Cinqueterre- Part one

Italy is no doubt a beautiful place to be but the most beautiful place I have been so far had to be this last weekend in Cinqueterre. These five towns are connected by trails that one can hike and are not too far from each other (the longest hike between towns should take about an hour and a half). These five towns are all beautiful and awesome. This was the destination of our next voyage out of Torino and was easily my favorite to date.

Camogli

The Italian Riviera is awesome. I don’t know of many more ways to put it. For the girls' trip, I had prepared some papers for them that provided descriptions of some small towns and gave them day trip ideas for their time in Torino. One of those places was Camogli. When I wrote about it and did the research, I decided that even if the girls didn’t make it, I would be going the weekend after they left. They ended up going and loved it, which only meant that I would now definitely have to go.

The Final day the girls are in Torino

Having the girls in Torino had been awesome. They gave me someone to cook for and were excited to go out and do things so they were a blast to have in Torino. However, I knew the excitement would come to an end soon and before I knew it, it was their last day in Torino.

Chocolate festival

You read the title correctly. That is right, an entire festival about chocolate. Every year, Torino is the host to one of the largest chocolate festivals in the world. Consuming an entire piazza, tents selling and making chocolate spread their joys to the visitors of this wonderful event. I was lucky enough to get to go to this event multiple times so lets get going!

Torre di Lamberti

The Torre di Lamberti is the big tower in Verona. As I noted in the last blog, with Molly, Allie and Amanda, I finally got the opportunity to go up the tower so lets start climbing!

Molly and Her Friends Come To Town! Part II

Verona is a wonderful city. If any of you have a chance to visit it, I urge you to jump at the chance. As I have mentioned before, Verona is steeped in history and a wonderful place to be. When Molly, Allie and Amanda came to visit, Verona made it on the agenda largely because of my experience there a few weeks prior. This time, with a bit more knowledge on where to go, we planned to go to some of the awesome places I got to see last time as well as a few new things that I missed last time.

Molly and Her Friends Come To Town! Part I

After two months of not seeing Molly, to get to see her twice in like 2 and a half weeks was pretty much awesome. This time, however, was not going to be just the two of us as her friends, Allie and Amanda, were going to be joining us. Molly has been talking about these friends for quite some time so to finally meet these people and put a face to the name will be nice. We have quite a jam packed schedule ahead of us so lets get to it!

Since Spring Break

The last week has been a good week. The majority of the week was spent getting back to the grind of school and things like that. To start, I had to do a 15-minute presentation in Italian on The Lion King (wonderful way to come back from spring break) and at the end, we went to the GAM, Torino’s Gallery of Modern Art for the first time with my art class.

Spring Break!!!!!

When Molly left, Spring Break had officially started. My spring break’s have been fairly dull my entire life. In High School, Spring Break translated to a baseball tournament that would soak up the whole time. Now, in college, Spring break translates to working 40 hours for a week. This year was set to be 100% awesome, with plans to go to Florence for the a few days and simply being in Italy in general, this was set to be the best Spring Break ever!

Molly in Torino!

Molly coming to Torino was easily the most anticipated thing for me in the last two months. I know it may be sappy or whatever but I love Molly like crazy. I left on the 11^th of January and she came to Italy on the 11^th of March. Those two months were far tougher without her than I would have imagined. I had been planning her trip here for a while and was very excited. Armed with good recipes, great restaurant ideas and tons to do, I was prepared and excited! Then a good Italian bus strike struck and decided to try to mess with out plans...

Birthday!

So, I know it has been a while since I have posted. I ran out of space on my blog as just recently added more space to the blog so I can continue sharing pictures. I will try to post one a day until I'm caught up and, since this is all the way back in March, I’ve got a way to go, but Thanks for following! Now on with the show!

Ivrea

 

Imagine oranges, the fruit whose juice will be handed to us if we reach far enough back in the refrigerator of our nearest supermarket. The peacefulness of an orange grove seems like it would be a place that, other than the buzzing of bees, would be a fairly peaceful and calming place to be.

Now, imagine a small Italian mountain village, with narrow cobblestone streets, small piazzas and a river running through it. Also, seems like a very peaceful and calming place. Birds chirping and the Alps looming in the distance all complete the small town where the smell of pizza is in the air.

