Pisa

Many people told us to skip over Pisa because it's not worth seeing some “old leaning tower”.  Well, we beg to differ and think that seeing the Leaning Tower of Pisa (during the day and night) was great.  We loved it! We had lots of fun walking around the city, taking a million pics of the Tower, Duomo, and parks and of course eating some fabulous food. Granted, you only need to spend a day and a night in Pisa but it’s worth a short visit.  

At our hostel, we met some awesome people (a crazy guy from Sweden and an old guy from South Africa) and… surprise, Australians.  For a while, we began to wonder if Aussies traveled to Italy and we finally met our first Aussie couple back in Cinque Terre and some Aussie dudes at our hostel in Pisa.  The best part was meeting our roommates in our 4 bed female dorm.  Our new friends, Christy (from the States) and Kamila (from Poland), were great!  Kamila is an exchange student studying in Perugia and Christy is traveling Italy for 3 months.  Kamila told us about the Chocolate Festival being held in Perugia for a week.  She suggested that we check it out and visit her as well.  Since Christy's schedule was flexible, she decided to join us to travel to Perugia.

Cinque Terre - Montorosso, Vernazza, Cornelia, Manarola & Riogimmiore

Cinque Terre (the 5 villages) is a place of outdoor beauty and goodness.  All 5 towns are unique, beautiful and amazing.  There are two ways to travel between these towns: hiking or taking the train.  The 5 towns (in order) along the coast are Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore.

We decided to make Monterosso our home base.  It is charming, cute town with a great sandy beach.  The food here is delicious.  We never ate one bad meal here.  All the restaurants that we ate at had incredibly delicious food. At one restaurant, we had mussels that were to die for.  We thought that the mussels were great in Nice, but Montorosso's mussels blows Nice's out of the water.  We also stumbled upon an amazing pizzeria that had the BEST pizza (sorry Naples but it was really that GOOD)! Suffice it to say, we ate really well in Montorosso.

We decided to hike between all 5 towns.  Unfortunately, we couldn't hike between Corniglia and Manarola because of a mudslide.  So, we decided to start with the last town, Riomaggiore by taking the train and explored this area.  This place has pebble beaches and huge rocks out by the water, where you can sunbathe, relax, read, write and etc... We had to cross the Via Dell'Amore or the "bridge of love", which was nicely paved (easy stroll), to get to Manarola.  Manarola was also a nice cute little village and had great views as well.  We spent some time looking around and then headed back to Montorosso via train, where as you guess, we ate a yummy meal.

Our main hike was from Montorrosso to Vernazza and to Corniglia.  This was definitely a hike (about medium level) with the steep rock steps and hills.  The view from the hiking was incredible and mesmerizing!  The sea was so blue and gorgeous!   Vernanzza was full of tourists and bit too crowded for our taste so it was a pit stop before heading to Corniglia. In contrast, Corniglia is small, calm and relaxing. Many guidebooks overlook Corniglia, however, we believe otherwise.  We loved Corniglia because of its peacefulness, great artsy shops, and beauty. 

Hiking through the villages was one of the best days that we’ve had!  It was refreshing to be out in nature and see all of the beautiful scenery.  Afterwards, we decided to treat ourselves and splurged on dinner in Montorosso by going to Miky's.  It was fantastic and worth every euro.  We also met an amazing couple from Colorado, who we basically had dinner with because they were sitting right next to us.  Overall, Cinque Terre is the place for R&R and the great outdoors. 

So far...Venice and Cinque Terre our favorite places in Italy!

Venice

Venice is one of our favorite cities in Italy.  The moment we entered this "city of water" on a ferry, we fell in love with it.  It is calm, peaceful and lovely.  There are no cars, motorbikes, cyclists, buses, and trains in Venice.  There are only two modes of transportation: your legs and boat/ferry.  It was nice to be part of a community that functioned without motorized vehicles.

Venice is a city designed like a maze, because it is extremely easy to get lost, which is part of the fun.  On our meanderings, we went to St. Marco's square, the duomo and the Rialto bridge.  St Mark's square was music to our ears because of the dueling orchestras fighting it out by playing movie soundtracks, classical music and sterotypical Italian music.  The dumo was pretty and located in St. Marco's square.  Our last tourist attraction was the Rialto bridge, which is the oldest bridge in Venice and filled with lots of shops and restaurants.

