Chris and Paula’s World

We are in Ancona, Italy at the moment, waiting for our ferry to leave. We just scoured this small town for a supermarket in preparation for our three day long ferry ride. Found one after being directed from tourist information - as expected, we has passed it twice. Just thought I would do a quick update as we’ll be out of touch for a few days. We are headed to Turkey and at the moment are unsure of our path prior to May 5 when we meet our tour group in Istanbul. We both agree that some relaxing beach time would be a good thing, so will likely head to a beach first stop.

Cinque Terre was an amazing stop. We spent a couple days hiking along the trails that link the five towns of Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manorolo and Riomaggiore. We also spent an afternoon on the beach in Riomaggiore… a tad rocky to say the least. The rocks were large smooth stones about the size of dinner roles up to the size of a loaf of bread. It was comfortable once the stones were arranged just so, however…. lets just say it wasn’t so easy looking graceful in a bathing suit trying to get in or out of the water. Once those babies are wet they are freaking slippery. The locals had zero problem, but man I struggled to stay upright. We had our first amazing Italian meal in Vernazza - a simple pasta meal and the best caprese salad EVER. We were sorry to leave this amazing place and I highly recommend a visit.

The next couple of days were spent in Florence. I love Italian food. If you love good food, Italy is a MUST. The ingredients are better and the simpler the recipe the better. One thing that doesn’t thrill me so much is the fact that all prawns are served whole -feelers, eyes, everything. I don’t know why, but it gives me the creeps. Regardless, I faced my fears and had my best meal of the trip. It was spaghetti with scampi and zucchini flowers. Three of the largest prawns I have ever seen (they had to be baby lobster) adorned a gorgeous plate of spaghetti. Once I dug into my first one, I had it all figured out. It was amazing, however I maintatin that it really isn’t necessary to have all of that on a plate when you can really only eat the tail… Who am I to tell them how to serve pasta!?

Anyhow, we also saw the city, including a visit to the Ufizzi. We were in line at 7:45 a.m and got in around 9:15. We had read that they recommend you book 5 days in advance, but the line was busy every time we tried. Highlight there for me was Botticelli’s Birth of Venus… it is HUGE!! Didn’t expect that.

Chris is anxiously waiting to get to the ferry, so I am going to sign off. We need to figure out how to get our visas so we are going to head over now. The boat looks really nice! We have a cabin for two nights, I am looking forward to hanging out on the Lido Deck with a tropical cocktail playing shuffleboard while Chris smokes cigars with the old boys in the lounge.

Bye for now.

P

PS - yes Mom and Dad, we will be very careful in Turkey.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 28th, 2007 at 4:01 pm and is filed under Italy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.