And now for something completely different: Day 1 in Japan

Airport lounge cappucino

So I know I just got done writing about our week in Italy, but I’m now in Japan. Due to poor planning and the fact that our school’s “April” break stretched ridiculously to 5/4, I had about 26 hours between getting home from the first trip and leaving for the airport (again) for the second one.

This time I’m traveling with a group I recently joined

Airport lounge brunch

called Friendship Force. It’s a sort of travel exchange program, and I’m here in Japan with nine other members of the NH Seacoast chapter, and two ladies from Florida. We’ll be hosted by Japanese clubs in Nara and Tokyo, but we planned a three-day pre-trip to see Kyoto first. So for the moment, we’re regular tourists here. I’m rooming with my new friend Margaret, retired librarian of Moharimet School.

Our trip out involved a 15-hour flight to Hong Kong (over the North Pole!) and then a four-hour flight to Osaka. We left Boston at 1:40 am, and for mysterious reasons were promptly

Our train to Kyoto was a Hello Kitty express

served dinner. Between the long flights and the 14-hour time change, we lost a whole day (resulting in me, through no fault of my own, losing my Wordle streak). The highlight of the trip was the airport lounge in Hong Kong — -Margaret and I enjoyed a fresh fruit smoothie of the day, a delicious meal, and a very nice bathroom. (This had the added benefit of allowing me to decline the not-very-good meal we were served on the next flight.) The lowlight was going through Customs in Japan, which had a line that made Disney World look like nothing. We thought our trip through US Customs at

Nijo-Jo Castle gate

Logan was bad when we came back from Italy, but it was nothing to the Japanese version. I counted a total of seven steps/lines that we had to go through, right up till the end when a sprightly, non-English-speaking Japanese customs agent ran off with my suitcase (to put it through the metal detector again, apparently).

Anyway, we managed to get through the airport and onto a train to Kyoto, and from there onto a shuttle to

Art exhibition (oddly, German) at the castle

our hotel. It’s a pretty nice place featuring amenties such as a heated toilet seat and a shoe dryer. We managed to stay awake long enough to get to a nearby restaurant for noodle bowls before getting into bed around 7 pm (having been awake god knows how long).

For our first real day in Japan, we planned a visit to Nijo-Jo Castle, which is conveniently right across the street from our hotel. We thought we might have trouble getting up in time for the 10am tour that we’d booked, but fortunately sleeping 7pm – 7am proved to be fairly refreshing and we ended up with plenty of time. Margaret and I even ventured out to breakfast — at a nearby 7-11. We’ve heard that convenience stores are much nicer and have pretty good food here, and we’d both read a Japanese book called Convenience Store Woman that made us eager to check out the scene. And we can report that the rumors are true. I had something very tasty that resembled a hash brown. Margaret is vegetarian and had fewer options, but she managed to find sufficient snacks to keep her going. We both approved of the latte.

The castle and surrounding grounds were lovely. Our guide told us all about the history of the Shogun regime that constructed and defended it, and its eventual transfer to the Imperial family. It was a very interesting contrast with the lavish palaces that we’d seen in Italy. Nijo-Jo was lavish in its own way, with much simpler and smaller rooms but elaborately painted with gold. There was a great deal of thought given to symbolism — what was painted in each room, the level of the ceiling and the floor, and various other factors all held hidden meanings related to status and power. I was intrigued by the Japanese philosophy of making rooms multi-functional. When you wanted to do something in a room — say, eat dinner — furnishings like a table would be brought in from a storage room. After use, they’d be put back, leaving the room empty for another use.

We had another tour booked in the afternoon for the Honmaru Palace within the same grounds, having planned to have lunch in between. We were foiled by being told that we weren’t allowed to leave and re-enter, so instead of a real lunch we had to content ourselves with a snack from the castle cafe, which mosty consisted of ice cream (which was literally gold-plated, and consequently quite expensive).

After enjoying the complex’s beautiful gardens for a while, we made our way across the moat to the Honmaru Palace. It was surrounded by high stone walls of incredible workmanship. Giant stone bricks had been assembled to make the wall, and though they were somewhat irregularly shaped the corners of the wall were a perfect knife’s edge. The palace itself was also beautiful — we removed our shoes and walked down halls carpeted with tatami mats (the smell of which instantly brought me back to beach trips in the 80s, where we’d purchase bamboo mats to lay our towels on). The palace’s painting and wallpaper were gorgeous, and the atmosphere was quiet and calm since the number of visitors at a time is strictly limited.

After a brief afternoon rest, we had one more activity for the day — an evening guided tour of the Gion District, famous for geishas. We learned a lot about the geisha lifestyle, including that it actually doesn’t involve any form of prostitution. (Apparently Memoir of a Geisha was a lie.) We walked past the geisha schools and heard about the grueling 5-year program that they have to follow to become a geisha (and the large amounts of money that they make afterwards). Some interesting factoids: (1) Geishas in training have to wear their hair a specific way that takes several hours of styling, so they can only get it done once a week. To preserve the hair they have to sleep on these special tiny pillows that looked extremely uncomfortable. (2) Kimono worn by geishas are hand-made and cost $30,000-$60,000 apiece. (3) Men can be geishas, but not in Kyoto. Foreigners can also be geisha, but must be fluent in Japanese. (I think Margaret is considering a second career.) We only caught sight of one actual geisha, sitting in a cab, but the walk through narrow, old fashioned streets and along the river was charming regardless.

After the tour we had to find dinner, and this proved a bit of a challenge. Margaret and I, in search of vegetarian food for her, ended up at a vegan restaurant. It was extremely tiny — 8 seats total along a bar, with the kitchen right behind. I think the whole place was smaller than our hotel room. It was populated almost entirely with Westerners — I don’t think the Japanese are big on veganism — except for this one slightly drunk Japanese gentleman who hit on Margaret. (His opening line was “You and me — same age!”, which didn’t really get things off on the right foot, since he turned out to be about 80.) The food was amazing and the two women running the place were friendly and kind. It was a very memorable experience.

