Land of Beer

June 21st was summer solstice and it felt like the longest day of the year. We were attempting to head to Munich, Germany from Cinque Terre, Italy. It was the longest train journey yet. We had to switch 5 times, at one point having to get on a bus to cross back into Austria to catch another train due to engineering work. We had to change from Cinque Terre at La Spezia, Milan, Verona, and a few other Italian cities. We left the house at 9:30 am and arrived in Munich just after 1 am. When we arrived in Munich, we went to Jeanette’s house, our German couchsurfing host. She left her key on top of a phone booth outside of her flat for us because she was already out for the night. We put our things down and then a guy came into the flat and he was Murat from Istanbul who was also Jeanette’s guest. He was really kind and we walked around the neighborhood, trying to see if some street fair was still happening but it was over so we went back to her flat and had our first German beer before getting to bed.

Jeanette's little apartment that was mostly ours during our stay.


In the morning, we decided to take advantage of the free tour that is offered in some of the cities in Western Europe. We had taken them before in London and Edinburgh so we knew it was a great way to learn about the city and it’s history.

The Glockenspiel

The Glockenspiel up close. It dances and tells the same story everyday at 11 am.

A May Pole. Every city has one and if someone's may pole is stolen by another town the people who stole it get a party before giving it back.

Little Red Riding Hood



The synagogue in Munich which has been threatened many times by Neo-Nazi groups.



After the tour was over out the university that Sophie Scholl and the White Rose resistance attended during the Nazi occupation. We wanted to see the memorial for her and her brother at the university.

The Sophie Scholl memorial and is just tiles in the pavement of the leaflets of the White Rose.

Sophie Scholl was a schoolgirl who worked with the White Roses, anti-nazi group and she was distributing illegal flyers around campus and had some left-over so she pushed the whole stack over the railing and sent them flying down the stairs. She and her brother were caught for their crime and beheaded. Munich has so much World War II history and has very subtle monuments all around the cities commemorating the brave people who stood up against the nazi’s.
We went to the Modern Art museum of Munich which was really a really nice change from all of the Italian art.


There is a BMW underneath this ice and we all had to wear blankets to go into the freezing exhibit.




All at the museum

After, we were starving so we got some really good pad thai before heading to the world’s most famous/largest beer hall called Hofbrauhaus.

The Hofbrauhaus has quite a history. Hitler spent much of his time organizing the Nazi party here.

The blue and white Bavarian flags were painted over with swastikas during World War II at the request of Hitler and have been painted over since again.
We each had 1 liter of beer in the huge traditional glasses.



An employee wearing traditional outfit and selling pretzels.
Some German men were singing traditional beer songs and one came over and kissed Ellie on the cheek, telling her something in German. Before we could chat with the German Casanova, we realized we were late for the train to the suburbs to see Jeanette’s choir concert. At the train station, we met Yann her boyfriend and her friend. At the concert, we met her mother and then finally we met Jeanette. The choir concert was cool. They sang some German songs and some American classics like “ Living on a Prayer” by Bon Jovi and “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.” Afterwards, her mom drove us in a camper van home, which was a little scary because we were on a major highway and her mom wasn’t completely sure how to use a manual. It was a bit of a “Little Miss Sunshine” moment. Once we made it back to Munich, we went with Jeanette and Yann to an Italian bar to watch the semi-final of the European cup between Spain and Italy. We finally got back to her flat around midnight where we met some Belgian backpackers who would be taking Murat’s place since he had gone back Istanbul. They had been hitchhiking and sleeping in forests so they were pretty interesting. They seemed grateful for a shower and a bed.
The next day we decided to relax. We walked to an amazing little brunch buffet that was vegetarian. After we stuffed ourselves, we headed for famous Englisher Garten. The park is huge with a river that runs through the middle. Many people swim and some even sunbathe completely nude in the park. Mostly old men though. At the beginning of the river, there are some rapids where people can actually surf on the river by just jumping in.




