Now THAT’S Italian!


genoa-meWhile perusing through my archived photo files online, I came across our honeymoon photos from September 2003 and decided it would be fun to share some with you.

We were extremely fortunate in that we went on a 3-week honeymoon. We flew into London and spent a day or two there. Then, we flew down to Genoa, Italy for 2 days and then hopped a train to Cinque Terre — where we spent an entire week. From there, we did a day trip to Pisa and then took another train to Venice… where we spent a few more days.

The second part of our honeymoon took place in Greece. We took a ferry from Venice over to a small port town, where we hopped a bus over to Pireaus, another port town. From there, we took yet another ferry to Santorini where we spent another whole week and then on to Athens for a few days… ending our trip back in London for a night or two. Yes… it was a LOT of travel time, but we had a blast.

For this post, I am focusing on the Italy portion of our trip only… with a few photographs — mostly food-related — that I think are interesting.

As mentioned above, our first stop in Italy was Genoa. This was really just a mid-point for us on the way to Cinque Terre, because you cannot get to Cinque Terre via plane or car… only train. That said, we really loved Genoa! For my first Italian city, it made a great impression. The architecture was beautiful, the city was cute and very walkable and there were plenty of outdoor markets (like the one I’m standing at above).

genoa-fruit-stand

Genoa Fruit and Veggie Stand

genoa-olives

Genoa Olive Stand

genoa-seafood

Seafood, seafood, seafood

genoa-sardines

I'm pretty sure these were anchovies

Everything was ridiculously fresh… especially the fish and seafood, as Genoa is a waterfront town (as were the other towns we visited as well).

Next was Cinque Terre— which translates to “five lands” — and is made up for five villages along the Italian Riviera: Monterrosso al Mare (the town our hotel was in), Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore.

If you are planning a trip to Italy and you are still working out your itinerary… you mustvisit Cinque Terre. It is an amazing place and should not be missed. Each of the five towns are connected by both a local train system and also a series of hiking trails. There are no roads that connect the towns and therefore, it is very rare to see a car within the town. The hiking trails creep along the steep, ocean-sidecliffs and pass through vineyard after vineyard. In fact, the local white wine is simply called “Cinque Terre”. From a food perspective, cuisine from this part of the world (the Liguorian region of Italy) has been popping up more and more on local menus, including Rialto and Rocca.

Our hotel was in Monterrosso and had the most amazing view overlooking the town — note the tiered vineyards on the background hills.

monterosso-village

The Village of Monterrosso

While walking around the village, I poked my head into the backdoor of a local restaurant and got glimpse of the catch of the day:

Swordfish

Swordfish

On one of the days, we decided to hike to Vernazza and this is the view we saw as we came around one of the bends:

vernazza-village

Vernazza

vernazza-vomitting-fountain

What happens if YOU drink the water...

vernazza-sides-of-beef

Sides of beef smoking on the beach

Oddly enough, we never made it to the next town, Corniglia — but we took the train down to Manarolo one day:

manorola

Manorola

And then a boat from Manarola over to the last town, Riomaggiore — where we spent the day walking around and had lunch outside at a great little place on the water.

Riomaggiore

Riomaggiore

I only wish I had started this blog back in 2003 — before we went on our honeymoon ,so I would have been more conscious of taking pictures of all the foods we tried and all the meals we ate… because there were a lot of them!

To wrap up this post… a few final pictures of Italy. The day trip we took to Pisa and the few days we spent in Venice. Enjoy!

leaning-pisa

It's VERY heavy...

Venice and the infamous boats

Venice and the infamous boats

Venice open-air market

Venice open-air market

And last but not least…

Another Venice market view...

Another Venice market view...

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