Off the beaten path in Milan

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After all the excitement of the past several days, we decided to take it a bit easier today. We hadn’t planned or reserved anything, and didn’t really have any must-see agenda items. (The biggest attraction here is the Duomo cathedral/museum complex, and we half-heartedly checked for tickets in the morning, but none were available. Given all the art and churches that we’ve seen, no one was too devastated by this.) Bob and I let the girls sleep, and it was a record 11:30 before we made it out of the hotel.

Sforzesco Castle

I was googling “top things to do in Milan” and having trouble coming up with a good agenda for the day — everything was advertisements for fancy guided tours and/or more museums — when I finally had the bright idea of googling “free things to do in Milan”, which gave us a couple of better ideas. I plotted out a walking route and we set off for our first destination, Parco Sempione.

Milan seems to be full of beautiful parks, and this one might have been the crown jewel of them all. We saw online that there was an aquarium within the park — Nadia loves aquariums — so we made that our first stop. It was in a beautiful old building with a cool fountain out front, and — being pretty small and low-key — was the perfect antidote to all the crowds that we’ve been encountering everywhere. We spent a relaxing hour or two strolling through the exhibits and gardens. (One of the coolest things was that in a random corner of the basement, near the bathrooms, we found a gorgeous shell collection — and saw that some of them were from the collections of Linnaeus and Lemarck.) Total cost: 13 euro (about $15) for all four of us.

Continuing through the park, we next came upon the Sforzesco Castle. This was a large, imposing structure with multiple segments and courtyards. The interior housed an art museum, which we didn’t go into, but just the exterior areas were very impressive. (I was tempted to buy tickets for the Panoramic Battlements Walk, but wasn’t sensing a lot of interest from the troops in climbing a bunch of stairs.)

Next on the agenda was a walk past the Duomo, to at least see the exterior. Here we found the crowds again. The area of Milan where we’re staying is very urban and modern, but we found that the area around the Duomo is much more like Florence, but with even more beautiful architecture everywhere you looked. (Despite the crowds, walking was considerably easier because Milan has created actual pedestrian areas, rather than streets that appear to be pedestrian until a random taxi or delivery truck edges by.) It was definitely worth the trip to see the Duomo and all the amazing buildings around it.

That’s a real flamingo!

The restaurants around the Duomo were all crowded and expensive, so we veered off the tourist track again to find a place for a late lunch. We found ourselves walking through what was clearly a wealthy area of quiet streets and picturesque buildings. At one point we saw a tall wrought iron fence surrounding an area of greenery, with a few people peering inside. To our surprise we found that it was a large enclosed yard full of flamingos. We didn’t see any signs or public access, so we can only assume this was some rich person’s backyard. Eventually we got out of the wealthy area

Maybe Lanie didn’t want to share her pasta

and into a normal city neighborhood, to reach the fresh pasta restaurant that Nadia had found online. (They had about 8 different types of fresh pasta and even more types of sauces and cheeses, and you could construct your own meal. All were delicious.)

Next we headed to another park — the Gardens of Porta Venezia. This one houses a planetarium, where we were planning to take in a show. Unfortunately we found that the only shows that day were intended for children, so we had to skip that part of the agenda. We still enjoyed strolling the cool, shady paths of the park, watching the fashionable Milanese pass by, and the dogs playing in the large leash-free field. (Lots of people

We didn’t have time to check out the Natural History museum, in the same park as the planetarium.

in Italy have daschunds, which are particularly fun and comical to watch.)

Our last stop was the Secret Rooms escape room. Our family always enjoys escape rooms — and we usually do pretty well at them — but we hadn’t fit one in yet on this trip. Unfortuately, we found that Zoe is a key reason for our success, and we didn’t do all that well without her. We had to get several hints and were a minute or two late in finishing the challenge. Still, it was a fun way to spend an hour. On the way back to the apartment we rewarded ourselves with pastries from a local bakery.

There was a soccer game happening in Milan that evening, which Bob and Nadia had considered going to — but the 8:45pm start time was off-putting, given that we had to get up for our flight home at 5:30 the next morning. As a compromise, we tried to find a bar to watch the first part of the game — but sports bars seem a little harder to find here than at home. We tried a couple of places that didn’t work out, so eventually we just had a delicious Indian dinner and went back to our apartment for packing and an early bedtime.

The lovely courtyard in our apartment building

We finish Florence in amazing fashion

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There are clearly many surprises left to be discovered in Florence (like, who, exactly is sitting behind those little doors in the wall waiting to dispense glasses of wine?), but we have limited time here. Today gave us our last few hours of exploring.

As in previous days, we relied upon the Firenze Card, which gets us access to most of the city’s museums. It is a good deal if you like to browse through these places to catch the highlights and the general atmosphere. For someone who likes to methodically investigate a museum’s collection over the course of the day, it might not be such a bargain.

Before we could explore we had to vacate our lovely temporary apartment and find storage for our bags for the day (about 18 euro for three bags in an automated locker facility near the train station). Then we headed off to the Boboli Gardens for a pre-planned rendezvous with Nadia.

The gardens were elaborate and lovely, if a little unkempt in places. They featured a broad central boulevard which led to a circular lagoon with an island in the middle. The island was filled with all kind of flowers and fruit trees, but we could not get out to it. They were being watered; maybe they open the gates after that is done.

From there the boulevard slopes steeply upwards, and we managed our way to the top to find a field surrounded by sculpture and a view the the Pitti Palace spread out below us. This was all nudging us closer to a major goal of the day, and perhaps the whole trip.

A few seasons back, our family favorite show The Amazing Race visited Florence and there was a pivotal sequence that took place on a veranda above the city. Nadia was able to locate the site and pointed it out to us — it’s right across the river from her apartment. We have since been trying to get up there, and the Boboli Gardens provided our route. After strolling the upper portion of the gadens for a while — taking care not to follow any appealing trails back down towards the city, we found an exit that was only a five-minute (relatively level) walk to the Villa Bardini, which houses the famous (to us) Amazing Race Terrace.