It is created because of a pipe underneath the river and is therefore pretty dangerous if you don’t know what you are doing. It was so cool to see people surfing a river though. Just as we were about to get settled at the park, it started to thunderstorm. We were so sad but we waited it out under a tree and it stopped luckily. Once the sun came out, we jumped in the freezing cold river and swam along and then spent the remainder of the day sunning ourselves on the bank watching the naked people.





Notice the naked man to the right!
Later we walked around the huge park which is larger than central park and eventually made our way to the beer garden section. There was a huge Japanese garden and tons of people sitting on the picnic tables, drinking liters of beer and eating massive pretzels. So we decided to do the same.



After spending all day at the gardens, Jeanette asked if we wanted to go to the Munich film festival. When we got there we fond out that almost all the films were either in German or another foreign language but with German subtitles. Luckily, we came across one Brazilian film which had English subtitles and was called “ Still Orangutuans.” The film was really good and we were happy we came along. After the film we said good-bye to Jeanette as she went to her boyfriend’s and packed up to head to Berlin the next day.

Hiking the Cinque Terre

June 18th-
We caught the train from Lucca to La Spezia before catching a bus to Biassa which is this tiny little mountain town a bus ride out of the Cinque Terre.



Biassa in the evening

Biassa in the morning with the fog rolling in.


After checking into the hostel, we went to the only little restaurant that exists in the town and had the best pizza we have had yet in Italy. It was a tomato/garlic pizza with no cheese and I also had a calzone the size of my head with gorgonzola, fontina, parm and mozzerella cheeses. The food was so good and I tried to tell the woman in my broken Italian and she just laughed and smiled at me. On the way home from the restaurant, we encountered a group of neighborhood kids who were about 8-10 and were so excited to speak English with us. They kept telling us how old they were and as we walked away the little boys screamed, “ I love youuuuu baby.” Obviously something they had heard in the movies.

We slept great and woke early to catch the 9:50 to Riomaggiore where we would base ourselves while in Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre( 5 lands) is composed of 5 villages that sit by the sea and are famous for their man-made vineyards and land. Between the five villages there are hiking trails that connect each village to each other and the hike between all the villages in 5 hours total. The hikes vary in difficulty and scenery with some that are flat near the ocean and some that are high in the mountains that resemble tropical rainforest scenery. We were staying in Riomaggiore, the first village along the hike. In the old days, there were only the trails connecting the villages but now there is also a train service that connects the villages to each other.

When we arrived at Riomaggiore, we walk down the steep main street (by main I mean the only street) towards our hostel. When we got to the office, we quickly followed the owner to a private apartment in an alley filled with other flats. It was amazing that we paid a hostel price and got our own place for just 20 euros each. It was a really nice surprise. We quickly changed into our hiking clothes, got some amazing focaccia which is one thing that the Liguria region which is the northern coastal region where Cinque Terre is located, is famous for. It was amazing. We split an onion, a veggie one and a pesto one(another thing Liguria is famous for).


Then we took the train to Monterosso, the farthest village from Riomaggiore, to begin our hike over there as we knew if was the most difficult trek and we wanted to get it over with. All of the villages are really quaint but Monterosso is the most touristic while Corniglia is the least as it is not on the ocean like the other 4.




Monterosso's beach.


Church in Vernazza.

We stopped and checked out each village and got water along the way. The trek was pretty intense and challenging at some points with the sun beating down on us but we finished in 5 hours around 7:30 at night.

Ellie overlooking the man-made vineyards.


Walking the narrow paths.






Closing in on Vernazza in the distance, our first town on the walk from Monterosso.

Vernazza!



Corniglia! The third village.


Scary bridge that actually swings back and forth.

Manarola, the town closest to Riomaggiore.

The last and easiest walk, the Via D'Amore(the tunnel of love). Notice the locks next to the little bench that I am sitting on. Couples come and put a lock together to signify their devotion or something.


We got some home-made gnocchi and some home-made pesto sauce and made pesto gnocchi along with a caprese salad and fell asleep early, exhausted from the hike.

