Europe, here I come AGAIN!

Feta and fries pizza

2011-07-23T15:08:00.003-07:00

Had to get it. Ridiculous. Can't hardly eat more than 1 slice. So rich. Mmmm!

Location:Via Alessandro Tadino,Milan,Italy

Greek salad

2011-07-23T15:08:00.001-07:00

I am now completely obsessed. Jay, you need to start growing cucumber. We already have the tomatoes growing. Mmmm FETA!

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Location:Athens

Ios

2011-07-23T15:07:00.001-07:00

Went on a pirate ship cruise. We jumped off the side of the boat in the bluest turquoise water I have ever seen. Then we went to a secluded beach. Definitely a highlight of the trip!

View from hotel room.

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Santorini

2011-07-22T07:09:00.001-07:00

Went to the black and red beaches in Santorini and went to see an amazing sunset. More pics to come but here are a few. I have met so many amazing People on this tour. It's keeping me crazy busy and tired.

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Mykonos

2011-07-22T07:04:00.001-07:00

Ugh. I did it again. Hardly Any posts during my Contiki tour. Here some pics from Mykonos. Amazing island!

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Athens

2011-07-14T08:34:00.001-07:00

Arrived in Athens and am staying at a hostel my first night. I they have a roof top bar and i met lots of friendly solo travelers. Here is the view of the acropolis from the bar, amazing!!

The next Morning they offered a walking tour so I took part in that. Here is another picture of the acropolis from the roman market. The plaka area is right in front of this pic. It is the original old town before Athens became the capital.

Here is a pic of the changing of the guard. They guards are kinda like they are at buckingham palace, you can stand next o them an make funny faces but they won't smile or anything. They have a funny march when they do this changing of the guard. They kick one leg really high in the air.

Everyone had been saying a lot of unrest is going on in Greece. I have not seen much of it. There is a lot of military around an a lot of people camping out in the main square protesting but is all seems pretty mellow. The tour guide called it peaceful protesting. Overall atens was great. I will be back there in 10 days. Off to the islands!

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Location:,Greece

Off to Rome

2011-07-03T14:49:00.001-07:00

ok, so its been a while. jay took off this morning and now I am in rome. he also unloaded my camera so i have no pictures to upload :(

over the past week we went to rome where we had no internet so that was the beginning of my downfall with posting. lets see if i can retrace what we did.

day 1 rome - we went to the colleseom again, we did this last year but we had a pass that got a free entry so we went again. it was amazing as always. i cant remember what we did the rest of the day... im lost without my pictures! later that night we went to dinner and then went to hang around the trevi fountain and the spanish steps.

day 2 rome - we did a bike tour for this day. i LOVE bike tours. i did 3 of the last summer in barcelona, paris and amsterdam, they are the absolte best way to see a city. this bike tour was by far the hardest. this guy had us biking huge hills. it was rough but we got a great tour of the city. oh yeah, earlier before the bike tour, we went to castle saint angelo. this place was awesome. all i kept thinking about was the book angles and demons. im not huge on history so of course this was my reference point. later that night we had another great dinner and then went to hang out at piazza navona. there are lots of people selling art and street acts here. jay got suckered into one guys street act. the guy was on a unicycle and juggling fire pins and all sorts of stuff. he pulled jay out of the crowd and was pretending he couldnt stay up un the unicycle and was hanging all over jay. it was pretty funny, i got it on video, maybe ill post it when i get home since jay took it.

rome to palombaro - so we had to get up early today and go rent our car to so could be off to jays familys hometown of palombaro. we had to pick up the car in rome, we got a fiat 500. a cute little car, i think its smaller than a mini cooper. anyways, jay had to drive it our of rome. i was really worried about this but he was fine. then we made our 3 hour drive to palombaro. it was raining and we had to make out way through really windy, mountainous roads. we used a gps and half the time it would tell us to turn onto roads that were not even there. they were like tractor prints or something. so we just had to make do and we made it. the place we stayed in was an apartment. it was build on the land that jays family used to live on. it was really nice. since it had a kitchen and all that we bought a lot of our food and ate in almost every night. since there is only one restaurant in the town there wasnt much of a choice!