Before we knew it, we were in the very same place where the Amazing Race contestant — who was a life coach and motivational speaker — came very close to having a complete breakdown because she could not figure out the task of carving a model of Michaelangelo’s David (that guy is literally everywhere you turn in Florence) from a block of plaster. Right behind it was the patio where teammates had to sit and watch the action take place. It’s a coffee shop now.

We reveled in reliving such a momentous event (this particular team wound up eliminated from the race, largely because of what happened on the Bardini terrace). It also has a very nice view of the city.

It’s worth noting now that since we got off the train from Monterosso on Monday, we have not been on any vehicles — with the exception of the ebikes from the tour yesterday. All day, all week, we have been walking around on our own feet. And we have been moving about a fair bit. Our legs and feet are starting to get worn out a bit.

Except for Nadia, who has had months of training at this. She led us down through the Bardini Gardens and across the river to her favorite sandwhich shop, where they slice up the fine artisinal sandwich meats right there in front of you. Then she brought us to another of her favorite spots, the Michaelangelo Gardens and terrace back in the hills above the city. Somewhere in there, she even found us a reviving spritz at one of her favorite corner cantinas.

Once back in the hills, even Nadia got a surprise because a special portion of the gardens recently opened up for a month or so. For the second time today, our march up the hill was tempered by such beauty as to lift the spirit and move our feet steadily along. Flowers can do that to a person.

The top of the Iris Garden led directly to Piazalle Michaelangelo, which is the most popular terrace overlooking Florence for people who are not Amazing Race fans. Thankfully, there are stands there selling refreshments, because our Italian sandwiches were salty and the water fountains in the Iris Garden were labeled non-potable.

From here, we worked our way slowly down through the adjacent gardents, stopping at Nadia’s favorite shady benches. She left us about halfway down to strike out for her apartment and pack for this evening’s train.

Faced with about two hours of waiting before departure, we decided to take in one more museum. The Pitti Palace was not far from our luggage and the train station. It was the third Firenze Card event of the day (the pass got us into the Boboli Gardens and the Villa Bardini — the Michaelangelo Gardens are free to the public). Here, we got to roam the extensive palace while visiting a fashion exhibit and the “modern art” wing, which, eventually, wound its way through the renaissance to make it to the late 19th century.

Then it was time to collect our bags, re-unite with Nadia at the station, and give our feet a rest while we enjoyed a two-hour train ride to Milan.

At the end of the ride we found a much more cosmopolitan atmosphere, with clear boundaries as to where cars and people were supposed to walk. We found our new temporary lodgings, and, on a whim, abandoned Italian food for a nearby — and very good — ramen restaurant.

E-bikes and wine: what could go wrong?

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Nadia suggested that sometime during the trip we Bob and I might like to do some kind of wine tasting tour, while she and Lanie went shopping. It may have been a ploy to get rid of us for the day, but it was a suggestion that we were on board with. I found a winery tour of Chianti (the region of Tuscany that we’re in) by e-bike, and we were sold.

Bob’s post yesterday about the roads here neglected to mention the bike factor. Amongst the crowds of pedestrians and incongruous cars (and golf carts, and scooters, etc.), there is a constant stream of bikes weaving in and out. There seems to be no consideration given to lanes of any kind — the cars/bikes/people just flow in whatever direction there seems to be space. We have had bikes zooming by us everywhere we walk — but today we got to experience the other side of the equation.

Our tour started right in the city center, so we had to wind our way through town. We started out right behind our guide, Iacopo, which is just where I wanted to be. Much less chance of getting lost or making some kind of traffic mistake. After about 10 minutes of riding through the city, the landscape pretty quickly changed to quiet streets lined with greenery and stone walls — and hills. It was extremely satisfying to start struggling on a hill and then just click the magic button that turned up the electricity and let you zoom forward almost effortlessly.

Iacopo was an excellent guide — knowledgeable and funny and friendly — but he was not one to dawdle. A little way outside town we found we’d lost three members of our group somewhere along the way. Our route had had several twists and turns, and apparently they hadn’t kept up. Eventually Iacopo decided that we had to continue on without them. He sent his friend Simone (who was along for the ride and had no affiliation with the tour company at all) back to try to round them up. (“He has a map,” Iacopo declared confidently.)

The route was beautiful, winding through the hills with gorgeous views of Tuscany opening up on either side. We wound through vineyards and olive groves and the occasional town. Once in a while we’d stop to take in the views. As we were about to leave one of these stops, Iacopo began to whoop and whistle. Simone and the errant Italians had appeared in the distance. (Although Iacopo had sent Simone off to find them and bring them back to us, he was clearly astonished that Simone had actually managed to do so.)

For the rest of the trip, my main goal was to try to avoid getting behind them. Even after the getting lost incident, they didn’t seem to be in any rush to keep up with the group. One of them in particular didn’t really seem

This was a sculpture in a town famous for popularizing Italian terra cotta.

to know how to ride a bike, and when nearby I was constantly hearing the grinding of gears. I kept getting stuck behind them, watching the distance to the rest of the group grow, and then eventually having to pass. I much preferred being up front with Iacopo and the punctual Germans, where I didn’t have to worry about being left behind in the hopes that Simone would find me.

We stopped at a family winery for lunch and wine tasting. The food, as always, was delicious. The winery also makes olive oil, but apparently this is so labor-intensive that it’s not very profitable. We got to enjoy some with our lunch, though. On the way back we stopped at a couple of viewpoints with amazing views back over Florence (and very steep downhill descents). After we returned to the city we went to another bar for some more wine tasting and snacks. (We declined seconds on the wine, being mindful of the upcoming periously journey back through the city.) Even though I ended up at the very back of the line and there

Line at Zaza

were a few touch-and-go intersections, we made it back without getting lost or colliding with any pedestrians. I made ample use of my bell.

