The Cinque Terre Totally Rocked

For one of my traveling companions, Alice, getting to the Cinque Terre was a lifelong dream.  In other words, there was NO WAY we were going to skip this day trip!!  She stood in the kitchen of the Villa and said to us in her Transylvanian accent (and by the way, she is really from Transylvania, she wasn't just trying to act like a Vampire, which is usually what I am doing when I use a Transylvanian accent), "I don't care what else we do.  Just get me to Cinque Terre."

And so, we did.

We had tried to go once before when we first arrived in Italy.  We drove from Milan all the way there, then realized a) that everything was closed from 1-4 PM (not unusual in Italy), and we had arrived right around 1:00 (SIGH!), and b) that we didn't really have a clue how to get to the Cinque Terre (we knew that they discouraged driving into the actual villages, so we didn't know exactly how we were supposed to get to them).

What we found out that day, though, was this:  We had driven to La Spezia, which was the correct first step.  The towns of the Cinque Terre, spread out to the West of La Spezia, are arranged along the coast of the Ligurian Sea.  They are sometimes called "The Italian Riveria."

Cinque Terre translates to "Five Lands" and is made up of 5 small towns all located along the Sea and connected by walking paths (which I definitely want to try when I go back there someday!!).  If you don't want to walk, however, the procedure is to go to the La Spezia train station, buy a round trip ticket to Monterosso (the town of the Cinque Terre that is furthest from La Spezia), which costs less than 2 euros, and then you're set.  You can ride all day back and forth amongst the towns.

Writing about Cinque Terre is going to take a few days, too, like Siena.  There was so much beauty, and I want to share as many pictures as possible from this day.

Here is a shot of the landscape as we drove West from our Villa in Tavernelle to La Spezia.  Picture driving from the knee of the boot of Italy up to the top of the boot.  The mountains you see in the background of this picture, incidentally, are the Appenines:

 

Once we got to La Spezia, we parked the car, and walked into the downtown in search of the train station.  I took this picture so we would remember where we walked from the car (a trail of bread crumbs shot):

Here is La Spezia.  I LOVE the brightly colored buildings.  The towns of the Cinque Terre are known for that.

We stopped at a cafe for espresso and directions to the train station:

Here is a picture looking out to the tracks from inside the train as we waited to leave the La Spezia station:

OUR FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE SEA!!!  A lot of the ride is made up of going through tunnels.  I tried to make a movie of the ride, and I would get about a second of landscape and then we'd be back in a tunnel.  Tunnels do not exciting movies make!!

We rode, as I said earlier, all the way to the Western most town, Monterosso.  It is the beach town and it is gorgeous!!  Here is a shot of the train as we got off:

And a picture of the train station in Monterosso:

A peek at the Sea from behind a crowd of people:

And, finally, here we are, walking along the boardwalk.  This is a view back toward the East:

And, a view toward the West:

This is a map of the town of Monterosso:

Anyone for some Grappa?  I didn't have any, but I did buy the Chick a nice bottle of Limoncello in this store that we cracked open on Thanksgiving.  Delicioso!

We often take pictures of our feet in Lake Erie.  Here are my feet in the Ligurian Sea!!!  Don't they look pleased?

Here is a view looking back as I stood in the Sea:

And, of course, a contemplative pigeon:

Next stop on the train tour of the Cinque Terre is Riomaggiore. 

Do you think they will have Rabbits there? 

And, Back to Siena!

OK, One last day in Siena.  I know I'm dragging it out, but the Rabbits had to have Their say for Thanksgiving.

You know how it is.

So, back we go to lovely Siena.  Ready?

Remember, no, we just left the Cathedral and we are headed down....the.....stairs....

 ...and, to the Crypt underneath the Cathedral!  This was another one of those places where it is forbidden to take pictures, but I had to take, well, a couple, right?  Please don't call the Polizia!

Anyhow, that's why they are a little dark and/or blurry:

A painting from the wall of the Crypt.  Imagine HOW OLD THIS IS!!!!  I mean, come on!!!

And, another...

This is another randomly placed praying station.  Everywhere, they are!  So cool.

Remember the Panorama site I mentioned that our ticket covered-- to see the big sights in Siena?  Well, this is the arch underneath the Panorama wall you can walk on.  From up there, you can look out over the whole city.  Unfortunately, the line to go up on the wall had a wait that was over an hour long, so I didn't go up the stairs.

I love heights and would have loved to walk across that wall, but actually, the sights from below were equally as cool...

Here are some Italian pigeons.  I haven't shared any pigeon shots yet, have I?  I took pictures of pigeons pretty much every place we went.  I can't resist them.  This one is running through the Piazza right in front of the Cathedral.  RUN, PIGEON, RUN!

