Casa Duomo - Manarola, Cinque Terre, IT (Day 1 of 6)

 

Manarola

We are so close!  We have been wanting to go to Cinque Terre for cinque anni, and now we are only cinque chilometri away.  We get a quick cappuccino and a croissant.  There are almost no bugs, but a pesky mosquito lands on my forehead, which Deb nimbly swats and brushes off into my coffee…thanks! 

The train station is packed.  The line for the Cinque Terre Card is long, the platform is crowded and once the train arrives, it’s a stampede to get on.  We had decided to spend some of the morning just riding the train between towns, but now with standing room only that seems less than pleasant.  So we get off at the town we are staying in, Manarola. Surprise, surprise…virtually the entire train gets off at our stop.  The train leaves, empty and we are on the platform with throngs of tour people.  We flow with the tours through a long tunnel into the center of town. 

Gelatos 

After a cappuccino and a croissant, our check-in spot is a trekking shop 5 doors down.  Once checked in, we are guided to the apartment by a young lady.  She has no problem climbing the hundred or so steps up the hill, but then again, she’s not carrying two suitcases.  The apartment is a three story walk-up, of course.  It’s a lovely apartment, bedrooms on the third floor, kitchen on the fourth, all with balconies and gorgeous views, right next to the bell tower.

Hedgehog Cactus

We have finally gotten into the Greek eating timetable, with a big meal at about 2PM and a light meal at 7 or 8PM.  But we’re not in Greece anymore.  Here the big meal is in the evening, apparently.  Well, we have two weeks to figure it out!

Cinque Terre Gateway - La Spezia, IT

We took the train from Bari to Rome, and then from Rome to La Spezia.  It’s European trains and…gasp!…we were 5 minutes late getting to Rome.  That was pretty much the excitement for the day.

We arrived in La Spezia at precisely 17:54 (exactly on schedule).  Deb does not appreciate my lezze faire approach to finding our hotel.  In Bari, she asked if we were getting close to the hotel and I answered “probably.”  I should have known better.  As we got off the train in La Spezia, she got out her phone, Google the hotel, did a 360 to get her direction correct and was off.

Well that got us to the front door of a huge well maintained building facing a piazza.  I had received a text with the secret code.  Deb found the keypad, we entered the code and click…we were in!  Inside was a dilapidated courtyard, paint peeling and sort of

dingy.  The text said to go to the back of the courtyard, turn right and go up the stairs to the third floor.  Of course, we are Americans and start our floor numbers at 1, we are in Europe where floor numbers start at 0, so we tried to break into the second floor, unsuccessfully, until we realized we had to go up one more flight of stairs.  Once we got there we entered the second secret code and click…we entered a brightly lit, 21st century hallway.  Now the text said to go to door #2 and enter a third code to open a little box with our room card key.  Using the card key, the light turned green and we were in.  We hadn’t eaten all day, but the thought of re-entering the building seemed somewhat daunting.

With a little courage and a 37% charge on my phone (the only place that had all the codes) we left for a cocktail and eventually a couple of pizzas.  And we made it back to the room, codes and all!

Tomorrow we venture to our Italian getaway, Cinque Terre.

Vin e Va - Bari, IT

 

The ferry arrived on schedule and we headed off for the old part of Bari, narrow alleys, no cars. According to Tripadvisor, 837 restaurants, but they are probably missing a few.  We dropped the bags off at the B&B.  The room won’t be ready for a few hours, so that gives us time to explore.  We are leaving fairly early in the morning, so I wanted to scope out the trip to the train station.  It’s going to be a pretty long walk dragging a roller bag.  Once back in Bari Vecchio (old Bari), we search out a cafe for a cup of coffee and a WC, the choices were somewhat limited (actually we only found one place open before noon).  

You can put anything in front of “-eteria”. If you serve coffee, you have “cafeteria”. If you serve pizza, you have a”pizzateria”.  If you serve spaghetti, you have a “spagheteria”.  But our favorite was if you serve mojitos, you have a “mojitoteria”.  The most famous part of old Bari is the Bastillio de St Nicholas, said to be

where he was buried in 300 AD.  The church was very impressive with gold guilding surround the paintings on the ceiling,  it has the appearance of a castle, and was apparently used as one several times in its thousand year old history.  Of course it was restored in 1300 to add some more modern touches.

By the time we left it was pouring rain which lasted until the evening.  The sky’s finally cleared long enough for us to dine al frescho.  Zuppa ai fungi and spaghetti carbonara with 1/2 liter of white wine.