The next day we wanted to take it easy so we woke up and had more foccacia and headed to Monterosso to go to the beach. Monterosso has the biggest sand beach but little beaches can be found after climbing on all the islands and every island has a pier to swim off of.

On the beach in Monterosso.


We stayed in Monterosso for awhile but got tired of all the tourists so we went to Manarola, the village closest to Riomaggiore. It was so good. We had a private little cove all to ourselves with just a few other people swimming there.

Kelly swimming in the water in the cove all alone.

There were caves and rocks and the water was so blue. Many kids jumped from the rocks 30 feet above into the water. The rocks even created a small waterfall. We spent the rest of the day there before getting a gelato and heading home to buy more gnocchi and special walnut sauce for dinner. We went out for a walk after dinner and sat on some cliffs watching the sunset, thinking that Cinque Terre was the most beautiful place we had been yet. We found a little bar that seemed to be suspended above the ocean and there was a guy playing beautiful Italian music on his guitar in a style that was similar to Santana except Italian and he was being recorded for his new CD. The bar was outside under the stars and you could hear the ocean hitting the cliffs below. We knew that the next day we were going to say good-bye to Italy and it was a perfect ending.

Tuscan Sun

We got into Florence around 5:00 rather than 3:30 as we were originally expecting, but since it’s summer we still had enough daylight to explore and walk around after checking into our budget hotel. It worked out cheaper to get a private room in Florence than for us both to stay in the hostel. Florence and Rome were next to impossible to find couchsurfing hosts as the people in these places in Italy each get asked at least 10 times a day by different people wanting to surf their couches. We walked around Florence that evening and saw the famous Duomo, but it was closed so we couldn’t go in but figured we would go in the morning.




The good Luck pig. Everyone rubs its nose for good luck.


A wine shop in Italy!


Done by a street artist with chalk on the sidewalk




We just walked around a lot and enjoyed having some strolls in Italy’s cobbled streets at dusk. We got some dinner at a pretty crap restaurant but which was really cheap. The thing with the food in Italy is that it can be really amazing but you are going to pay an arm and a leg for it in most cities. We checked out a bar underneath our hotel and when the owner paid our bar tab we knew we should probably go beause things would only get uncomfortable from there.
The next morning we awoke early and got ready for the bike tour that we scheduled through the Chianti region of Tuscany. David, our tour guide was supposed to pick us up from the Vespucchi bridge and while we waited there, we met a group of Southern Americans. Two women who were best friends and one of their children and his wife were set to take the bike tour with us but instead of coming back to Florence they were going to ride all the way to Siena on a 3-day tour that would cover 50 miles. It was pretty funny because only one of the women wanted to do this bike ride and everyone else in their group was begrudgingly coming along for the ride so to say. They kept joking that they were going to do our tour which was only 12 miles which was a breeze in comparison. They had no experience on bikes and David wouldn’t be leading them any day except for today. The other days he just drops their luggage off at their hotels and they met him their by bike. They were really funny from the start. We also met James from South Korea who was studying in Cardiff, Wales who would also be on our tour. David, our tour guide is from Colorado and moved to Florence 20 years ago after college and never looked back. He now leads these bike tours through wine country. Once we were picked up, he drove us to the place where he keeps the bikes in the country and we all got suited with a bike and headed off into the Tuscan countryside.


Our first stop was a villa that is also a winery. It had olive trees to make olive oil and Sangiovese grapes for Chianti wine all spread out over 300 acres of land.



On the way to the winery, we saw the owners mini-ponies and also spotted some wild boar tracks.



There were also cherry trees where we could pick out our own cherries to eat.



Once inside the winery we learned about the fermentation process that takes about 30 days, then they separate the seeds and skins and put the juice into French Oak barrels (each which cost about 650 pounds and can only be used three times.) They are left there for 8 months(or 12 if it is their reserve wine they are making).