This picture shows a bit of the wedding cake look of the Cathedral.  Doesn't it look like it's covered in delicious piped frosting?  Mmmmmmm.  It makes me want cake.  You can also see the gorgeous blue sky that made our day extra nice.

This is a very hungry looking kitty that lives inside the Baptistery.  It made me feel at home.  SOmeone put some food in that trap!  It's hanging open!

Here is the Vespa that I really wanted to bring home.  I don't think it would have fit in my suitcase, but...

I'm not sure why I took this picture, but I did.  I think it was a picture that constituted my "bread crumb trail" of pictures so we could find our way back tot he car.

After a beautiful day in Siena, we came back to our villa in Tavernelle and to THIS SUNSET!

It was truly a wonderful day!  I loved Siena, in case you couldn't tell.  I would highly recommend a trip there if you ever get the opportunity.

I can't remember where we are off to next.  Oh, wait, I think I remember.  Well, you will find out on Wednesday!  SEE YOU THEN!

Thankfulness

I was going to write about Siena again today.  And, that would be a fine thing to do.

But really, what I think I would rather do, on this day before Thanksgiving, is think about what I am thankful for and write a bit about that.

No matter how you feel about Thanksgiving, whether you think it's the best holiday of the year (as lots of people do) or the most barbaric (as lots of people do), the holiday can at least do this for you:  it can be a mark in your year where you remind yourself to be thankful for...well....anything.  Everything.

It's easy to get immersed in busy.  Bogged down in negativity or other people's bad moods or anger.  It's easy to give in to complaining and misery and then find company who will help you reinforce those things.  It's easy to find bad seeds, plant them and nourish them.  I'm not sure why it's so easy, but it is.

The way to fend that off, of course, is to acknowledge all the good things (that you may not even notice) in your life that you probably take for granted.

Here are two of those thing that you are taking for granted:

Do you see how acknowledging such Good Things could Infinitely Improve Your Life?

CAN YOU SEE THIS FACT?

I hope so.  We all hope so.

Be thankful for LOVE, wherever you find it.

Be thankful for FRIENDS who are dear to you.

Be thankful for your FAMILY, whether it is the one you were born to, or the one you have made for yourself.

But most of all, Be Thankful for Rabbits.   They are Life's True Angels.

It's really time that you learned that.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING FROM THE LILYPAD TO YOU!

Still In Siena

We only spent one day in Siena, and it wasn't even a whole day, but it seems I am still writing about it.  It such an amazingly beautiful city.  Again in Siena, I was (understandably) struck by the oldness of it all.  Like, when you 're in a place that was settled by Etruscans in 900-400 BC, it is a little mind boggling.

That's kind of an understatement.

I will pick up where I left off.  I still won't finish up Siena today, but maybe by Wednesday.  Then, next week, we can move on to somewhere else.

When we first got to the Piazza del Duomo, we tried to go into the Cathedral.  What we didn't know is that we needed a ticket to get in!  The ticket was a good purchase, because for about 12 euros, you can then get into the Cathedral, the Museo Dell'Opera del Duomo, the Crypt (underneath the Cathedral), the Panorama, which is a wall you can climb up onto with a view of the entire city, the Baptistry,  and another place I can't remember, because we didn't visit whatever it was. 

Oops.  Bad memory.

This is a shot of the Cathedral from the side as we were walking back from buying our tickets.  There was a guy right below this shot, totally rocking out on his accordian.  I'm not sure why I didn't get a picture of him.  He was playing Vivaldi's Four Seasons.  Pretty amazing!  And, look at that blue sky!!

Our first stop after getting our tickets, was the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, which is full of religious art.  In this picture, you see one of a display of Illuminated Manuscripts (note:  you weren't really supposed to take pictures in here, but I had to in order to show the Chick what I saw, so a lot of the lighting is dark and sometimes the shots are even a little blurry).

There was one whole room that was filled with Holy Relics.  This is the crazily ornate box containing St. Clement.  I have tried to figure out which St. Clement this was, as apparently there are about 8 St. Clements, but so far, I can't figure out who he was.  He was pretty much all inside this box, though:

This is just some gorgeous stained glass window.  I'm sure there's more aof a story to it, but really, it doesn't need one:

I tried really hard not to violate the rules too much and take too many pictures where I shouldn't.  Just a few.  :)

After leaving the Museo, we stopped for some lunch at this lovely place.  I think I had pizza and sparkling mineral water:

This is another view from the side of the Cathedral as we are walking toward it...

