Seriously people I have no idea where to start. Italy was an “adventure!” (as my mom would have said).
Mat and I were gone for 12 days to the Northern Italy area, and really the only “touristy” place we went to was Pisa (with the famous leaning tower). We were on our way with a rental car, garmin, and language reference book in hand, traveling to Nesso, Como, Portofino, Santa Margherita Legure, Sestri Levante, Genova, Milan, and Lucca. We had a few challenges…..with our bank, no way to call internationally (we couldn’t get the phone calls to go through), and our garmin took us way out of the way sometimes (and sometimes down one way streets!).
Even so, trip was alot of fun and I was blown away by the beauty! I was definitely visually overwhelmed.
We found grocery stores and were able to read enough (and look at pictures-ha!) to figure out what food to buy. Both places we stayed were condos and had kitchens–eating out was super expensive so this helped alot. When we did eat out the food was awesome!
The people in Italy were very nice and seem to focus alot more on relationships than we do. I literally saw ONE person on a cell phone the whole time I was there. People spent more time with each other in person and not on the phone. I loved that! They also take breaks during the day–from noon to 3:30, many things close. (this is called “reposo”). They have happy hour around 5 in bars and cafes, with wine/beer and pastries, then dinner late. People were very fashion conscious—everyone dresses up. Lots of tall, high heeled boots, black sweaters and coats. Mat and I felt a bit underdressed most of the time. I noticed many people walking and riding bikes, and I think I saw one person who was overweight. The only bad thing…..lots of smokers. That was very sad to me.
The craziest thing to me was that the roads were extremely narrow and had insane curves and sharp turns! People also drive like they are on a speedway–all day! The funniest thing though was we didn’t see accidents like we do here. The ONLY one we saw was in the parking lot of a rest stop.
I’m really excited to share these…it was so hard to choose what to post. There are so many! If you ever go, ask me and I can tell you what we did.
View of the swiss alps from the airplane…
Mat leaving our first “flat.” This building was built in the 1600’s!
Me! Mat is learning to use the camera. Yay!
View of Lake Como.
Waterfalls near our apartment.
A little grocery store we shopped at (Panificio Alimentari). I had these yummy breakfast bars called “fruit and form.”
The roads were so narrow! Can you believe 2 cars fit on this?
Mat helped this fisherman get a fish out of the water. He was super nice and knew a little english.
I loved the fog here. I thought it was so “dreamy.”
Portofino.
YUMMY pizza here! Our place was in this building above the shops.
Everyone hangs out laundry. No dryers here.
The water was beautiful!
This is someone’s home…can you believe it? Built right into the side of the rock.
Cute little grannies!
Leaning tower….
I love trees….this was to our drive to Lucca. I thought they looked like a painting!
Town of Lucca.
Kitty checking out the action below.
Mat was very nervous with me on the edge! That is the mediterranean sea behind me.
Yum…..
Statue of Saint Margherita.
I was in LOVE with this shop.
How cute is this pup?!
Huge city of Genova….we got lost here alot thanks to my garmin.
I shot this from the car as we were leaving! Notice the bell tower…every town has them to let people know the time. I thought this was cool.
by juliet
11 comments