After all the excitement it was time to meet back up with the girls. Our friends the Sullivans are also in town visiting their study-abroad son, and invited us over for apertivi on their terrace. We picked up the ingredients for limoncello spritzes on the way over, and they were pretty good even though we accidentally bought still water instead of sparkling water.

Nadia had made a dinner reservation for us at her favorite (and apparently, everyone’s favorite) restaurant, Trattoria Zaza. We were able to swoop in past the long, long lines and enjoy a delicious dinner on their patio. Afterwards we went to Nadia’s favorite gelato shop, which had a very long line even at 10:30pm. We can only hope that the miles and miles of walking that we’re doing is burning off some of the many, many calories we’re eating and drinking.

Florence’s way or the highway

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Here we are at the top of the tower, above the fray.

There are lots of kinds of buildings in Florence. Some are orange, and some have stripes. One has a great big half-egg dome on top. Another is a great big block with a tower sticking out of the top that we were able to climb on today.

All of them would be walking around Florence if they had legs. Instead, they’re relatively safe in the Galleria dell’ Academia.

There are lots of kinds of people in Florence. Sure, a lot of them are young college students who look astonishingly similar to Nadia and Lanie, but there are other kinds of people here, too. Tonight at dinner, I heard our watier speak Italian, English and Spanish. He was a good waiter. He had a lot of different people to take care of.

As far as I can tell, there are three kinds of streets in Florence. One kind is big and wide and has lots of lanes for cars to zoom around on. We saw some of these when Nadia took us for a walk along the river to a park on the other side of town from where our apartment is. We needed a nice park to eat our cinnamon roll brunch desserts in. Ironically, to get to a shady park we had to cross several lanes of traffic.

Not likely to block traffic here

Another kind of road we saw today when we were one our way to meet up with Nadia after her cooking class. The class is in this glass-walled classroom right in the middle of the Florence Central Market, which is a fresh food market on the first floor and a food court on the second floor, where Nadia’s class is. We even got to meet her professor. (We were forbidden to take pictures of either class or professor.)

in order to get there though we had to walk on a road choked with vending stalls, most of them selling leather goods. I checked behind the booths and there was usually a leather store right behind the booth. There were many, many booths on both sides of the street. Occasionally, the leather was interrupted by jewelry or soccer jerseys. It was very much a bazaar-like experience, and as Lanie looked at jewelry,

The Gallileo Museum showed his many inventions for detecting approaching traffic.

I could hear other people haggling with, or simply trying to avoid the advances of the leather sellers. I am pretty sure this kind of street is just for walkers. I don’t remember seeing any cars on these roads — and they seem to completely surround the Central Market — but really had my hands full trying to avoid the gaze of the leather salesmen, so if a car came by I probably would have been hit by it.

The third kind of road represents about 90 percent of the streets in Florence, as far as I can tell, and is combination of the other two. That is to say, they seem like they are pedestrian streets, but then all of a sudden a car comes roaming down the middle. It’s not exactly like in Cinque Terre, where it was almost always people except when a special taxi, a garbage truck, or an ambulance went by. Here, it can be any kind of vehicle, even a bus. And it can be on any kind of street, even ones that don’t seem like they can possibly fit a bus.

This is a Florentine car-accessible road. Note the skimpy sidewalks.

Many of these streets are narrow to begin with, and then they have half-hearted sidewalks on eather side that are maybe the width of someone’s body if they kept their arms straight down at their sides. In such a situation, it’s nearly impossible to walk on the sidewalk because there is almost always someone coming your way.

There are lots of people walking around Florence. And yet, they don’t seem to want to commit to having any pedestrian streets. For two days now, I have been lulled into a false sense of safety by crowded, cobblestone streets, only to have a Land Rover sneak up behind me. In fact, now I can’t be comfortable walking anywhere here. I barely looked up at David in the Galleria dell’ Accademia, because I was looking over my shoulder for a delivery truck to come driving down the main hall.

Michealangelo made his David extra tall, so he could spot oncoming Florentine motorists.

White van, having ignored concrete traffic discourager

It may sound like I’m going a little overboard, but it really has gotten into my head. Today, I thought I had finally found an example of a true pedestrian street. There were large round concrete creations in the road that held plants and also offered a people a surface to sit on. I thought it might be a test trail for a car-free zone. Then a van slalomed in between the structures on its way to a quite congested piazza. If it’s a test, they’re going to need some more time for the idea to stick.

Now, Florence does not owe me anything. It’s a great place — if a little nerve wracking — to walk around in. There are many, many interesting things to look at. There are many happy people here. If they want their streets to be mixed-use, then they are entitled to it.

Ancient traffic maps in the Palazzio Veccio Museum

If you can see this, you’re probably blocking traffic.

And I am by no means worried for my life while I’m walking around here. The cars can’t go very fast with people milling all around, but I do feel bad then I turn around to find a carbinieri car coming down the street. Nobody wants to stand in the way of justice. Also, I feel bad for the drivers, having to dodge a bunch of slow moving tourists all the time.

One last note about driving in Florence: Avoid the bridges in the late afternoon. Jen discovered that a large portion of the pedestrian population heads to one of the four bridges to get a good view as the sun goes down. So even the type 1 roads turn into type 3 roads without much warning.

Good luck, Florence drivers.

Culture and cooking

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We’re still not totally adjusted to European time, and the 8am alarm came early today. We had to be up and about to get to our 9am reservation for the Uffizi museum. Last time we were in Italy you could just pay your money and wander in to any museum you wanted, but these days you need to reserve well in advance. Nadia is in class this morning, but the rest of us managed to straggle out a bit later than planned.

