Destination: Italy - Cinque Terre and Florence

Our European travel can now be called completed.  Oh, don't you worry.  We still have more trips in the works to other destinations.  But now that we can scratch Italy off our list, if we were to get moved back to Houston tomorrow, there would be no disappointment in places we didn't get to.  Italy was the last big destination on our must-get-to travel list.  At the end of October, we took a 8 day trip moving all over northern Italy to Cinque Terre, Florence, Tuscany before finishing in Venice.  While it was a long trip for us with the girls and by the end, we were very ready to get home, I'm thankful we got to experience all that we did.  

Flying over the Alps

Almost to Italy!

What would a Streit family travel blog post be without a throw up story?  We had multiple of them on this trip, but I'll only share the first one because it's just so typical of the stuff we have to deal with when we travel.  The descent into Genoa, Italy was very turbulent.  The plane kept dropping (with the girls providing "whee!!" sound effects) and the plane was rocking badly.  Right as we were about to touch down, the pilot had to pull the plane back up into the air as he wasn't able to land.  Thanks to all the bouncing and Ashton's sensitive stomach, while we were ascending back up into the sky, the entire contents of Ashton's breakfast came up all over her and myself as she was belted onto my lap.   The "Whee's!" definitely weren't happening anymore at that point.  Due to the continued turbulence we had to endure for a second time, it's not like we could unbuckle ourselves to get cleaned up.  Instead we had to just sit in the puke for 15-20 minutes until the plane safely landed on second attempt.  Never a dull moment, I tell you.

The glamorous life of world travelers.  On the train to Cinque Terre

Our first destination was Cinque Terre, the "five lands" or five villages along the western coast.  Roads allowing cars access to the villages are nonexistent so you can only reach them via train, boat or foot, hence preserving much of the charm of these villages over the centuries.  Experiencing Cinque Terre is definitely one of my top highlights from all of our European travels.

All the puke was worth this view upon arrival to Cinque Terre

View from our hotel balcony in Monterosso, Cinque Terre

We once again thought it would be a fine idea to take the girls hiking.  You would have thought after our hiking experience in Norway that we would have learned our lesson when it involves kids and hiking.  The hike entailed walking from Monterosso to Vernazza, the next town down the coast about 2 miles away.  According to Trip Advisor, this hike is the top activity to do in Cinque Terre and provides amazing views.  The hike got mixed reviews in terms of difficulty, some calling it challenging (but those people were probably old or out of shape, right?) while others said it wasn't that bad.  I tried to be slightly more proactive than our hike in Norway and watched videos on youtube to see if the trail would be too much for Olivia.  It didn't seem terrible, so off we went.  What's that definition of insanity?  Doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results?  Yeah, that's us.  It had some pretty steep stairs to climb throughout the duration of the hike that made it quite challenging for Olivia and this time she wasn't in such a good mood about "mountain climbing".   However, we did survive and eventually made it to Vernazza in one piece, but it was a bit rough going.

These views counteracted the accompanying whining

Monterosso in the distance, where we started our hike  

Vernazza.  This leaves you speechless and makes it all worth it

Resting their legs in Vernazza

From Vernazza, we hoped on a boat to take us further down the coast to the town of Riomaggiore to find gelato.

Town of Corniglia from the boat

Arriving into Riomaggiore

Ashton's giving me the stink eye because I'm snapping pics instead of feeding her gelato

Exploring Monterosso before heading to Florence

Someone's happy because a playground is involved

After a long afternoon of travel that involved four different trains, we finally arrived to our hotel in Florence just in time for sunset.

Florence by day

Florence wasn't our favorite.  I actually didn't like it much at all.  We had heard so many things about how amazing it was so maybe our expectations were too high.  But it was disappointing. The city was much larger than I expected and I thought the city centre was quite dirty and gritty.  Plus, so much of Florence revolves around art history and with two little girls, we just weren't going to be able to get into that.  However, our hotel was up in the hills overlooking that city and the views from there were beautiful.  But all in all, I probably wouldn't choose to go back again if given the opportunity in the future.

We did attempt one art museum, the Uffizi Gallery, to see a few works by Michelangelo, Leonardo and Botticelli.  We did the drive-by version, quickly moving from room to room before the girls got too bored or disruptive.

Hanging off the ropes was the girls' favorite part

All around Florence, both around the city and in the museums, there are of statues of naked men.  Lots of them.  Olivia's observation spoken to no one in particular:  "Those statues forgot to put their underwear on." 

Duomo  - Cathedral of Santa Maria dei Fiore 

Giotto's Bell Tower

Spectacular views from Piazzale Michelangelo

Favorite part of Florence right here

So long, Florence!