so we stayed in palombaro for 3 days/2 nights. i kinda just hung out, read a lot, slept, tried to rest up! jay did a lot more. he went hiking around the town to check out the country side, went to see the mayor who he met last year and she showed him all of his familys documents, and he went to the towns soccer joint, where all the local towns play each night.

after palombaro we headed off to sorrento. we had big plans for sorrento. we were going to go to capri and maybe off to positano but we just never went. we were exhausted, the place was crawling with tourists and I think Jay had just had enough. so he went to the local beach, i stayed in our nice air conditioned room glued to a book. i am going to be at the beach for 2 weeks straight in greece, so i was not too interested in the beach at that point. mostly we did a lot of shopping. sorrento i known for its ceramics.

now i am back in rome and tomorrow i leave for greece! cant wait! i am excited to be on a tour and just hang out with some friends i net last year. i wont have to think about or plan anything, they will just tell us where to meet everyday and show us everything. oh yea, and the most beautiful beaches on earth, here i come!

cinque terre day 4 - beach and dinner

2011-07-03T14:29:00.000-07:00

At the end of the hike we got to the town of Monterosso and spend the rest of the day at the beach. it is a pebble beach so the water is really clear.

Then we decided to take the train back to our town of vernazza and get ready for our big anniversary dinner. we made reservations at a restaraunt up on the cliffs of the town with a sea view.

We tried a different antipasti, soem kind of special of the sea, it was a little scary, jay wouldnt eat half of it.

And then we ended it with the pesto lasagna, sooo goood!

cinque terre day 4 - day hike

2011-07-03T13:51:00.000-07:00

well today is our anniversary! we decided to hike to the next town up, that is what cinque terre is famous for - hiking trails between the 5 towns. we did the last 3 hikes between the 1st 4 towns last year. we went to the tuesday morning market and bought lunch to have on the trail.

Then we grabbed a coffe before we headed out.

The we were off on our hike. probably about 2 miles, not sure if that is what the 2 stands for...

There was a guy playing music on the way... jay pretended he wasnt listening and lust looking out. good try jay.
we saw a couple getting married, beautiful spot!

saw some cats and of course had to feed them!

then we found a place to have lunch. the perfect spot.

Then off to finish our hike and get to the beach!

cinque terre - day 3

2011-06-28T01:22:00.000-07:00

Another lazy, lazy day. we woke up late again, went to grab lunch, pesto pizza again and then to the beach. i guess if something isn't wrong, don't fix it. This is our 3rd day in a row getting pesto pizza in the cinque terre for lunch and its amazing. i would get it every day if i could!

After the beach i grabbed a beer at the beach bar and wrote some post cards.

For dinner we had anchovies for antipasti, vegetarian ravioli with a walnut sauce, and more pesto pasta! mmm.

And then came the night Jay had been waiting for. When we arrived the first night we noticed in the main square right off the beach this handwritten line up of restaurants with dashes in between them and dates. Some of the older listed dates had 5-3 or 3-0 under them so jay thought these had to be line ups for soccer games or something but we couldnt figure out where they were going to play. well that night we noticed them putting the lights up and roping off the beach. They even had a machine out combing the beach to make it smooth for the game.

There were 2 games played. The first one at 10 and the second a 10:45. I only made it half way through the first one but jay was out there till the end. i think this has been the highlight of the trip so far.

cinque terre - day 2

2011-06-27T00:56:00.000-07:00

Another lazy day we made it today. we slept in and then went to get pesto pizza for lunch. yum! after that we just had a beach day. jay had a snorkel and we exploring for most of the time. i mostly just laid on the beach. At one point i borrowed the snorkle and went looking around and found a euro coin! once jay heard about that, it was a ll he could do. look for money at the bottom of the ocean. haha. later jay and i were swimming and he stopped to readjust his snorkel and i guess stepped on or kicked by accident, a sea urchin. he had about 5 or 6 black spikes coming out of his toe. it was horrible. i got 3 of them out but the rest are too deeply imbedded in his toe. poor guy. he seemed in pain but hours later he seems fine. i think they will just work their way out over the next couple days... well i hope!

Pictures of the town during the day.

Time for dinner. We ordered a bottle of wine tonight.

And I had the penne agli scampi. Jay had trofie al pesto. yum!