Our tardiness ended up working out in our favor. When we arrived there was a long, long line of people in a line marked “9:30”, but the “9:15” line was completely empty and we were able to just waltz through (with our 9am tickets; fortunately they’re not too dogmatic here). There were a LOT of people in the Uffizi, and we got a little overwhelmed by the crowds at first. The rooftop museum cafe, with its views over Florence, looked very inviting — and we hadn’t had time for coffee this morning. A pleasant

View from our cafe table

interlude with cappucinos (excuse me, cappucini, as the waitress informed me) was just what we needed.

Once we got away from the crowds a bit, the museum was very pleasant. Lanie, our resident artist, educated us on the techniques used in the paintings. Bob has been reading a book about the artists of the Renaissance and was able to provide us with many fun facts about what we were looking at. I just trailed along for the ride, not contributing anything, but enjoying the beautiful architecture and artwork.

Amazingly, we’ve gotten to the point where we’re ready for a break from pasta and pizza, so we went to an excellent taco place Nadia recommended for lunch. Then we got to check out Nadia’s apartment. It’s a pretty sweet arrangement — just a couple of minutes walk from the center of everything (Uffizi, Ponte Vecchio, Palazzo Vecchio) — and her room had a large open window looking out over the river. (I will never not be jealous of these Europeans who can have wide open windows with no screens, and somehow no bugs.) Her apartment is also fairly close to the Brandy Melville store, which was a big draw for Lanie. Apparently the Brandy Melville store in Florence has different merchandise than what you can find on the Branch Melville website, or the Brandy Melville Boston store. Looking for Lanie in there was a challenge, because the store seemed to a veritable sea of little Lanies, with long straight flowing hair and white tank tops everywhere you looked.

For the afternoon Nadia joined us for a pasta and tiramisu-making class at a nearby restaurant. We learned some excellent Italian cooking tips from our very skilled and entertaining teacher, though there was also a lot of wine involved so we possibly won’t remember them. We’re not sure whether the ravioli and tagliatelle we were served at the end was actually what we’d made, or whether they’d immediately thrown that away and given us something made by more highly skilled people, but either way it was delicious.

We made one last stop on the way home — the Santa Maria Novella Pharmacy, the world’s oldest pharamacy (established in 1221). According to my Atlas Obscura book, you could buy salves and potions made with 800-year-old recipes, but we mostly saw extremely high-priced modern lotions. (I think they’ve really cashed in since being publicized in Atlas Obscura.)

…but not that impressed with the merchandise.

Cool architecture…

Though we declined to pay upwards of 40 euros for a bottle of hand lotion, the architecture was amazing and we at least could say we’d checked it out.

We were supposed to meet Nadia at a bar to watch a soccer game at 9pm, but we are all somewhat weighed down by pasta and tiramisu and wine, so I think we’re calling it a night.

Things to know about Cinque Terre

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Here are a few things to know about Cinque Terre, and perhaps about Italy as a whole, if you are thinking about going there.

Off-peak does not mean empty trails, at least in the early parts of the hike

1. Monday is a better time to do most things than Sunday. Yesterday when we buckled and bought the CinqueTerre cards so that we could walk on the Via di Amore, it cost a small fortune. The man in the booth apologized to us, saying it was “Peak Season.” I made a joke, saying I was doing it for love (because Via di Amore means “Lovers’ Lane” or something close to that). I even managed to say my joke in Italian, and the man in the booth was mightily impressed. Today, we found out it isn’t peak season anymore.

Mondays are apparently off-peak, and the admission to walk the paths was half of what it was

An early glimpse of Vernazza

yesterday. Friends, take it easy on Sunday in Cinque Terre. Go to the beach or walk on one of the free trails. Then go crazy on Monday.

2. I’m not going to say that this place is a haven for smokers, but it is smoker friendly. Maybe half of the people milling about, or maybe a third, seem to be smoking either an e-cigarette or an analog one. Not in restaurants, mind you. But in the streets. Today while I was waiting outside the apartment on a nice bench they put there, a couple came by and they looked like they were in search of something. I told them I had only been here a day, but I

Getting closer to town

might be able to help them. They were looking for a trash reciptical. I had to admit that the closest one I could think of was a few hundred meters away, near the beach. But there were several cigarette receptacles within sight of where I was. Jen even saw honest-to-goodness ash trays (remember those things?) in several souvenir stands. It is possible that you can smoke in hotel rooms here, too. Our apartment definitely had the scent of smokers. It was like being back in the 80s.

3. It’s not actually super expensive here. This is especially true on Mondays (see #1 above). Our walk from Monterosso to Vernazza was absolutely worth the 7 euro per person we paid. It was my third favorite hiking experience ever (after the Bright Angel Trail at the Grand Canyon’s South Rim and the Franconia Notch loop). It was a strenuous two miles of absolute pleasure. Honestly, it was worth the whole extravagance of getting here. After a few hundred meters of climbing stairs with dozens of other tourists, things spread out and we were able to climb stairs pretty much in our group of four.

Eventually we started getting glimpses of the pink buildings or Vernazza. We began imagining ourselves under one of the multicolored umbrellas in the harbor-side piazza. Soon enough we were there, eating lunch under one of those umbrellas. From time to time we would look up into the hills above us and see the people we had passed on our way over, still making their way along the path. It’s not totally that we’re fine specims of health — I mean, we’re not bad, but there were a lot of people much older than us on the trail, and it was not an easy trail. Lots of stairs to climb along the way, and lots of twists and turns in the trail. It was not as tricky as yesterday’s hike, where there were not dedicated steps and a lot of the rocks were covered in moss, making them slippery. But it was not a total walk in the park, either.

There’s our village of Monterosso in the background.

In terms of expense, we ate lunch in a seaside resort, on the main piazza of what most people think is the most scenic of all the town in the Cinque Terre, and we paid about 85 euro for the four of us. I think we would have paid a lot more in the US, and the food was better than it had to be, given the prime real estate. We have found some nice value here. A liter of sangria at a cafe right above the main Monterosso beach — 20 euro. And they gave us snacks. We ordered another round because we still had an hour before our train left. That’s right, we were in a cafe five minutes from the train station, staring our at the Mediterranian Sea, and they didn’t really gouge us for booze. That price includes the tip. Did I mention that?