...to go inside!  Here is the view down the central corridor looking toward the alter.  I'm sure "corridor" is not the architectural term.  I love the Black and White Stripes!

The floor is absolutely gorgeous inside.  Most of it is roped off and not allowed to be walked on.  They had little paths so that you could get around.  This shot shows a place in the floor where they had various Italian cities featured with their mascot animals.  Siena is Romulus and Remus suckling from the Wolf:

And Pisa is.......A RABBIT!!!  Well, somone had to be, right?  Don't you imagine a great war waging over who got to be the Rabbit?

This is one of my favorite shots-- up into the Duomo!  It was a tough shot to get, because I had to lean way over the ropes, and being a Very Small Animal with Very Short Arms, getting a shot of this was a challenge.  But I like how it turned out:

This is a shot from behind the alter:

And this shows the Black and White Stripey-ness again.  I love that!

On Wednesday, we will go to the Crypt, underneath the Cathedral and a couple of other places, and then we'll be ready to leave Siena. 

See you then!

Flip Friday: This Is Not a Rabbit Movie

You know how these things happen, right?

You are having a perfectly normal day.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  And then

BOOM!

suddenly, there's a fresh kitten in your life.

At least, that's how it happens here in the Lilypad. 

I came home from work on Wednesday for a brief respite before heading to an evening meeting, and the Chick was grouchy.  Not that unusual, right?  If you read her blog, you know that A Grouchy Chick is not a foreign concept here at the Lilypad.  I kept asking her what was up, and I kept not being satisfied with the response.

Finally, she said, "I did something bad."

Well, who knows what that means!  So, I prodded a bit, and finally got the answer I was looking for.

"I looked at the Orphan Angels website and I found a kitten who I think needs to live here," she said quickly.

Sigh.

Today, we are one cat richer.

Tuppy is our new addition.  He was found by a Metal Factory here in town and taken to Orphan Angels, which is the no kill shelter that also brought us Toby and Daisy.  If you live locally, here in Erie, you may know where Orphan Angels is located (8th and Pittsburgh Avenue).  At least, that's where they are now.

What you may not know is that they have to move to a new location and they need to find a new one.

Anyone out there know of a place where about 80 cats and 2 giant bunnies could move into?  If you do, please let us know!! 

While you think about that question, watch this very short (and rather dark because he is still living mostly behind the chair) video of Tuppy (who is named after the Jeeves and Wooster character of the same name.  Tuppy's full name is Hildebrand "Tuppy" Glossup.).


Introducing TUPPY! from marcy hall on Vimeo.

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!!  Or, try to.  I know, without a Rabbit Movie, one never knows how the weekend will turn out.

On to...Siena!

Well, I thought that I could finish off the second half of the day I began to tell you about on Monday with today's post, but you know what?  I don't think it's going to work.  The problem is, I took SO MANY FREAKING PICTURES and I don't want to shortchange them, and it's so hard to pick and choose what to tell about and what not to tell about, and...

...well, whatever, right?  I'll start today and finish when I finish.

We started this particular day in Tavernelle Val di Pesa at the open Air Market, a tale I told you on Monday.  And after that, we drove a very short way to Siena.

Siena is a beautiful city built in a way that no matter which way you go, you seem to be walking up a hill! 

Siena is another walled city.  Here was the view looking out as we walked along the wall:

In this picture, you can see the wall through the archway.  See, there?  On the left?  That's the wall. (You may also notice the slight incline.  See?  Everything's a hill!!)

This praying station was just inside the main gates of the city.  Up high in the corner of some buildings.  Neat-o-neat!!

In this picture, you can see some of the Siena's flags.  Each little section, or Contrade, of the city has it's own flag.  For more on this, click here.

Siena is pretty darn famous for it's pottery.  I would have brought some home if I hadn't been worried that it would get broken.  After our flight to Italy and seeing how our suitcases got thrown around and, well...lost, i thought purchasing pottery would not be the best idea.  Though there was lots of it and it was all awesome.  I did buy some espresso cups and small pottery-related things, but big pieces seemed like a bad idea.  I took pictures instead!

And, picture this:  You are walking and walking along these tiny, narrow brick streets (made of ANCIENT bricks, mind you, and then suddenly...

...you come across AN AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL CATHEDRAL!!  This is Siena's Duomo.

When I showed the Chick these pictures, she said "It looks like a wedding cake!!"  And it DOES!  In real life it looks like you could EAT IT!  Though, I don't suppose anyone would want to.

Well, maybe a little bite.  I want a frosting flower!

So, more about Siena to come.  TOO MANY PICTURES!!

This is seriously taking away from Rabbit Air Time.