On one of our nights, we organized our own pub crawl, which is really a wine crawl.  We had SO MUCH FUN (maybe a bit too much)!!!  We went to four different places and had glasses of red wine and some Venetian fried finger foods.  At our last stop, we met some really cool Americans ladies, who have been friends for over 30 years, doing a girls trip to Italy.  We also took pics w/ some fun Italian guys and then hung out with some more Americans and Italians. As mentioned above, a very fun night.

In our Rome post, we mentioned that the gelato in Rome was just a precursor of what was to come.  Well, in Venice, we had the BEST (one of the best) gelato at The Boutique Gelato.  It was great yumminess!!!!

Naples, Pompeii and Sorrento within 3 days

From Rome, the three amigos ventured off to Naples, Pompeii and Sorrento. We spent two days in Naples and one day exploring both Pompeii and Sorrento. Honestly, at first none of us were impressed with Naples (at least with the old historic district). We disliked Naples because it was gritty, noisy, and dirty. We also feared for our lives from being run down by motor bikes that don't stop, even if you have the right of way. The only two things that we liked in Naples were the delicious food (esp. the pizza) and the great B&B place that we stayed at.

However, Naples redeemed itself the last day when we ventured out to the Harbor area. The harbor area of Naples is the polar opposite of the historic district. It was gorgeous, calm and clean. It was also nice to not fear for our lives because of crazy motorbikes. At the harbor area, we walked up to a castle, where we were able to see beautiful views of the ocean, surrounding cities (i.e. capri) and the harbor. Then we walked down about 3 to 4 miles down a winding road to the water/harbor. We were happy to discover the prettier side of Naples.

During the second day at Naples, we took a day trip to visit both Pompeii and Sorrento. We explored the ruins of Pompeii, which was awesome. We saw the beautiful frescoes. the amphitheater, numerous temple ruins and how people lived their lives during A.D. Unfortunately, when we got to Sorrento, it started to rain, which hindered our sightseeing. However, it didn't prevent us from shopping, which was lots of fun. We all left Sorrento with wonderful treasures.

We ended our last night in Naples hanging out a local bar and making friends with the staff. We were sad to leave Naples but were eager for some peace and quiet in Rome, where Jen was flying out from to go to Greece and we took the train to Venice.

ROME

We took an overnight train from Munich to Rome, Italy...it was the worst sleep ever!  Joyce and I were excited to finally get to Italy and to meet up with our friend, Jen Diggins, who was joining our travel adventures for 8 days.  We (Joh, Joyce and Jen) met up at the apartment that we rented in Rome (sleepinitaly.com is a great website), which was located near the Spanish steps.  We didn't waste any time during our first full day in Rome.  We saw the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, the Vatican museum (which has the Sistine Chapel).  Joyce commented on how the paintings on the Sistine Chapel were like 3D art.  And I have to agree that the pictures just popped out into your face.  Also, the Sistine Chapel is Michelangelo's interpretation of the fall and redemption of man through God. It was absolutely beautiful and a definite highlight of Rome.

 I have to say that most of our trip in Rome was hitting all of the touristy spots (which it was hard not too), because of the wealth of ancient Roman history and ruins that you must see.  We saw the Colosseum, the Forum, Palestine Hill, Trevi fountain (at night), St. Peter's Basilica - where we climbed the dome, which  has a spectacular view of Rome, the Borghese Gallery - which has amazing marble statues, especially the one of Napoleon's sister.  Also, Borghese's Gallery is located in a gorgeous park, which is a great place for a run (I had a great run).

We had two outstanding meals in Rome.  One at a place called Trattoria da Lucia located in the Traverstere area.  The pasta and veal were to die for and I think that the waiter would've also died for Jeeeenifurrr:-)  We had a great time that night!  The second restaurant, Cul de Sac, was located nearby Piazza Navona, which is a romantic and beautiful representation of Rome. The walls of Cul de Sac are filled with thousands of wine bottles. The wine here was amazing, which I paired with each course of our meal.

Side Note: Oh yeah, you can't forget about Joyce and Jen’s favorite part of Rome: The GELATO!!! Gelato is yummy goodness.  Joyce and Jen had fun trying out different types of gelatoes at different places to see which one was the best. However, Rome was just a precursor of other more delicious gelatos to taste throughout our trip in Italy.