4. When you see the pictures of the sesaside villages here, you might notice that the buildings

Cheap sangria on the promenade

are pretty close together, and as a consequence they tend to stretch upward for lack of being able to expand sideways. This creates some interesting elements of interior design.

Our apartment is a prime example of maximizing vertical space — from the ship’s staircase you had to climb to get up to the main floor (our friend Eliza the mountain climber would have had a good time with that), to the loft where Nadia slept, it was not for the weak-kneed, but it was a very interesting space to inhabit for a few nights. Perhaps the most treacherous part was getting to the bathroom, which required walking across the ship’s ladder at a space where the stairway’s risers did not match the floor level. It was a potential cliff dive for someone waking up in the middle of the night needing to use the facilities. The proprietors have installed a gate to block off this section to prevent sleepwalking injuries, and fortunately we did not have any injuries.

Need the bathroom? Just step over my head.

5. There are benefits to renting an apartment. While our Air b’nb hostess apologized for not being able to help us with the lost luggage situation -(she had never dealt with a situation requiring a courrier to drive to the apartment, which is unaccessible to car traffic, arriving potentially at a moment’s notice — luckily, we figured it out), she was very gracious in letting us leave our luggage in her entryway after we checked out of the apartment and started our trek to Vernazza. Later in the day, that entry way served as a changing room for Lanie and Jen as they got their bathing suits on. That’s right! They went swimming in the Mediterranian Sea. It was right between our lunch on the piazza and our seaside sangrias.

The loft over the kitchen

6. It is not difficult to get around. We hopped on a train in Monterosso (You do have to be careful that you don’t get on the wrong train. A lot of people who just wanted to go to the next town tried to get onto our train, which was going all the way to another part of Italy) and that bought us to Pisa. There we changed trains, and fairly quickly (about three hours after we left Monterossa) we were in Florence. Nadia walked us confidently out of the train station and to our new apartment, and then we found a great (and inexpensive) restaurant a block away from our front door.

7. We have not really needed cash for anything here, except the “Tourist Tax,” which our hostess requested we leave in a basket on the kitchen table when we left. It was meant to be three euro per person per day we were in the CInque Terre — that’s 24 euro, if you are as good at math as we are. This out of pocket expense was reduced to 23 euro when I found a euro coin on the path up to the convent on the first evening we were in town. Of course, because we had extra euros on hand, I wanted to give some of it away to the man who drove our suitcase all the way from Milan out to Monterosso over what must be a very twisty and dark road through the hills. I gave him a 10 euro note as a tip, and he seemed very confused by it. He said, “You are very…” but he couldn’t think of the word to explain a person who would randomly give him money, at least not a complimentary one and not in English. Tiips are not standard here (see number 3 on this list); though most establishments have had tip jars near the register — they are hopeful, but usually empty. I finished the sentence for him, “We are very happy to have our luggage,” I said. He took the money and hopefully bought himself a drink with it, though not until after he made it back over the hills.

Making lemonade out of lemons

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Cinque Terre has done its best to live up to all our expectations. The town we’re staying in, Monterrosso al Mare, has all the the tourist guides promise — towering cliffs, blue-green waters, colorful buildings, copious walking paths. It’s not Monterosso’s fault that we’ve been forced into being preoccupied with a less happy focus — how to reclaim Lanie’s lost luggage.

On the plus side, the airline knew where the luggage was, and had a plan to have a courier bring it back to us. Unfortunately, this was complicated by the fact that Cinque Terre does not allow cars, so our lodging is only accessible on foot. So, there was a great deal of uncertainty around (a) when the luggage would arrive, and (b) where it would be driven to. Having arrived by train, we weren’t even sure where the nearest car-accessible area was.

This uncertainty hampered our plans somewhat. We were planning to walk down the cliffside path to the next village, Verrnaza. But we quickly came to a checkpoint where we were informed that we would need to pay 15 euro each to continue. Normally this would be no

problem, but we were afraid that we might need to turn around at any moment if the courier called, and might end up needing to hang around Monterosso for the afternoon. So we bailed out on the plan and decided to save it for the next day. (This would later prove to have been the wrong decision.)

Instead we wandered around Monterosso a bit — Cinque Terre is wonderful for wandering, with its colorful houses, old stone bridges, and picturesque stairways — and did a little shopping, Eventually we ended up following a path up into a lemon grove. This proved to be a delightful walk along a river with frequent waterfalls, lemon trees overarching the path from the hillsides above. Eventually the path led way, way up the steep hillside, and eventually we got some nice views of Monterosso and the sea in the distance. We were hoping the path would lead back down — and possibly it did somehow — but we hit a fence and a gated road and decided to avoid a potential trespassing situation.

After seeing all those lemons and working up quite a thirst, we had to return to the fresh lemonade stand that we’d passed in town. Delicious! They really know how to do food and drink here, even at the tourist trap places.

Monterosso in the distance

Throughout this time, we’d been checking approximately every 5 minutes for word from the luggage courier. But our emails and calls were going unanswered, and the day was wearing on. After another email asking them to PLEASE give us advance warning of their arrival, we decided to hop on a train to the village at the far end of Cinque Terre, Riomaggiore. (The train runs every 20 minutes and takes only 11 minutes, so we figured we could get back pretty rapidly if needed.)

Riomaggiore was another lovely little town. There was an area down by the water where you could climb on rocks (or jump off them into the water, if you were adventurous) and take in the views of the brightly-painted buildings rising up the cliffs above. Bob and I were a little more ambitious and wanted to walk to the next town, which didn’t look to be very far. The girls decided to bail on this plan — Nadia’s shin splints were acting up from the morning’s hike, and Lanie was feeling jet-lagged — so they stayed to explore the town and take the train back while Bob and I set off down the path.

