Johns parents finally made it to Rome last Wednesday the 19th and are stayed for a week. John and I woke up for classes and eat lunch and headed to campus Wednesday afternoon and as soon as we walk in Mark calls us and tells us Mr. and Mrs. Corkery are at the apartment! I guess their plane landed on time and they checked into their Hotel and came over. Too bad for John he had to sit in class all day and then we were meeting them for dinner.
Soon as classes were done we walked up to St. Peter's square to meet them. We went out to eat at a restaurant by their Hotel. We got to hear about their travels and what they did in Rome on their first day. I found out real fast that John's dad Larry and his uncle Tom like to joke around a little bit. I had spaghetti alle carbonara and thats how Mark and I got the idea to make that for dinner one night. After eating we went to the 'Old Bridge' Gellateria around the corner. Supposedly it is ranked #22 out of over 2500 restaurants in Rome on tripadvisor.com. We then made plans for the next day and parted.
The next day the plan was to get up early and meet at Termini and get the rental car and head to Firenze, but since it was torrentially down-pouring we decided to set back the plans until the rain let up. John went up to meet his parents in the rain and before he left I told him the subway would be flooded and we would have to wait it out. Sure enough when he gets there they try to hop on the metro to get the car and it's flooded (I was right), and he called Mark and I and told us to sleep somemore.
Around noon we met at Termini and the Corkery's got the paperwork settled an we were off! Now we had to navigate our way our of Rome to the autostrade then we were on our way to Florence.
Our first stop was Larry and Tom's Cousin's House outside of Florence. She lived up in the hills in a small village named Greve. Surrounding the house were fields full of empty grape vines. She made us some appetizers and a roast beef type dinner, it was pretty good! We also got to see Francesco's collection of Vespa's and three wheeled trucks. It was very interesting visiting with the them for a couple hours. She had studied abroad years back after taking three years of Italian Language in the states and met her husband. It was surprising she could speak the language so well, her husband could also speak English very well too.
We left Greve in the late afternoon and had a half an hour drive left to Florence. It was tough navigating in Florence because certain streets are shut down, and others are made into one-ways without anyone knowing. The fact that we were driving at night didn't help either. We made it to the Corkery's Hotel and checked them in and unpacked the van. We killed some time at the Hotel before Mark and I grabbed some pizza on the way to our Hostel. We were very leery of this place because it was only €12 per night... We kept running through worst case scenarios. But when we got there there was no door man and we couldn't get in, we had to call a certain number to get a passcode to gain entry. We called the number and no answer. Someone staying at the Hostel let us in, and when we did get ahold of the caretaker he didn't really care when we paid. He said, "whenever, tomorrow night or the following morning is fine too". haha. We tried to get some good sleep before leaving for Cinque Terre the following morning.
Rise and shine, we got up early and met the Corkery's at the Hotel had a couple of cornetti e caffe before leaving. Someone had to go get the van because we had to park it just outside of city limits. When the van rolled up we all hopped in and headed for Cinque Terre. It was about a three hour drive, and about an hour of that was driving the last miles in the hills. We only made a couple of wrong turns..
We drove through the town of Le Spezia which is the biggest town right before Cinque Terre. The first town we stopped at, Riomaggiore didn't let vans park there so we had to drive to Maranola, the second of the five towns, to park. We parked and packed our backpack for the day and started the trek down to sea level. We ate lunch at a place overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. John, Larry, and I got freshly prepared fish. After dinner we decided to walk down to sea level to see the water. Tom had the bright idea to push us in the water. Just kidding but we all took our clothes off and jumped in. The water was a little cold but wasn't bad, refreshing. When we were in the water, Tom snuck down and stole all of our clothes, while getting the whole 15 minute ordeal on video. We still owe Tom for stealing our clothes. Lori said she was going to look after me while she was there and she let Tom steal my clothes, I can't believe it! After this we bought some ferry tickets to Vernazza to check out some of the other towns. Our plan was to go there and take the Ferry back to Riomaggiore, the first down we couldn't park in, and hike the 20 minutes back to the van in Maranola.
We had a beer in Vernazza and tour the city down by the sea a little before getting back on the ferry. I also went out on the pier to get some cool pictures of the city. I took a couple of pictures and made a panoramic picture of the town. We spent about an hour and a half in Vernazza and got on the ferry to Riomaggiore. Tom and his wife Marie got off at Maranola because they didn't want to make the hike.
The rest of us got off at Riomaggiore and hike the National Trail to Maranola. It was about a half an hour hike and it was pretty flat. The trail was called Via dell'Amore, "Love's Trail". People would write their names on locks and lock them on the railings and the netting that protect from falling rocks coming from the mountain. There was also a tunnel where people would write their names. We all met at the van and around 4 or 5 o'clock we left for Florence. It would be another three hour drive back and we would make it just in time for dinner.
John, Lee, Mark and I had to take a shower becuase we were all salty from the ocean and we didn't have any underwear on all day. So we showered and put on some new clothes and headed to ZaZa's for some food. It was recommended by the hotel staff. It was a well known restaurant in Florence that a lot of well-know, celebrity type people have eaten at. The food was delicious. After dinner we walked across the piazza to be quenched of our thirst with a couple of pitchers of strong-ale. Too bad Lee couldn't have stayed out with us.
The following morning we toured the city of Florence until the late afternoon when we left for Rome. We started off the day by putting some change in the parking meter and walking through the streets of Florence. We came upon a Flea Market and wandered around for a half an hour or so. Bad idea, Lori probably could have stayed there the whole day. We kept moving and the Corkery's made a reservation at the Galleria dell'Academia to see the Statue of David (Michelangelo). In the meantime we hopped in line to go inside the Duomo and check the church out. When the Corkery's had to go back to the Museum Mark and I went south to check out Santa Margherita Church, The Castagna Tower, Palazzo Vecchio, and Piazza Della Signoria. Afterwards the Corkery's met up with us at the Duomo and went went to lunch. Mark and I made a list of stuff that looked interesting so we could visit it with our families when we made our trips to Florence. When we were done with lunch we wanted to hike to the top of the Duomo but the line was about a half an hour or more to get into the church and start hiking, and the hike was another half hour to the top. We decided to skip this and get on the road early so we could drive back to Rome in the daylight. Peace Florence.
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