The Streits

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