A friend of mine (Janie) and her husband (Bill) live in Seattle. They enjoyed a 3-week vacation in Italy and Greece and agreed to share their adventure. I initially thought – 3 weeks – thatâs a long time, but the more I thought about it and remember the time I had spent there, a month in each country wouldnât be enough. Enjoy.
Bill and I had been to both Italy and Greece many years ago, in the early â70s. We were approached by good friends who had already planned their trip to the area. Enthused by both their itinerary and the company, we decided it was a good time for us to go back! The trip was a little over three weeks, from April 22 to May 15.
We traveled by train, plane, ship, and automobile. Admittedly, the train part was only local. We flew in and out of Rome, hired a driver and van to get to and from the Cinque Terre, cruised from Rome to Greece and the Greek Islands with a stop in Turkey, then rented a car for our trip to Tuscany. The Cinque Terre are five mostly automobile free villages, so having a car of our own there didn’t seem advantageous. You can get there by train but it’s more complicated, and with three weeksâ worth of luggage, the driver and van seemed like a good idea. Our cruise was on Holland America, and we were very pleased with the accommodations, the food, and the local tours offered.
Janie and Bill.
We spent four days in the Cinque Terre, the most picturesque place I have yet to visit, staying at the charming Porta Rosa hotel in Monterosso al Mare, a small European style hotel complete with suits of armor in the lobby and a beautiful cliffside view of the Ligurian Sea. The other four towns are accessible by hiking trails, train, and boat. I realized right away I was in my kind of place. The main thing to do in the Cinque Terre is to walk and explore. Each little town was a jumble of pastel and earth-toned buildings tumbling down steep slopes to the sea. Lemons hung on small trees like oversized ornaments. Little restaurants and shops are tucked into the architecture, each one feeling like a discovery. The hiking trails offer stunning views of the water and various different perspectives on the towns. The train is a quick way to get back to your point of origin when you’re ready to call it a day.
Highlights of the Cinque Terre: Listening to birdsong as we explored the quiet streets of Riomaggiore with its lovely gardens, wildflowers, and olive trees. Exploring the heights around Manarola, the most beautiful of the villages. A late afternoon Aperol spritz at the Terre Aurora, overlooking the sea. Dining at Miky’s in Monterosso. I had a dish there that still makes me swoon. It was pasta puttanesca made with local anchovy fillets (fresh succulent white fish, not the canned kind), olives, capers, garlic, and a decadently rich tomato sauce. The pasta was then put in a serving dish and covered tightly with a thin pizza crust which was flamed tableside. It tasted as special as its presentation. I also had a truly memorable dessert at a cafe on the beach â a large glass filled with lemon sorbet, topped with prosecco, and garnished with a thin lemon wafer.
Lemons are ubiquitous in the Cinque Terre. Beautifully packaged lemon soaps and little bottles of limoncello are good gifts to take home. But my best buy was a terra cotta tile bought from the artist himself at a little shop in the meandering streets of Monterosso. The tiles are everywhere you look in the town, on doorways, gates, and shops, decorated with flowers, street scenes, and birds.
Warning: The Cinque Terra is a national park and much beloved by the Italians, as well as a lot of outside visitors. There are almost always crowds, though we found them to be very civil. It’s a beautiful place, quite small, and a lot of people want to see it. Going in spring or fall is a good way to avoid the worst crowds. A local told us that October is the ideal month to visit. And most everything you want to do includes walking, so it isn’t for the walking averse.
Note: as you can see from the pictures and if you do any web searches, these are hillside villages built into the cliffs so yes, a lot of walking and steep inclines so definitely handicap-adverse.
Our 11-day cruise of Greece and the Greek islands left from Rome. The itinerary included stops on the mainland at Katakolon and Athens. We had planned to visit the site of the original Olympic games while at Katakolon, but, alas, it was closed for some reason. Well, traveling isn’t for the inflexible. So we browsed around the little town at the dock, ate outside and remembered how much we liked Greek food. We had two days in Athens. One day included a tour of the Acropolis with its iconic buildings, a must-see for anyone going to Greece.
Our tour of the Greek islands began with the island of Delos, the largest archaeological dig in Greece. Our guide compared ancient Delos to today’s Cayman Islands. In an attempt to undermine the port of Rhodes in the second century, the Romans declared Delos to be a tax-free site! Commerce flourished, and the ruins include a wealthy merchant’s home as well as shops and what is believed to have been a bank. We also saw the famous Lions of Delos, positioned to greet the sun since Apollo, the god of light, was said to have been born on the island. The ruins were interspersed with fields of wildflowers, making the island a great place for photos.
Our next stop was the island of Mykonos which looked like what I always thought a Greek island should be, whitewashed houses and shops decorated with shutters and stair railings in intense shades of red and blue. I recognized one church that has been used in many fashion shoots and advertisements.
Part 2 of the vacation includes the remainder of the trip with visits to Turkey and back to Italy for the Amalfi Coast and Tuscany.