We quickly found that to walk the path required both the Cinque Terre card (which was what we’d declined to buy that morning) AND a supplemental payment for this leg of the trail, called the Via di Amore. When we heard the 25 euro per person price tag, we walked away — but then weren’t sure what else to do with ourselves, so decided to grit our teeth and pay it. It must be pretty spectacular, right?

Busy train station

Well…it was spectacular, but it took all of 15 minutes. It was a luxury path — smoothly paved, with shade overhead and little elevation change. We would have just as soon hiked a more rugged, natural path that didn’t cost 50 euro. Because our walk was so short (and to get more of our money’s worth), we decided to continue to the next town, Manarola. Alas, after a short distance we found that that trail was closed, so we were foiled again. (The short distance was still worth it for the amazing views of Manarola (shown at the to

p of this post). We have a Cinque Terre puzzle at home, and we’ve been trying to figure out where the photo on it was taken — and we think this may be the one.)

The alternate path climbed high into the hills and took 2.5 hours, so we gave up the plan and took the train back. The girls were waiting for us at a seaside bar, happily indulging in apertivos. (Luckily for 17-year-old Lanie, no one checks ids here.) The rest of our evening was spent strolling, checking out the beach, eating dinner, and getting gelato (and checking my phone for word from the luggage courier).

Finally we had to accept that he wasn’t coming, and

Grape beer! It had a slight grape soda aftertaste.

headed back to the apartment for bed. When, wonder of wonders, we got a phone call! He clearly wasn’t sure where he was going either, but he gave us the name of a nearby road, and we were able to find the point on it where cars can get to. (While waiting for him, we got to see several members of the area’s feral cat colony.) And as of 10pm, happy Lanie was reunited with her luggage.

Traveling for a day or so

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There was a lot of traveling necessary for our trip to Florence to see Nadia. I guess, when you get down to it, it’s all traveling when we’re on these trips, but we’ve pretty much spent the last day and a half in constant motion. Also, we’re not actually going to be in Florence for a couple of days. So the traveling will continue.

It all started early Friday afternoon when I skipped out of school during lunch time, leaving the first graders with a substitute for the last 45 minutes of the day. We were facing Boston traffic on the first major leg of our trip, and we wanted to make sure we got an early start. Who knows what might be waiting on Route 1A in Roxbury?

Actually, we know because it was yesterday and it already happened. The answer is not much was waiting for us. We got to our parking lot and then the shuttle without any fuss. Security check was smooth. We arrived at our gate in plenty of time. We didn’t even have to find food in the the terminal because SAS airlines was giving us dinner and also a little breakfast on our way to our Copenhagen, where an hour-long layover waited for us.

Still, we had plenty to do with our time. Task 1 was to check out one of the travel lounges that our new credit card promises us access to. It costs us extra money in the form of an annual fee, but there is supposed be free food and drinks, and we’re travelling sorts of people, so we thought it would be worth it. This travel lounge was sponsored by Air France (I will not mention the name of the credit card company unless they offer to sponsor us or at least give us the travel lounges for free). It was very close to our gate. We took a special elevator to get there. There was a sign out front that said it was being rennovated and would be closed until this summer. We were disappointed, but not despondent. There was another lounge in Copenhagen that would surely have coffee and stuff for us during our hour-long layover tomorrow morning.

Instead of gorging ourselves on food we paid an unnamed credit card company to give us access to, we returned to our gate and played the game that we like to play that goes like this: We tell them we are carrying on our luggage; then, when they inevitably offer to gate check bags for free, we take them up on it. It costs a lot of money to check bags otherwise. We travel a lot and are very savvy.

Pleased with ourselves, we got onto our plane and started watching some movies while they fixed somthing that was preventing takeoff. It’s easy to distract us by putting screens in front of us, and we didn’t really catch what was going on. All three of us remember hearing it said that someone was fixing something and we would be leaving late, but we would not be arriving very late because of tail winds.

At some point during our movies, the plane took off. A lttle later we were fed — good stuff on SAS. We slept a little, watched stuff, read some things. They eventually brought us nice breakfast sandwiches and coffees. We got to Copenhagen to finish the second major leg of our travel day and a half, and wouldn’t you know it, the tail winds must not have been that great after all. We were 45 mintues later than we were supposed to be. We no longer had an hour-plus layover. We no longer planned to visit a travel lounge. We were worried we were going to miss our flight to Milan.

So began the shortest, but most exciting, leg of our travel day. We were in the E terminal and we had to get all the way to the A terminal. In between was passport control. We had about 20 mintues.

Don’t worry, everyone, we made our flight. Here’s what we had to do to make it: We had to wait patiently while every other row of the plane took their time getting their bags down and stretching and all else. When we finally got off the plane, we ran ran ran. This was made easier because we didn’t have our big bags. We gate checked them because we are clever.

All the running came to a stop when we crashed into the considerable passport control line. It did not look good, friends. Even after Jen informed a woman in an SAS uniform that we had an pressing need to get over to Gate A21, and even after the lady moved us 3/4 of the way up the line (as soon as she did that, EVERYONE started telling her about THEIR pressing connection concerns, and she stopped moving people up — she told us moving up in line wouldn’t make a difference, anyway, and she said they would not be holding flights for people arriving late), it still did not look good. The Copenhagen airport appeared to be expecting 40 people to need their passports checked, and there were 400 people who needed their passports checked. There were only two booths open! Eventually, they opened two more booths and we got through passport control.

Then we ran ran ran some more. It was about a mile of running, weaving in and out of people. I was clearly the weakest link, lagging behind Jen and Lanie. Then I saw the sign for Terminal A and I dodged around some people, cutting a corner close, and suddenly I was in front, leading the way. I was running and dodging and out of breath when everything fell out of my unzipped backpack. We were right about at Gate A14. Ugh.

Jen and a lady I had just dodged help me get my thing back in. We scurried the last seven gates fearing the worst.

