Author name: lfpick64@gmail.com

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).

Day 16 June 7, 2023 Today we traveled from Venice to Manarola. We had to change trains twice, which was interesting as we did not have much time in between to get from one to the other. The first leg of the trip (over an hour) we had assigned seats and plenty of room for

Day 15 June 6, 2023 Today was an easy day as we started to do some packing before heading to Padua for the day. It’s only a 25-minute train ride so we got there about 11:30. We went to the Basilica of St. Anthony. Friar Anthony of Padua was Christ’s perfect follower and a tireless

Day 14 June 5, 2023 It rained last night and this morning, so we were in no rush to head out. I had a chance to post two more blogs, which almost has me caught up. It was close to noon before we ventured out and it was a little cooler because of the rain

Day 13 June 4, 2023 We had a leisurely morning and then decided since the weather was not going to be great on Monday, we would take the train in to Verona and spend the day there. We have been using a lot of Rick Steves’ Italy guidebook and he has his own version of