The two Italian ports on our trip are the two little fishing towns of Portoferraio and Porto Venere. The fact that they are both small, Italian and based around the fishing industry is where the similarities end, the two towns are quite different in feel and energy.
Portoferraio is a town in the italian province of Livorno, on the edge of the eponymous harbor of the island of Elba and is the island’s largest city. Because of its terrain, many of its buildings are situated on the slopes of a tiny hill surrounded on three sides by the sea. In
Continue reading Portoferraio and Porto Venere
From the moment we entered the little air conditioned building in the port town of Civitavecchia, it was clear we were about to experience a completely new kind of travel. We were greeted with smiles by people in sharp uniforms and crisp white gloves. They confirmed the pronunciation of our last name, discussed dietary requests, and every spoken syllable was warm and welcoming. We had already dropped off our backpacks, we just had my purse and Brian’s camera bag on us — even then, they offered to carry them for us onto the ship. We were escorted onto the ship,
Continue reading Cruise Day 1 — Embarkation
Our flight from Amsterdam to Rome was only delayed a few hours, which made for a rather boring wait in the terminal while we waited for the plane to arrive. Compared to our last one it was a short little hop about 3 hours, but of course we slept through much of it. We got at least a good hour or two of sometimes-interrupted plane sleeping in on this one.
After arriving in Rome we donned our backpacks, instantly remembered that a heavy backpack is even heavier with no sleep, and quickly found the train station at the
Continue reading Roma!
In five days, we board our plane to Amsterdam, then Rome. One week from right now, we will be asleep on our first night of our cruise, somewhere along the NW coast of Italy.
Recently the cruise-line emailed to notify us that our second port of call had changed. Originally we were going to the small Northern Italy port of Portofino on the second day of our cruise, but apparently the Italian government has changed some cruise ship rules around anchoring in certain areas (Insert Costa Concordia joke here). This made enough changes to how and where the cruise could
Continue reading 5 days, the countdown is on!
Okay, you know how I keep saying that we’ve been to the most beautiful little towns I’ve ever seen? Yesterday we found FIVE more to add to the list. Yep, five. But… I should try to stay in order as best I can — So I’ll start where I left off last time, on our way to Milan.
Milan, I’ll admit, was not the favorite stop. After all the beautiful, romantic, amazingly picturesque little places we’ve been, Milan just seemed crowded and noisy and dirty. But there were still all the smushed-together Italian homes we find so fascinating.
Continue reading Cinque Terre, and beyond!
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