And then, like I told you, we scanned our boarding passes and got on the plane, panting and coughing from our sprint.

After that we sat around on the plane for a while (panting and coughing) and the pilot came on to say we were waiting for people whose connecting flights were a little late.

At least we didn’t have to run across the airport with our big bags. Very wise of us to do the gate check.

Nadia gave us a lesson on wine tasting

Exhaustion helped us sleep a little on the hour long flight to Milan, though we got a cool view of the Alps as we started our descent. We had plenty of time to catch our train for leg…5, think. In this airport we just strolled leisurely to baggage check. We didn’t even have to have our passports checked because they did that in Copenhagen.

There was some concern as we walked that maybe our luggage didn’t manage to move across the Copenhagen airport as quickly as we had done, but that was followed by great relief when my bag and Jen’s bag were the practically the first ones we saw on the carousel. We refilled our water bottles — airport sprinting is dehydrating — and watched on as Lanie waited for her bag. We drank some water and watched and waited. We drank some more water and waited. Her bag didn’t come out. As we got less dehydrated, our hopes of finding Lanie’s suitcase sank.

It turns out, as Jen was able to ascertain, that Lanie’s luggage had not been left in Copenhagen like the bags of many people in line with Jen at the lost luggage desk. True, it did not get sent to Milan, but it wasn’t still in Copenhagen. What kind of fools gate-check their luggage?

SAS airlines knew where it went, though, and they told Jen they would drive it over to us at our temporary living accommodations when it comes in tomorrow.

This would have been a good time for there to be an airport lounge in the train station, but our credit card company does not offer such perks, even though we pay them extra money. We did manage to get onto our train to Milan Center — actaully, we got on a train that left 20 minutes earlier than the one Jen bought tickets for because the train manager said it was ok.

In Milan’s lovely train station, we admired the architecture, which combined classical and early 20th century elements with a special focus on hiding the bathrooms. I would call this leg 7 — finding the bathroooms in the Milan Center train station because we had to walk all over the place to find it.

We were not out of legs yet. Leg 8 was a three-hour train ride to the coast. Our stop was not the last one on the line, so someone would have to stay awake and pay attention to where we were. Jen set an alarm for 5 (our stop was scheduled for 5:10), just in case.

I wrote a lot of blog on that train, peeking out the window from time to time to take in the Italian scenery. Eventually, I could start to see the ocean between the buildings. The towns we traveled through startd to take on a seaside flavor — there were beaches and people swimming in the snippets I saw.

We finally made it to our stop in Monterosso, where Nadia and a nice apartment waited for us. We found Nadia right there at the station. Then we started Leg 9 of the trip, which was to walk to our accommodations. This is not a car-heavy place. There is a road that snakes along the cliffside and through a tunnel, but it was filled with pedestrian traffic. Eventually, we noticed a taxi or two beeping their way through the crowds, and at one point this evening an ambulance made its way through, but mostly it’s just people walking around.

After snaking our way along the hillside we turned a corner and village spread out on the far side of the beach. Most of the alleyways we walked through would be too small for a car, but we did pass a tiny pickup truck, which must be how they get things around here.

We were instantly charmed by the place. It is old and rustic and vibrant with beachgoers and hikers. From here, we will be able to walk to four other villages similarly tucked into crags along the coastline.

They won’t technically be counted as legs of our travel because we’ll be staing in this apartment for a few nights.

So, walking around to find a restaurant was just for fun, and finding a gelato shop afterwards was, too, even though we decided to go the long way. Our path led us up a series of ramps and many stairways to a hilltop convent that was crowned with a graveyard that offered views of the ocean and terraced hills. Even though we’d been awake for about 34 hours at this point, we were in no rush to get back to our apartment.

It was well-earned sleep when we finally stopped moving around for the day.

Petroglyphs and Sandia sunset

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One last view from our Santa Fe terrace

Today it was time to say farewell to Santa Fe, and head off for our last couple of days in Albuquerque. This was heading down in both the literal and figurative sense, as Albuquerque is a couple thousand feet lower than Santa Fe, and correspondingly warmer.

Even though it’s only an hour’s drive away, it’s a completely different ecosystem. By the time we got here the snow had vanished, and deciduous trees with bright fall colors had taken the place of pinion and juniper. The city itself appears fairly flat, but there are still mountains in the distance everywhere you look.

Our first stop was Petroglyph National Monument, just a little ways outside the city. There are a few different disconnected areas of this park, but we elected to go to the Rinconada Canyon section. We walked through the canyon alongside a steep hillside covered with volcanic rocks, many of which had been decorated with petroglyphs. We learned that in addition to the Native Americans, the early Spanish settlers also copied the technique — so in some cases, it’s not known which culture created a given piece of artwork.

For lunch we headed into the city and found the Sawmill Market, a large, upscale food court with just about any kind of food you could imagine. Zoe had lemon parmesan pasta, and I decided to be virtuous after all the heavy food we’ve been eating and get a large Cobb salad. Both were delicious, and we capped off our meal with paletas, a sort of Mexican popsicle.

The afternoon turned out to be my very favorite part of the trip. Just outside the city, which is at around 5000 feet, you can take an aerial tramway to the top of the Sandia mountains, at over 10,000 feet. As you can imagine, the ascent is quite dramatic. It reminded me of a similar trip we did in the French Alps, but with a very different landscape.

We had decided to go in the late afternoon, do a short hike around at the top, then watch the sunset and the emergence of the city lights of Albuquerque. We didn’t get very far on our hike due to the snow, which was several feet deep here. We followed a packed-down path in the woods for a while, but eventually decided that it was becoming too treacherous. So we returned to the safe platforms and viewing areas around the tram to watch the sunset. The views, especially in the light of golden hour, were spectacular — even as the temperature plummeted. We stayed up on the mountain until darkness fell and the twinkling lights of the city emerged. After a delicious dinner at a nearby Vietnamese restaurant, we were both ready for bed.