Ryan's Top 5 Wrap Up

Well, here it is, Ryan's wrap up of Italy 2007 (Jess' to follow, we hope, he's kinda blogged out).

Top Cities:

1) Venice-It was my first time here and it was more spectacular in person than any photo could capture. Visually stunning at every turn. Unfortunately your first impressions are as good as it gets as the city is swarming with tourists (just like us!!). After awhile the endless crowds start to get to you. Returning in off peak season would be bliss!! If we could do it again we would have done the whole trip in September when temperatures were more bearable and crowds lighter (slightly!)




2) Rome- This was my second trip to Rome and until now Rome and Paris (four visits) have been competing for my favorite city in the world award (so far). After this visit I would definitely put Paris at the top of my list. Rome is amazing, but for some reason less amazing this time around. Perhaps the excruciating heat dampened my spirits and it also felt the the hotel I chose for our initial leg there, while lovely and modern, was too far out of the way...hiking 20-30 minutes, on foot, to the sites in 38C wears you down...nevermind jetlag from the 9 hour time change on top of it. Having said that there is nothing like touring the Colosseum and ancient ruins in Rome and the shopping on via Condotti is second to none (Hello, massive Prade boutique for men).



3) Cinque Terre (not a city, I know) - Absolutely stunning. Having been told by a number of people that is was there favorite place in the world expectations were high. We took a train from Florence to the Cinque Terre and while the train ride is lovely through Tuscany the train eventually enters a mountain tunnel for a considerable time to emerge clinging to the cliffs of Cinque Terre and the views take your breath away. Each of the 5 towns are gorgeous against the backdrop of the Mediterranean.



4) Florence- My second trip to Florence. Florence was named the top city in the world to visit by "Travel and Leisure" magazine...and I don't know why. It is a lovely town but has never grabbed me. There are tonnes of tourists here and it is a very pretty town but...for some reason I don't love it. People flock to the Uffizi Gallery (supposedly one of Italy's top museum) but I just don't get it. This was my second time through the museum and still I just didn't get the appeal. I guess I am not sophisticated enough. Perhaps the fact that I know absolutely nothing about the bible and the story of Jesus (which seems to be the theme in every painting) didn't help.


You are supposed to
attached a lock here with
your lovers name and
throw the key in the river
but I guess Jess forgot to
go to Home Depot before
trip!! :(


5) Positano- Positano is a gorgeous town clinging to the Amalfi Coast and the views are amazing. The town is geared towards just relaxing in the sun...something I have never been into. They were in the middle of a heat/humidity wave so it was difficult to leave the hotel in the afternoon...thank god we had a Jacuzzi tub on our deck overlooking the sea to relax in. We did have some amazing meals here though plus our cooking class here with Mamma Agata was the highlight of our whole trip.



Top Activities:

1) Mamma Agata's cooking class (Ravello, near Positano)-Absolutely amazing. The class was at Mamma's house which the family had owned for 250 years, 1000 ft above the Mediterranean sea with their private garden below were they grew all the food used in the cooking class (including the chicken!!). The views were amazing and Chiara (mamma's daughter) was the most gracious host and Mamma was just what you would expect of an Italian mother, plump and jolly. They hold weddings on their property and Chiara recommended Jess and I get married there. Who knows??!!??




2) Hiking the Cinque Terre trail-My god it was hard but worth it. The trail was 3 ft across at times 1000 ft up the cliff from the ocean but the views were amazing. We hiked through vineyards, olive groves, lemon groves...lizards hung to the rocks along the trail (and I squealed like a school girl every time I saw one).




3) Borghese gallery (Rome)- the most beautiful sculpture museum. I have never had an appreciation for sculpture but the audio guide was amazing. To see these sculptures that someone had chipped from one piece of marble was amazing.

4) Shopping via Condotti (Rome)- I LOVE TO SHOP!! Actually I do more window shopping than buying. We all know Italy is the fashion centre of the world and via Condotti has every shop you can imagine...at way less that we pay in Canada...Prada, Bulgari, Tods, Dolce and Gabbana, Gucci,....it goes on and on....Zegna....heaven.

5) Murano Island- Murano glass if famous around the world and this is were is comes from...30 min on boat from Venice. Every shop loaded with beautiful glass pieces. Very fun to look at. If only I had $4000 dollars in my pocket we could have gotten the piece we wanted....maybe next time.

