The Rents and their visit to Florence part one: Cinque Terre Trip Posted on November 23rd, 2010 by

Before I made the big trip to Florence back in September, I knew that my parents and my sister were all very interested in making a trip across seas to visit me. Both for personal and supportive reasons. So, this last week, the plans actually became reality! On a Monday morning, my parents and their two family friends, Ardy and John, landed in the Florence airport where I picked them up. It was soooo wonderful to see them! Especially because lately I have been feeling more and more homesick, the less time remains.

After picking them up from the airport we found their bed and breakfast (which not only turned out to be pretty nice and well located but also really cheap!) and then hit the town. I showed them the major landmarks such as the duomo, some museums, the ponte vecchio, my apartment, and the buildings where my classes are held and called it a day. They were going to stay here for a week, so i had enough time to explore the city in a not-so-rushed fashion.

That next day, while I was in class they visited the Academia gallery where david currently is and the next day they visited the Uffizi where there is currently a Carvaggio exhibit. I would go to class in the morning, meet up with them about 2:30 and then explore the rest of the time.

On that Wednesday, my sister Sadie arrived in town. Now she had a little bit more time than my parents in florence. She atually stayed until this past Sunday, a total of 10 days. So each day was about the same routine. They hung out until my classes finished. Then on Friday we decided to hit up Lucca, a nice small town that I actually visited earlier in the year and have already blogged about! The only problem is that it had been raining every single day since they arrived in Florence. It was quite the bummer. But life goes on! So we hit up Lucca completely soaked.

The next day however we got a slim, lucky chance to hit up the five cities, aka Cinque Terre. Cinque terre is on the west coast of Italy and is an ideal place to hike along the hills on the shore of Italy. Along the shore are 5 pit stops where beautiful cities are. Yet before we headed on over to the train station to take the long, yet worth it, 2 hour train ride, we were met by a peculiar site. Somehow, the whole entire piazza della duomo had been transformed into a yard?!?! Some crew had put down sod in the whole piazza!!! IT WAS INSANE!


At first i was realllly confused…Then i noticed david just chillin’ at the front of the Duomo. Actually, the day before, he had been on top of the duomo, next to the large dome itself. Basically, I was told later, that this peculiar behavior of david was to celebrate when Michelangelo first created this marvel. They had to decide where to place him, and they tried multiple places. This placement happened to be one of the spots involved (why they laid down sod, i’m still not sure) and they do it every year as sort of a festivalish kind of thing. Intersting.

Anyway, we hit up the train station, took the two hour train ride to La Spezia and then to the last city on the coast: Montorosso. It was stunning! The only problem was that from city 5 (montorosso) to city 4 (Vernazza) is the hardest path to hike! Sooooo we headed on our way. At one point actually, we came across this sign…

Pretty straight forward right? Well, with no pun intended we headed on the path that you can see in the bottom right corner of the picture. Yup. We’re bright ones. Once that path turned into nothingness, we took the hint, turned around, and then actually paid attention to the sign heading us in the right (pun intended) direction.

The path was amazing. Surrounded by Vineyards and rolling hills, the rain somehow managed to stay put! It didn’t rain once!

We hiked all the way to Vernazza and then to the third city (which I cant remember the name of at this point in time).

It was stunning.

The Sun even began to peek out just in time for the sunset! It was one of the most photogenic scenes I have ever seen! (another pun i do believe. that is il numero tre!)


Now besides the beautiful endless scenes, we met a couple of friends along the way. I have pictured below most of them. I did miss a couple though. Another 2 feline friends I snapped photos of with my convential camera, so you’ll have to imagine for the time being how awesome they were :) Here they are nontheless!

Cat #1

Cat #2

Cat #3

Slughorn

Mr. Beetle

With that, I leave you with a few photos of the cities, and their transportation, which incidently is also photogenic…

And luckily, after we got back home for the exhausting yet rewarding hiking trip, I was able to catch one of the many showings of the Deathly Hallows. Win.

 

Comments are closed.