Author name: lfpick64@gmail.com

Day 31 June 22, 2023 (Montepulciano/Sorrento) As I mentioned yesterday about the heat and no A/C, last night was not too pleasant. Hard to sleep when you’re hot, but I managed to sleep halfway decent and feel good this morning. John didn’t sleep well, but he seems to manage better than I do. Got things […]

Day 30 June 21, 2023 (Montepulciano) Happy first day of summer!!!!! Today was an easy day after I imbibed a little too much with the wine last night. I woke up at 3 a.m. and never went back to sleep. We took it easy this morning and it gave me time to work on the

Day 29 June 20, 2023 (Montepulciano) Today was an easy day, we walked all over, went into different little shops, and then had a glass of wine in one of the little wine shops before we had lunch. Here, the restaurants don’t start serving lunch until at least noon, so we had to fill the

Day 28 June 19, 2023 (Montepulciano) Took the train this morning from Florence to the town of Chiusi to pick up our rental car. Thank goodness Italians drive on the right (correct, lol!) side of the road. Since I am the world’s worst navigator, I drove while John directed. Trust me, it works better this

Day 27 June 18, 2023 (Florence) After a great night’s sleep for me, we headed out about 9:15 a.m. and headed to the Galileo Museum. We spent over two hours in there and while this was more John’s thing than mine, I did find a lot of it interesting! Afterwards, we found a little place

Day 26 June 17, 2023 (Florence) This morning we left about 8:15 and we strolled to the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore where we had a tour at 9 a.m. Our tour guide, Alessandra, was amazing. She is a native of Florence and gave us a great tour of the Duomo (cathedral) then we

Day 25 June 16, 2023 (Florence) After a 20-minute walk to the train station, we boarded and after about 1 ½ hours we made it to Florence. Our walk from the Florence train station to our BNB was about 20-25 minutes and there were people EVERYWHERE! Our place is about 2 blocks from the Ponte

Day 24 June 15, 2023 (Lucca) Today was a perfect day for walking around Lucca! After dealing with rain the past two days, it was a nice change, though as I said before, we can’t complain as we have had great weather throughout the trip so far. We headed out about 10:30 and walked all

Day 23 June 14, 2023 (Lucca) After a decent night’s sleep and sleeping in a little, I worked on the blog to get caught up over the last two days. We basically had brunch (eggs/sausage/yogurt/fruit) and then headed out to explore. We bought Rick Steves’ book on Italy and have torn pages out for each

Day 22 June 13, 2023 Today we left for Lucca. This morning when we got up, the skies were dark, and you could hear thunder and then the rain came. It was cooler than it had been, so we quickly changed from shorts to long pants (so glad we did!). We had a short trek

Day 21 June 12, 2023 (Manarola) Today we caught the train to Monterosso al Mare and hiked to Levanto. It was an intense hike and we basically climbed over 1100 feet up before descending. It kicked my butt…..I have been keeping up with my steps/miles every day and today the flights registered as 133, which

Day 20 June 11, 2023 (Manarola) Today was a bit of an easy day today. It was time to give the legs a break from walking, though regardless of where you walk, it’s up, lol! I have to say, all of these little towns are nothing but stairs so you definitely need to be prepared

Day 19 June 10, 2023 (Manarola) We were up early today, around 6 a.m., and decided to grab a few groceries and then take the train to Vernazza for the day. We took a brief walk around the town before the crowds and snapped a few pics. We caught the 9:30 train and walked all

Day 18 June 9, 2023 (Manarola) Today we hiked the trail from Manarola to Riomaggiore and let’s just say it was a challenge. It is only ¾ mile long, but it is almost a straight up and straight down hike. Literally 800 feet up and 800 feet down. Luckily, there are lots of places to

Day 17 June 8, 2023 A little history about where we are staying – Manarola, where we are, is one of the five villages that makes up Cinque Terre. The other villages are Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, and Riomaggiore. It’s a six-mile stretch of coast first described in medieval times as the “five lands” (cinque terre).