Top Meals:

1) La Zucca (Venice)- A vegetarian place. Simple delicious food. Who knew curried carrots could taste so good. The Caprese was to die for.


2) La Tagliata (Positano)-The "no menu..you just taste everything" place. An experience like you probably can't find anywhere else. Six pasta dishes on one plate...how can you not love that.


3) Alfredo Al Campidolgilio (Rome)- The best pasta, they brought it to the table the mixed it all together, butter, cheese, egg noodles (cooked to perfection)...it was like Kraft Dinner X10....I didn't even need Ketchup!!

4) Next2 (Positano)- Funky restaurant, nice decor, amazing food, nice servers, amazing veal.



Top Hotels:

1) Ca Maria Adele(Venice)- Perfect. Beautiful rooms. Service amazing. A small hotel, only 14 rooms. All the rooms unique.




2) Wesin Excelsior (Florence)- Ornate room. Nice bed. Very helpful friendly staff.


3) Sofitel Rome (Rome)- Nice location short walk to main shopping area. Most luxurious bed.

4) Forty Seven (Rome)-Our first Rome hotel. Too far out of the way. Nice large room with balcony.


5) Hotel Magherita (Monterosso, Cinque Terre)- Simple room but best the cinque terre had to offer.



I hope Jess will post his impressions of our trip. Otherwise our next big trip is Argentina in December for my 40th and Jess' 30th birthday celebration. Thank you to everyone who took the time to have a look at our travel blog it was fun to share our experiences with you.

(This is Jess now...)
Here's is my Top 5 Wrap Up:
DITTO.

Well, not really to be honest but I am LOVING the fact that I don't have to blog everyday and I'm going to ride it out as long as I can. The only real difference is the order of our favorite cities, so I'll save you from reading everything twice (that's my excuse anyway).

Until next time...

Stay Tuned

Apparently we have more fans than we knew about... extremely busy fans that don't have an extra five minutes in their day to leave a COMMENT, but we love and appreciate you anyway (but you can forget about getting a 'My Friends Went To Italy And All They Brought Me Back Was This Lousy Shirt' T-Shirt. We just spoke to mother in Comox and she told us about the 10s upon 10s of readers.

So, we'll post a wrap-up posting and add a bunch of pictures now that we're officially itinerary-less. Just give us some time to start on the mountain of laundry and attend to things that need attending to... Like our hair. We are both in desperate need of trim... I am starting to look like Jerry Seinfeld, and Ryan's spikes are so long that they are starting to lean on each other to stay standing, morphing into two horns on the top of his head.

Now it's time to start sorting through the 1,500 pictures we took. Here's hoping that we can get through them all and put up the post before our reservation at the Sweet Sunshine-Coast Oasis Rehab Clinic for our dry out. We have a standing reservation each year at this time. The staff is FABULOUS. Let us know if we can send you any info.

We're Home

It's 4:00 p.m. and we've just arrived at our apartment... we left Italy at 9:00 p.m. (Vancouver time) yesterday. We slept only an hour on the plane and are hoping to keep ourselves awake until tonight so that we can get our clocks back on schedule.

Thank goodness we taped every Big Brother we missed. It's going to be a marathon for the rest of the day, and tomorrow.

XOXO. Bye for now,
Jess and Ryan.

I win!!!

You know that fight we were having? The one about whether or not we should be going to a hopping, happing place for a glamour lunch?... the one that I didn't want to dress up for? Well, I gave in... fine, I thought. A dress shirt to shut him up (I'm exaggerating... kinda). Ryan, as always, did a ton of research and decided that we should go to a 1:00 p.m. reservation at the Zagat recommended Mirabelle Restaurant, in a hotel around the corner. PHEW!!! Good thing we made a reservation!

Here's a picture of ALL of the people at the restaurant...

Here is a picture of all of the patrons on the terrace...

And... here is a picture of the view...


Beautiful... simply stunning (FYI: Enter sarcasm after every word). Anyway, we ate... I waited... I dared not say anything... I waited for him... AND I WON!!! (Play victory music NOW!!!). Brutal! Waste of money! Chaffing on my inner thighs thanks to dress pants and 30 degrees in addition to paying WAY TOO MUCH money for lunch. Seriously, I needed a Big Mac once all is said and done.