Tomorrow up early, the owner of the B&B is going to drive us to the train station as we head for Cinque Terra.

Patra, GR -> Bari, IT Ferry

This is our transition day.  Going from a driving, night here, night there to trains, week here, week there.  We also decided we needed to only bring carry on bags, so we have ten days of clothes, and yes, today is day ten.  Up fairly early, we checkout.  The hotel appears to be a restored Greek mansion, with marble everywhere,  a reflecting pool in the courtyard,  but with every electronic convenience.  Patra, itself, is suppose to an artsy, technology city, but all we ever saw was high rises, narrow streets and farmers markets.  The laundromat is right downtown on a very busy street.  With a week of Greek driving and encouragement from the concierge at the hotel, I just double parked in front of the laundromat.  I have never double parked in my life so it was a little scary thinking about some 300 lb Greek guy telling me that I blocked him in, but within half an hour the entire block was double parked by people smaller than me. With the laundry done, we dropped off the car in about 2 minutes, leaving us only 7 hours to catch the ferry.   

So far the ferry has been enjoyable, drinks in the bar, dinner in the restaurant, nightcap in the bar, back to the cabin for the night.

Bold Type Hotel - Patra, GR

 

This morning we went to Archemedies Museum.  Wow, we didn’t realize how intelligent he was. They had examples of his inventions and his mathematical solutions.  From there we went to the Olympia Site museum.  As in Athens, they have taken the statues from the site and displayed them with context in the museum.  After having been at the site, yesterday, we could see how it all fit together.  

An authentic Greek gyro 

After coffee (and a gyro for Deb), we left for Patras. Nothing special on the route.  Patras is the third largest city in Greece and as with all of Greece has a huge parking problem.  The streets are narrow and with cars parked on both sides, there is just enough room to drive a small car.  Fortunately, the Bold Type Hotel has marked off several parking spots right in front of the building.

We took a walk around town (past an empty parking garage!…not doin’ €5 to park).  Saw some Roman ruins, and a partially restored amphitheater.  Had a cocktail in the garden of the hotel and went next door for small plates: French, Indian, and Thai.  There was no traditional Greek food on the menu!

Tomorrow we wash clothes, turn in the car, and get on a ferry.  All of these have some level of angst but we are going to get through it…calmly!

Hotel Pelops - Ancient Olympia, GR

 Our Mercedes has a built in navigation system, which is fortuitous since it is the only reliable system we have (we often drop cell coverage).  Today it, however, decided to take us on a short detour before putting us back on the same road we had been traveling.  We drove along the base of a huge cliff with all sorts of overhanging rocks until we got to a herd of goats being driven down the road by a pack of dogs.  Deb was fumbling with her phone, so you will just have to trust us that it happened.

Lunch, today, was the remains of the ham and cheese from yesterday, on the shores of the Ionian Sea.

Pastistio 

Ancient Olympia is the home of the Olympic Games back in ancient times.  The archeological site is massive. There are ruins from 2000 BC to 500 AD. Different civilizations just kept adding or destroying.  Eventually a few earthquakes and a flood or two completed the destruction and buried the area under 25 feet of mud.

There was a temple to Pelops (same as the name of the hotel we are staying at).  Pelops is the god of Peloponnese.  It was said that he was dismembered and made into stew.  One of the gods ate his shoulder before they realized what had happened and reassembled him again.  Apparently, the ancients didn’t know about mastodons, etc so whenever they found a large bone, the assumed it came from a god and ceremoniously buried it.

The front desk at the hotel recommended a place for diner.  Deb has been looking for authentic pastitsio, so this was a great find.  We are still feeling our way around the metric system.  Last night we got a sense for what a liter of white wine looks like…it looks like a lot!

Tomorrow, we take in a museum before heading for our final stop in Greece, Patras.

Katikies Mani (Day 2) - Stoupa, GR

 The plan for today is to drive around the small peninsula close to Stoupa, eat lunch along the route, have dinner in St Nicholas, return to the room and watch the sunset.  

Actually what we did was, lie around on the patio till noon, drop down to Katherine’s Market, pick up some ham and cheese, some bread and mayo for lunch.  Hang around the patio till dinner, decide to make up a charcuterie with the ham and cheese, some Kalamata olives (Kalamata is the next town up the coast) and bread, and eat it on the patio while watching the sunset.

I guess some days just don’t go as planned!  Tomorrow is Ancient Olympia.