However, when you combine the two, somehow, you end up with the best way to celebrate Carnivale… in the world

Verona part II

After seeing the Juliet’s balcony, we made our way back to the main piazza and looked into climbing one of the remaining towers in Verona but decided, with such little time, that we would be better served going to the third largest coliseum in Italy, and probably one of the best kept in the world.

Verona- Part I

Verona is a fairly famous city (maybe you have heard of it) in north east Italy. It is one of the main tourist destinations in northern Italy, thanks to roman ruins and connections to some play by some old dude (yes, I am referring to Shakespeare’s famous story, The Two Gentlemen of Verona… oh and Romeo and Juliet, I guess that is famous too)

A Venetian Morning

With a full nights worth of rest, I woke up at about 6 am and made it out into Venice before the town was overrun with tourists. I took the slow Vapporetto down the canal and then made my way to the Rialto Bridge before walking back to the hotel to get breakfast. After breakfast, we went to Frari church and then made it back to the buses to head to Verona.

St. Marks Campanile

Our first stop of the day took us to the famous St. Marks Campanile. The Campanile is the one that has been replicated and copied the world over, even finding its place in Vegas. Coming in at about 98 meters (325ish feet), it is a huge building in an otherwise fairly short city.

St. Marks from the mouth of the lagoon

Venice and Verona- an Overview

Venice is one of the most iconic cities in Italy, maybe even Europe. This city became one of the largest economic centers in the world, despite its humble beginnings. 1500 years ago or so, barbarians were terrorizing Italy after the fall of the Roman Empire, destroying towns, raping and pillaging their way through the once mighty empire. In hopes of refuge, people who lived in what is now the Veneto region of Italy decided to move into the lagoon. Though there are islands (Murano, Burano…) in the lagoon, they elected to go with building islands themselves. Be driving wood down as deep as they could get it to go, through the muddy surface and down to a thin layer of clay, the modern day city began to take shape.

Caffè Al Bicerin

When someone told me that the Drink of Torino wasn't coffee (and I don't mean a starbucks coffee but just a cafè, I have to say I was a little surprised. Italy is a country known for coffee, being coffee drinkers and essentially loving everything coffee so to hear that the drink of the former capital wasn't coffee, I think i was justifiably taken aback.

As I think I have noted before, Torino has a ton of old buildings. One of the old Roman gates is still standing (though I have yet to get a good picture of it- the weather hasn't been all that great this week) and part of the town is still on the same grid system set up by the Romans eons ago. That is where my latest journey took me (though it took a bit longer to get it on here than I would have liked, the inclement weather has made getting on the Internet far more of a challenge than I would have hoped for) for the Drink of Torino.

Aosta

This weekend was a weekend filled with tons of adventures and things to do so i will start with one of my favorites- our trip to Aosta.
     
Aosta isn't typically on the American tourist place. It was taken over by the Romans in 25 BC (and people had been living there much earlier) and remained a Roman stronghold until the fall of the Western Roman Empire. As with most of Italy, following the fall of Rome, the city changed hands frequently, going to the Burgundians, then the Ostrogoths, then the Byzantines, followed by the Lombards, the franks, Charlemagne, Burgundy and then finally the savoy family though it remained separate from Italy until 1948 (The Savoy family had granted Aosta special status when they acquired it). When the Romans took over the town, they laid out their usual grid pattern which is still very visible today. Today it's home to a little over 35,000 people and was in the running to host several of the last winter games. The city had hoped to get an event during the 2006 games but didnt as Torino kept all the winter events in Piedmont. 

Il Lingotto

 In Italy, Torino is the auto manufacturing capital of the country and has been since around 1910. Fiat (Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino) is headquartered here. For a long time, they, like Ford, had an American acronym synonymous with their name. Ford had Fix Or Repair Daily and has actually become a more quality car in the last two or three years. Fiat, or Fix It Again Tony, has also had a similar shift in their quality from the days of constant disrepair to one of the better cars available in Europe (supposedly FIAT is making the jump across the pond in the next few years to try to get some of the American market place and capitalize on its demand for fuel efficient cars).

Luigi!