #Austria #Mountain

Innsbruck: Morning on the Mountain

We decided that the first thing we wanted to do for the day was take the gondola up the mountain, since its closed a little early. At 27 euro each, it seemed a little pricy at first, but it included a tram ride from the edge of the flat part of town and two gondolas up the slopes, as well as the way back down. Also, it provided the view, which was wholly priceless. The ride up was pretty cool—I love European public transport. Their design is always interesting. As we ascended the slope, we couldn’t see the top due to clouds. The ground below was extremely vivid. The verdant pines made the branches and rock seem purplish blue in comparison, and everything had a sort of glow.

As we neared the mist, I felt like I was in a LOTR movie. The swirling, creeping white engulfed the cabin and turned the windows into luminous white panels. When we changed cars, the clouds crept into the cabin along with us. Finally, we made it to the top of the mountain, and although the city below was whited out, the mystery of our distance from the valley below made us seem just that much higher. For all we knew, we were on a ridge of stone and moss floating in the sky.

Outside the gondola station, on a crumbling cobblestone patio, the mist obscured everything further than 5 feet away. I’ve never seen mist that thick. It really felt other-worldly. We climbed up the slope, totally clueless as to what lay ahead, and shortly emerged into a bubble of clear air in which you could see not only the expanse of gravel paths, moss expanses and rock outcrops that made up our peak, but you could see across the valley on the opposite side of the mountain, enclosed by a wall of other mountains. The amount of detail of the rock face, gravel deposits and fields of pine trees threw my whole sense of depth perception out of whack. The scale of the valley was overwhelming.

The air up there was very thin. Walking 30 feet on the uneven ground had me winded, and I had to take breaks every 10 steps on the stairs. We spent a long time up there. You’d be surprised at how much grows at the top of a mountain. Sure, it’s all just moss, some grass and a few flowers. But there’s a lot of it—at the spots that don’t get walked on so much, the moss grew about 4 inches thick, and the tiny flowers, although few, were as spectacular as any royal garden.

As usual, I climbed around the rocks that made the crown of the peak—I stood at the very top. It wasn’t a vantage point from which to feel accomplished or commanding. Rather, it was a place to appreciate your place in this big, big world.

At one end of the peak, we found a decrepit old cabin. I was alright with just observing from the top of the stairs but Laura wanted to investigate, so we climbed down and took a peek. Judging by the interior, I think it could have been lived in as recently as the 80’s. Laura was a lot more brave than I was—I got a bit creeped out.

After hiking all over the peak and what with the thin air, I felt like I needed some food and Laura wanted a beer, so we dropped into the café at the gondola station. We shared a rich chocolate cake, and the frosting must have hade something like rum in it and the batter tasted like it possessed a bit of apricot jam. I’ll have to try that at home. There was a group of people playing cards there, probably ages from 25 to 35. One of the men started talking to me in German, and I asked him if he spoke English in what Laura told me was pretty good German. He wanted to know where we were from, why we were here (specifically at the top of the mountain) and if we would like to play cards with them. However, as we had a number of other things in mind for the day, we graciously declined. If we had another day there, though, I would have happily sat with them to chat and try to learn their game.

#Innsbruck #Austria

1st Night in Innsbruck:

We got into Innsbruck around 8. It was lightly raining, but we enjoyed the cool air. Again, Laura and I had no idea where our hotel was in relation to the station. Like most times when I’m clueless, I just followed Laura, who started off down what looked like a main street. And lo and behold, our hotel, the Goldne Krone, was just ahead of us after a couple minute’s walk. The room was the largest yet, although not as ritzy as our previous hotels, but that was understandable because this hotel was older and not in a super tourist trap town, and it was much more affordable.

Once we were checked in and had set down our luggage, we hiked off to find food. This time we had arrived just in time to catch a real dinner, and we found a gasthaus across the Old Town, where there were a lot of bars, cafes, shops and restaurants. I was so happy with the food—which was probably helped by the fact that we were extremely hungry—and we got an apple strudel to top off our Austrian dinner. The plate around it was pooled with this thick cream, which could probably clog your aorta within 20 minutes if you ate it all, but as Laura and I were sharing, I indulged without guilt. It was nice to eat something nice and heavy, as compared to Italian food.

After our dinner was done, we were feeling pretty relaxed as a result of our beverages. We had been perusing some pamphlets and maps we’d picked up at the hotel (which were super helpful), and felt confident with our directional tools in hand. Pulling back on our raincoats (which I didn’t use once in Florence, but at that point was glad I’d brought it) we set out into the lamp-lit streets, which were full of the sound of pubs and a light rain, in the direction of the station of a gondola that went up to the top of the mountain. We knew it wasn’t open, but wanted to check the times and just plain old explore.

My shoes became promptly wet, but as we went on the streets became more residential and quiet. This effect, paired with the yellow fuzzy light of the rain-streaked lamps was quite calming. With the help of the map, we made our way up the base of the mountain, until our surroundings were mainly trees and ravines. At this point I started to think of ‘Hostel,’ a gore-porn about a pair of students traveling around Europe, and of ‘American Teenage Werewolf in Europe’ or whatever it was called, and started to get a little jumpy. Laura was still in a pioneering mood though, so we plowed on until we found the station and promptly turned around back to the hotel. By this point we had climbed a considerable amount of slopes and were very much our usual, tired selves.

#Innsbruck #Austria

The evening of our arrival in Innsbruck. It's the most quiet of all the places we've been, besides some of the towns in Cinque Terre. I feel more comfortable here--maybe because I look like the locals this time.

For a while I thought I lost Lexi's Budda (sad day!) so I took pictures of Laura's Fin action figure instead.

(Zurich to Innsbruck)

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

A ciascuno il suo: To each his own