Ellie with the expensive French barrels





Then they are bottled and stored for 3 months before being shipped around the world. 31% of the wine they ship goes to the USA, 26% goes to Italy and the rest goes other places around the world. Each bottle retails for about $40.00-60.00. I asked when they stopped the process of mushing the grapes with their feet and they told me that no Italian has any recollection of anyone ever mushing grapes with their feet and that maybe it is urban legend. The Italians are, in fact, very repulsed by this idea.

After our tour, we went back to the villa for our tasting which is now a 5 star hotel with rooms ranging from 1,500-3,000 euros a night ( which is between 2, 225 -3,750 USD a night). It was such a beautiful place. There we had samples of the Chianti Classico and the Chianti reserve, as well as olive oil with Italian bread. The olive oil was some of the best olive oil I have ever tasted in my entire life. It was so fresh, it was amazing.


at the villa





From the villa, we rode about 3 miles before stopping for lunch in the little village of Casciano where we had a traditional Italian meal with a big jug of red wine and the most amazing panna-cotta and pecorino cheese(from the Tuscan region) for dessert.

We said good-bye to our Southern friends who were continuing on their own from there on out and we continued up some hills and into the beautiful countryside which is covered in vineyards.

(a little scary to see some crosses at the most dangerous part of the ride)

Our ride was really tough at some points, going up hills but when it was over, it was totally worth it. I think that the bike ride was one of our best experiences in Italy so far.


After the tour, David dropped us and James off at the Piazza del Michelangelo so we could see the view and walk back to our hotel. We walked with James and admired the Ponte Vecchio bridge along the way before saying good-bye to him.



The next morning, we packed up and left our luggage at the counter and headed off to see the Duomo. The Duomo may have been the prettiest church we had seen yet, in my opinion.

After touring that, we got some sandwiches from this tiny little deli with some of the best ingredients. We got a sandwich that had fresh eggplant, sun-dried tomatoes and pesto that the little old man made for us right there. It was one of our best culinary experience in Italy so far. We ate them on the train as we headed to Lucca that afternoon.

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Lucca, was a place suggested to us by Merlin who had done a tour of Italy and really loved it. When we arrived at the train station, we caught a cab to the hostel because we had heard it was a far walk and we didn’t have a map. Once we arrived at the hostel, the only one in Lucca, it was really beautiful and old with about 10 different wings. We were showed to our room and met one girl from Sweden who was laying in her bed reading a book and two really sweet girls from England. We both went into the bathroom to fix our hair and Ellie locked the door for some reason, excited about the old lock and key and lo and behold, we got locked in. The key wouldn’t fit back in and we were completely stuck. We started to yell to our roommates who said they would go get someone to help us out. Well, we waited for about 45 minutes and no one ever came. I spotted a girl with a purple shirt and said “ Hello! You in the purple, we’re really stuck in here, help us please.” She said that someone else already went and frustrated we tried one more time and it worked! So free of the bathroom, we met Erica, the girl in the purple shirt who is from NYC but is taking a break from her high power job at Nickelodeon to figure out what she wants to do with her life and if she should continue with her wedding invitation business that she runs on the side for celebrities. She was very modest about all of this and we had to drag it out of her pretty much. After chatting for awhile, Ellie and I set out to walk around the town and Lucca was pretty charming. Far less tourists, tons of bikes and cute little modern art shops which were surprising in antique Italy. The city is one of the last walled cities left in Italy and the intact walls are gorgeous and give you an amazing view of the city that locals take advantage of in the afternoon to ride their bikes and rollerblade around.


view from the hostel room



We went back to the hostel to freshen up and ended up getting into an amazing conversation with all of the girls in our dorm, including one 50 year old woman who is German by birth but has lived in South Africa for the last 15 years and her visa has just run out and she is expected to go back to Germany after all of this time. She was really upset and she and Erica kept trying to encourage each other. The conversation was so good that we skipped dinner completely.
The next day we walked around the walls in the morning and met Erica for lunch at a little restaurant that was a “local favorite” according to our book. After lunch, we packed up and left Lucca heading for Cinque Terre.