To Ry's credit, the food was good... but both of us would agree that it wasn't worth it. Our waiter took a picture but it didn't turn out very well (see below). In fact, Ryan decided that since lunch was so brutal, it was our waiter's duty to stand there until he got a good picture. Well, he got a good picture but the exposure is terrible. Oh well... I suppose the dark exposure hides our man-boobs.

Anyway, that's all for now. Since our last mortgage payment went to pay for some lame ass lunch, we will be dining at McDonald's tonight (we're not kidding, and we're REALLY looking forward to it!!!) and be waking up at 4:00 a.m. to make our flight to Frankfurt. Thanks for your comments... we loved them. We might be able to send one from the airport in Germany (we have a 5 hour layover).

Bye for now... XOXO

P.S. Ryan thinks this post makes him look bad, so I am obligated to add the following clip to make him feel better...

Crisis Averted

All is well in the land of Jess and Ry. I'm even backing it up with visual proof. Take a look.

You know how it is. Three weeks is a long time, regardless of how much fun you're having. Little annoyances start building up... like trying to find a non sweat-in, clean shirt, or having to make sure you packed everything. This includes searching through the 'Scent of Summer' bag. It is where we have stashed the "we can't possibly wear that one more time if we have to share an elevator with strangers" articles of clothing. I swear, unzipping that case is like burping tupperware containing Christmas dinner that is still in the back of the fridge, next to the jar of moldy pickles.


We left Positano and drove to Naples train station. Thankfully, Ry didn't turn green or feel the need to throw his head out of the window to unload. We got there about an hour early and had breakfast at McDonald's which included a Big Mac and a McBeer each. I know that we're in a country with amazing food, but damn that tasted good. As we were waiting for our train, we heard an announcement over the intercom and saw a mass of people walking toward one of the Eurostar trains. Nothing was posted on the board, or on the mini screens that are above each set of train tracks. Learning from our Cinque Terre experience, we decided to see if it was our train. Kudos to us... it was. We walked down the tracks, avoiding all "helpers," and got ready for Rome.

The "Helpers" are these sketchy guys that stand by the trains and offer to (tell you they're going to) put your luggage on the train. What dumb North Americans can't figure out is that they are not offering to help out of the goodness of their hearts. They put your luggage on, help you find your seat (in about 2 seconds less time than it would have taken you) and then stand there demanding 10 or 20 Euro ($15-30).


So here is the last hotel of the holiday. The Sofitel Rome. It's nice. Anything would be smaller than the last hotel but (aside from not having a hot tub) I like it more. Here's something funny about the hotels we've been in. The mattresses are rock hard. For those of my Taiwanese teacher friends that are reading this... straw mat hard. So weird. You would think that nice hotels would go for something really soft. Well, our bed here is amazing. As soon as we lied down, we sunk into a mass of down. Really comfy, and breakfast is included (woo hoo!). The only downside is that internet is really expensive (you're welcome, all of you).




WE HAVE AN ANNOUNCEMENT... No actually, we don't. We went back to a restaurant we liked called Gusto (I think the reason I liked it so much last time is because everyone spoke English... relief. This time... not nearly as good). I waited for Ryan to see what was on my engagement finger. It's actually the foil wrapped up from the wine bottle. Hey, I got a laugh (after minor cardiac arrest).


Today in Rome, we went around to some of the same sights we were at before. The temperature is so much nicer and it seems that the tourists have thinner out substantially. Here is a picture of me in front of Trevi Fountain. I realize that my smile is somewhat ridiculous but we didn't have a lot of time. There is still enough people there to have a window of about 2.3 seconds to snap a picture.


AND... Thank GOD we finally found an Italian retailer that cater to fellows such as ourselves. After all of the cheese and pasta, we are forced to pick up a few items at "Extra Large." I think it means "Super Hot" in Italian.


That's all for now. We have very little time left on the 24 hour block of internet time that we bought. We'll try and post more pictures before it runs out but won't buy any more time if we can't (way too expensive). We have to get up at 4:00 a.m. and leave for Frankfurt at 6:45. If you don't hear from us, we'll post once we're home. XO.