Our Trip to Italy - Day 2

After hitting the snooze button several times, we wake up feeling surprisingly rested. We eat breakfast in the hotel. We enjoyed pastries, toast, and granola. The coffee was very good, but we both agreed that the orange juice and water tasted a little strange (the only items of consumption that have gotten a negative review so far). After breakfast, we check out of the hotel and take our bags to the car so that we can walk around Siena for a few hours.

We plan to head from the parking garage to San Francesco, but on the way we follow a sign leading to a botanical garden. At first, it looks as though this my just be a large goldfish pond in a parking lot, but continuing around a building we find quite an impressive garden with an amazing view of a vineyard, the Siena wall, and the Italian countryside beyond. This little gem, which wasn't in any of our guidebooks, quickly becomes our favorite part of Siena. We forego San Francesco and stay in the gardens until lunchtime.

Gary and Kathryn in the Botanical Gardens

Labeled Iris Unguicuraris

Kathryn walking toward the city wall

View of the garden and the wall beyond

We went back to Il Campo for lunch. We ate prosciutto and provolone pizza at Spizzico. Then, we ate some bacio gelato (chocolate with nuts) from a gelateria also on Il Campo. It was amazing - we decided that we should probably have gelato in each town we visit.

In front of the fountain at Il Campo

Siena city view


Gate leading out of Siena

By 1:15pm, we are on the road again. Thankfully, we are as careful getting out of Siena as we were careless getting in. We made no wrong turns on the way out of the maze, and even - very surprisingly - guessed our way to the road that leads to Firenze. In fact, we made it all the way into Cinque Terre and Riomaggiore with no problems. We did have to stop a couple of times to take pictures of the breathtaking views in La Spezia - a view of the harbor with the snow-capped Apuan Alps in the background.

While in Cinque Terre (5 towns on the Ligurian Sea), we plan to hike the trail along the coast. We are staying in Riomaggiore, the southernmost of the five towns. We check into our hotel in Riomaggiore, Locanda del Sole, around 4:00pm. The hotel is in the heart of Riomaggiore. Enrico, the owner/manager helps us carry our bags up the hill to our room. We immediately run down to the train station in hopes of going to Vernazza and hiking to Monterrosso (the most strenuous leg of the 6K hike). We miss the train by 5 minutes, and the next train wasn't coming along for another hour. Not wanting to hike in the dark, we decide to wait and hike the entire trail the next day. We decide to take a train to Vernazza for dinner. In the meantime, we walk down to the Riomaggiore harbor to take in the view of the sea. As it begins to rain, we thank God that His plans for us are so much better than our own. If we had caught our train, we would have been hiking in the windy cold rain. We are enjoying Plan B much more.

View from our room

Streets of Riomaggiore

Steep steps leading down to the harbor


Overlooking the Riomaggiore Harbor looking up the Cinque Terre coastline

Mural at the Riomaggiore Harbor

On the train to Vernazza, we met a couple from Chicago. The man actually sold his first car to Kathryn's uncle back when they were in college at Wheaton together. It really is a small world! We enjoyed walking around Vernazza and taking pictures of the town. Before dinner, we went to Bar Enoteca for a glass of wine, which we enjoyed as we sat on a bench outside overlooking the harbor.

Vernazza

Church at the Vernazza Harbor

View of Monterossa from Vernazza Harbor

Vernazza back alley at night

We have dinner at our third choice of restaurants, Tratoria da Sandro. Because we were there during non-tourist season, many of the locals were away on vacation themselves, and therefore, many restaurants and shops were closed. We were very pleased with choice #3. As had been recommended to us, we tried the anchovies because they are the local specialty. To our surprise, we really liked them. We also had spaghetti - you can't go to Italy and not at least tried the spaghetti! Hands down the best spaghetti either of us had ever had. Swordfish was the main course. Although we knew we were in to gain about 15 pounds on this trip, we decided that it would be worth it.

After dinner, we caught the train back to Riomaggiore and hiked up the hill to our hotel. We went to bed early in anticipation of our long hike planned for the next day.