Northern Italy and Tuscany Recap
- Only A Plane Away
- Oct 12, 2019
- 5 min read
One of the stops on our cruise was the city of Genoa. We had heard that it was more of a large industrial city, so we opted to leave Genoa for a day trip to Portofino. After about an hour long bus ride, we landed in the town of Santa Margherita Ligure. We were given a little over an hour to explore the town on our own.
We decided to stop in a little bakery to try some authentic foccacia bread. It was a delicious and salty treat. We then stopped in the Santuario della Madonna della Rosa - Parrocchia Santa Margherita d’Antiochia, a beautiful church in the city center with a mouthful of a name.
Then it was time to head to the marina to catch our ferry to the town of Portofino.
We then stopped in the Santuario della Madonna della Rosa - Parrocchia Santa Margherita d’Antiochia, a beautiful church in the city center with a mouthful of a name.
Then it was time to head to the marina to catch our ferry to the town of Portofino.
The ferry was quite crowded, so it wasn't exactly the relaxing boat ride we had hoped for, but the weather was beautiful as was the scenery so we arrived in Portofino soon enough. The first thing we did was head to Chiesa di San Giorgio, a church at the top of a hill overlooking the town. It's the vantage point from where many of the iconic images of Portofino are taken. Once we got our photos, we headed back down into the town to walk around a bit.
We saw them setting up for the upcoming Festa di San Giorgio (Feast of Saint George). The festival is celebrated every year on April 23 in honor of the patron saint of the town. On this occasion, a tree trunk cut on the mountain, called pennolla, is brought to the main square of the town.
Around the trunk are brought old boats, fences, branches, dried flowers, and things to throw away, and then a huge fire is lit. In the meantime, people eat, drink and sing songs until the pennolla falls to the ground. If what remains of the trunk falls in the direction of the sea, it will be a good year. In the opposite case, if it falls towards the land, the season will not be that good. It would have been great to be there for the actual festival, but it was still interesting to see what goes into getting ready for it and learning about their traditions.
We weren't left with a lot of time in the town, so we just walked around the narrow streets a bit. We did find time to enjoy some delicious gelato that is famous in the region before it was time to head back to Genoa and then back to our cruise ship.
The next day's port of call was La Spezia. Many people were heading to Florence or Pisa, but since we had that planned for another day after the cruise, we decided to spend the day exploring the smaller town of Lucca and wine tasting in Tuscany.
It was a bit rainy, but we were prepared so it was not too bad. Lucca is actually an old walled Roman city and you can now walk or bike on top of the wall around the town. With better weather, we think that would definitely be a must-do.
Instead we spent more time exploring the city center and learning about the towers throughout the town. We took refuge from the rain in the Chiesa di San Michele in Foro, a beautiful church in the heart of the city. We then decided to grab some coffee to warm us up from the rain.
It was then time to head to the town of Monte Carlo for a wine tasting. This was a truly unique experience of family style wine tasting with lots of great food including olives, olive oil, balsamic, and sundried tomatoes from their farm as well meats, cheeses, and bread. They also gave a quick tour of their equipment but could not take us to their vineyard because it was too muddy.
The wine was so great, we all decided to split a case and have it shipped back to the US for us. We thought it would be a nice treat to receive once we were back home and would be easier than traveling with the bottles of wine.
With bellies full of delicious wine and food, we then headed back to the bus and made our way back to the cruise ship.
Because we couldn't agree on whether to visit Florence or Pisa, we booked a tour that would allow us to see both. It was a small group tour that ended up being a private tour with only our group taking up the whole van. We had a very early pick up, but we were able to sleep on the way to Pisa. Click here if you'd like more information on the tour we booked.
Our tour didn't include tickets to go up in the leaning tower but we were able to go in the accompanying church. We've heard that the wait can be quite long, and it's more about seeing it and taking the goofy photos than going up in the tower anyway.
After we took our cliche photos in front of the tower, it was time to head to Florence where our guide made a recommendation on where to eat for lunch. She recommended the Florentine steak which was delicious. After lunch we had a guided tour that started at La Academia to see the statue of David. It was an impressive sculpture and so much larger than we expected.
We then had a walking tour of Florence and learned about the Medici family. Florence is very different from other Italian cities, and it felt very medieval.
We took in the intricate details of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (Cathedral of Florence) before heading to Ponte Vecchio (Old Bridge).It is one of the few bridges in the world where there are actually shops on the bridge. It almost didn't feel like you were on a bridge at all.
We then headed up to Piazzale Michelangelo to get some panoramic views of the city of Florence. It's a great spot for photos and you can really get a feel for the scale of Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore and it's famous dome.
From there we headed back to Rome. We had intentions of exploring Rome more when we got back, but we were so exhausted and had lots of packing to do, so we just had the driver drop us off back at our hotel. We decided to stop in to the little restaurant downstairs and a few doors down from our hotel for a second time. Since it was our last night in Italy, we had one last hurrah, and indulged in a little too much wine. Luckily, we only had to make our way up the narrow staircase to our hotel and find our way to bed.
The next morning came too soon, and we decided to order an Uber van to take us directly to the airport instead of dealing with the train. With seven of us, it was roughly the same cost as train tickets minus the stress. Before we knew it, we were on our flight back to the US and already missing glorious Italy.
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