Munich

Munich, our third city, is a great city but different from Berlin. It is smaller and calmer than Berlin. In Berlin, their monuments and museums are extremely visible to serve as a reminder of the past. However, in Munich, many of their monuments and museums are subtle because they believe that the past is behind them. You must be conscious of your surroundings in order to catch the different monuments that are created in remembrance of the past. Fun fact: Munich was re-built practically the same way before World War II, mainly because people created blueprints of the city before the war even began. We went on a walking tour and during part of our tour our guide led us through the same path that Hitler went on during his first rally against the government. On a lighter note we got to explore two great parks in Munich. One was the Englishgarten where the people can be seen surfing on the river (the park is beautiful) and it has the Chinese Tower/beer garden and Theresienwiese, which is where Oktoberfest is held. While we were at the Beirgarten in the Englishgarten we met some really fun Italians, Francesco and Alessandro (and later Francesco’s brother), who kicked it with us during Oktoberfest as well.

Oktoberfest is a crazy, outrageous and fun festival. On the grounds of the festival are carnival rides, food vendors, drunk people, and on the perimeter are the many beer. Basically, it’s an excuse to drink liters of beer and act crazy drunk stupid. We met people from Switzerland, America, Australia, Germany and Italy while we were hanging out in various beer tents -so many people from different countries while we were hanging out in the beer tents.

Berlin

The second stop on our three city tour of Germany was Berlin. Berlin is a city full of rich history.  This city uses memorials and museums to serve as a reminder of what they never want to see happen again. We saw many momuments and went to lots of museums but here one that stand out in our minds.

1) The Reischstag, the capital building, is where parliament gathers.  Interestingly, they have designed a glass dome that gives a 360 degree view of Berlin and gives parliament a view of the people walking through the glass dome, which reminds them that they are not working for themselves but for the good of the people.
2) The Holocaust Memorial was designed by Peter Eisenman to commemorate the six million Jews that died during the Nazi regime. His design is unique because it consists of 5-sided gray slabs of different sizes (from ankle high to towering above you) that are arranged in a maze-like manner. When you begin to walk through the memorial, it is warmer and the slabs are smaller but as you plunge deeper into the middle, it becomes colder and the slabs begin to tower above you. Purposely, there are no names or dates on these gray slabs because the architect wants you to deeply think and feel what the gray slabs might mean and represent to you regarding the holocaust.
3) Checkpoint Charlie is the American checkpoint for people trying to enter the West side of Berlin from the East.
4) Brandenburg Gate
5) Museum Island
6) My (Joyce) top favorite museum was the Jewish Museum. I have much respect and admiration for the architect and designer, Daniel Libeskind, because he created a thought-provoking, deeply felt, interactive and hopeful museum. He intentionally created a museum that was not only about the holocaust but also covers over two millennia of the life, history and culture of Jews.  
7)The topography of terror, an outside museum, was neat. Not only because of the immense information provided about the rising of the Nazi regime and the effect it had on Jews, gays and gypsies, but also because of its location. It is located by the Berlin wall behind the "Dead Zone", where people were killed for trying to cross over the Berlin Wall.
8) Tacheles Gallery which is a place that showcases and houses art and artists in a grafittied building and the East Side Gallery where amazing murals are painted on the remaining part of the Berlin wall.

Besides learning, experiencing and soaking in all of the rich history of Berlin, we also went on an alternative city tour, which showed us Berlin’s squats, subculture, and street/ grafitti art. On this tour we saw the squats that artists created/lived in and still create art to this day. We learned much about the different types and levels of graffiti (tagging, stenciling, wall pastings and etc..). Our favorite graffiti were by artists that had a political or social statement to make about the past, present and future of Berlin. We also loved the East Side Gallery (located by the river), where murals are painted on the Berlin Wall. A sad reality is that much of the grass roots art culture is being erased by the capitalist media spree that is trying to overtake the art culture in Berlin.

Don’t think that we were being square during our visit to Berlin.  We definitely got our party on during the weekend but DANG were we in for a huge surprise when we found out that going out at 1am is like going out at 10pm in the States…clubs don’t start rocking until 3am and are open until 10am.  It was insane but tons of fun!  Berlin is the place to P-A-R-T-Y!