Next up:  Siena, Tuscany and Venice! 

Put your tourist hat on...Mom's in town!

My mom came to town for a visit during the middle of October.  While we had recently seen her while we were in the US over the summer, it had been almost a year since her last visit to London.  So she was overdue a trip over.  During the week she was here, we packed in a full schedule of sightseeing activities.  Here are the big highlights:

Afternoon Tea 

Vintage double-decker red bus + afternoon tea.  Hard to get more British than this.  I had read about BB Bakery's Afternoon Tea Bus Tour on another blog I follow awhile back and had tucked the idea away waiting for the right occasion to pull it out. Well, Mom's visit was the right time!  It was certainly a unique and memorable way to see the city.  The 90 minute ride took us right by many of London's major attractions - Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, Thames River, Harrods, Hyde Park and Piccadily Circus - while we sipped tea and ate dainty pastries.  If you're visiting London or live here and need a different afternoon tea or sight seeing experience, I would definitely recommend this.  Totally touristy, but really fun.

The food was really good too.  My expectations were low given the high dorky tourist factor, so I was pleasantly surprised with the quality and taste.  Plus, any food that we didn't finish got sent home with us in a take-away bag.

Day trip to Brighton
Since our arrival to the UK two years ago, we had yet to see the coastline of the island that we live on.  With Mom is town, I figured it was finally a good time to take a day trip down to Brighton.  Well, the day didn't exactly lived up as planned but we managed to salvage it into a decent time out.

Brighton Pier

Typically, it's a fast 50 minutes by train from central London to get to Brighton.  However, we picked the day to go when they were doing maintenance work on a portion of the rail line.  Therefore, after a 45 minute train ride, we had to hop off the train and onto a bus for another 45 minutes ride in order to reach our destination.  Wouldn't you know it, minutes from reaching the bus station in Brighton, Ashton got car (or bus) sick and threw up all over herself and me.  UGH!  So gross.  So Ashton and I had to walk around for the rest of the day smelling like puke. Not off to a great start.

Best part about the beach?  Throwing rocks!

While we were walking the boardwalk on our way to find lunch, I realized my phone wasn't in my pocket.  After searching my backpack and Ashton's stroller, I realized I didn't have it and it had fallen out somewhere.  We retraced my steps and combed the beach area when I last had it out, but to no avail.  With a sinking pit in my stomach, I realized it was gone.  What an awful feeling.  It feels like you don't know how your life could possibly function ever again.  Kinda pathetic actually.

After snapping out of my lost phone fog, I was able to call Geoff (who was in Houston) from Mom's phone and he was able to activate the lost phone functionality on my phone from his.  Instantly, he had a call from a man who said he had my phone.  I couldn't believe it.  There are still honest and kind people left in this world!  After some back and forth, I finally met up with the man who returned my phone with a "Be more careful next time".  Uh, yeah.  Got it.

After lunch, we headed to Brighton Pier so Olivia could ride some of the kiddie rides.  She was in carnival ride heaven.  Ashton on the other hand decided that an afternoon nap was more important than rides.  Her loss.  She literally fell asleep as I was buying the tickets and woke up right as we were walking off the pier.

While slowly make our way back towards the bus/train station, we walked by this place below.  Yes, I promise we were still in Brighton, England.  It's so out of place, but so cool!  It's called the Royal Pavilion and was built between the late 1700s - mid 1800s for various English princes and kings so they would have somewhere decent to stay at while on their beach holidays.  Nowadays, it's a public building you can take tours of, which we didn't.

Now this is more typical British architecture! 

Borough Market and Area

If you're a foodie, Borough Market is the place for you.  They have everything you could possibly wish for.  From grocery stalls pile high with fresh produce to artisanal bakeries, fresh pasta shops and street food stalls.   Unfortunately, we picked the wrong day of the week to visit as many of the stalls were closed.  Oh well.  Guess that means a return visit is required.  We still enjoyed exploring what was open and taking in all the various sights and smells.

The Borough Market is near the Tower Bridge so we walked across the bridge to the other side of the river.  The Tower Bridge is in a part of the city that I seldom visit.  I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've actually seen the bridge up close since we moved here, so I always enjoy getting near these iconic London sights.  

On the other side of the river is the Tower of London.  The Tower currently has an incredible display of red poppies filling the famous moat.  Since late summer, the hundreds of thousands (almost 900,000 in total) ceramic poppies have been planted into the grass in remembrance of the 100 anniversary of the beginning of World War 1, with each poppy representing a British military fatality during the war.  It's an absolutely beautiful sight that will only be on display for another few days.  So glad we were able to see it.