Cinque terre - day 1

2011-06-27T00:55:00.001-07:00

After our 5 hr journey we were starving. We went straight to dinner. I had the pesto pasta, a specialty here, and jay had the seafood pasta.

Here are a few pics of the town at night.

Then a couple fire spinners showed up. Free entertainment, not bad. Well actually,they weren't very good but can't complain.

And of course, our nightly gelato!

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Location:Strada Vicinale Rocca,Monterosso al Mare,Italy

Journey From Venice to Cinque Terre

2011-06-26T15:48:00.000-07:00

We took a train for this part of our journey, it took about 5 hours. I thought I would post some pics of Italy from the train window, so you can see what rural Italy looks like :)

Venice Bar Tour

2011-06-26T15:33:00.000-07:00

Most will refer to this as a pub crawl. We found this tour in the rick steves book and it seemed like fun. We met Alessandro on top of the Rialto Bridge and were then whisked away to our first bar.

I realize now what I only took one picture the whole time! We must have been too wrapped up in the wine, amazing appetizers and great conversation with Alessandro!

Below is our tour group. Alessandro is the guy in the middle with the purple shirts. We had a blast!!

Exploring Venice

2011-06-26T14:53:00.000-07:00

We woke up late today since yesterday was such an insane sightseeing day. We just walked around the streets and did not look for anything in particular. It was great.

We found an old bookstore, the oldest in venice the owner brags. They had a cute area in the back that opened to the canal (sorry for the bad quality of the pics)

The bookstore also had lots of cats hanging around. You know we love cats!!

More sights.

Grabbed lunch at this market.

Night out in Venice

2011-06-24T02:25:00.001-07:00

Had a couple drinks before dinner.

Dinner on a canal. 1st course homemade pasta w seafood 2nd course sea bass. mmmm...

Headed out to St. Marks after dinner. Dueling orchestras.

YouTube Video

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Location:Sestiere Cannaregio,Venice,Italy

Murano

2011-06-23T15:48:00.001-07:00

Murano is the glass island. We couldn't find any good deals or any demonsrations. I think we should have come earlier in the morning. Oh well. Guess we will have to do more shopping in Venice!

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Location:Fondamenta dei Vetrai,Venice,Italy

Torcello

2011-06-23T05:43:00.001-07:00

Another island off Venice. More remote here. only really a church, a couple restaurants and a guy playing the accordion as we walked in!

YouTube Video

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Location:Calle Stivallo,Venice,Italy

Burano

2011-06-23T04:38:00.001-07:00

An island off of venice. Known for lace and colorful houses.

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Location:Via Guglielmo Marconi,Quarto d'Altino,Italy

Sightseeing and dinner-Milan

2011-06-23T00:00:00.001-07:00

We were very tired today after our redeye flight but we stuck it out and did some sightseeing and had a great dinner. Saw the duomo, then the Castello and dinner at a reccomended restaurant in the Rick Steves travel book. Homemade pasta, yum!!

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Location:Milan

Gelato

2011-06-22T23:54:00.001-07:00

Our first gelato. I plan on having one every night!

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Location:Milan

Arrival in cinque terre

2011-06-22T23:52:00.001-07:00

It was a long journey but we made it! Ahh, to be here is amazing. This might be my favorite place on the planet!

Here is the view of the water from our attic common room.

Since we were starving from our 5 hour train ride, we stopped for dinner. I had the pesto pasta and jay had the seafood spaghetti. Mmmm

Here is a night view of the town from the jetty. Pics aren't the greatest on his iPhone and I forgot my camera.

Then some fire throwers showed up and put on a show.

And of course, our nightly gelato.

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Location:Strada Vicinale Rocca,Monterosso al Mare,Italy

San siro closed :(

2011-06-22T23:49:00.001-07:00

Went to see the famous San siro stadium today but it was closed for a concert. Oh well. Jay still got to see the outside of it.

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Location:San siro stadium

Milano Pizza

2011-06-21T14:24:00.001-07:00

First meal Pizza!!!

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Location:Via Lambro,Milan,Italy

Travel Itinerary

2011-06-19T23:11:00.000-07:00

I have been keeping all my travel info on this website this year. Here is a link if you want to check it out. It has all of our hotels and flights in one spot, so much easier than last year!

http://www.tripit.com/trip/public/id/10E20C55B515