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It was an early start today – off to Siena to see the famous cathedral and the Piazza Campo, where they hold the famous Palio horse races. Not a lot to write about – I will let the images of the cathedral and the Piccolomini Library speak for themselves.

Funny story about this painting. Don and I are standing there, admiring it, when he leans in and says, “I wonder who that guy was?”. I look at him for a moment and said, “Are you kidding?”. “No”. I pulled out his ear and whispered, “it’s Jesus Crist”. “Oh” he said, looking for carefully and not quite believing me.

Then it was off to the Il Campo Piazza for a bit of lunch before heading home. Pretty much our first sandwich in two weeks!

Then it was off home for a well-earned siesta, charcuterie dinner on the patio, and off for an early night. Tomorrow will be our last full day together with Tina and Dave here in Italy, so our only plans so far are to chill, do some shopping here in Greve, and meet up with Don’s siblings for dinner (long story).

Over and out for today.

We entered the breakfast room at Casale le Masse to a returning hero’s welcome. Big hugs from Stefania and a warm smile from her assistant, who makes the breakfast eggs and special coffees. These two ladies put on an amazing spread to start the day.

Then we were off on a little trek up the hill to the tiny village of Montefioralle. It is a really beautiful walk up there through vineyards and above the houses of Greve.

The first look is very inviting:

Tiny circular lanes lead you deep into the village. We were there pretty early, so not too many other people around at all.

This fellow was working in his tiny gallery and he kindly allowed me to take his photo. It is definitely my favourite photo of the day.

Our walk back to our little apartmento is just a full on Tuscan experience. Check out this little villa across the valley from our place:

Back home Don sat by the window and just enjoyed being back where we love to be.

This the main piazza in Greve – with a statue of some famous guy.

Then it was off to our favourite restaurant in the world, Il Ristoro di Lamole. I think we have been here five or six times now. We found it totally by accident on our first trip to Tuscany in 2009 and have been in love ever since.

Apparently all these amazing sculptures have been created by Boris, the waiter.

The complimentary limoncello is a perfect end to the perfect meal. I told Fillipo that after experiencing it there for the first time, I have been making my own and it is almost as good. To which he replied, “I don’t think so, my Mamma makes this one!”. Well, I can’t compete with that, can I!?! Or the ripe Italian lemons. But it’s close . . .

Here is the fruit we bought for breakfast in our apartment tomorrow.

Because our wifi was out for a couple of days due to a storm, you are getting a two-fer in this blog. Saturday morning we headed out for San Gimignano.

With a stop for cappuccino – as you do.

Back to Greve in time for dinner and a nightcap.

On our walk home down the country lanes, we saw a gaggle of wild boars. They were foraging in the vineyard and took off as soon as they heard us coming. That was exciting!!

So overnight the day we arrived the most terrific thunder and lightning storm rolled in and it was amazing. We were all up (hard to stay sleeping), watching the thunder gods do their thing in the most dramatic way. Delivering some much needed rain to this area. All in one go.

Needless to say, this was going to be an inside day for us four, and none of us minded a bit.

I had a warning from one of my Facebook pages about the storm and that here in the CT, they have learned from the past floods and now close down not only the trails, but also any stores that do not have a back entrance, which is most of them. In about 2012, Vernazza was decimated and lives were lost as massive amounts of water, mud and debris washed down the tiny street from top to bottom, with some shop owners being trapped and killed in their shops. So they take these weather warnings very seriously, as they should.

Forewarned, the night before we had armed ourselves with some meats, cheeses, tomatoes, burratas, and wine so that we would be able to hunker down happily.

We played cards and listened to the rain until bedtime.

This morning, the sun was out and all was well with the world.

Mornings at Casa Lorenza always start with a cheery note under the door, announcing that breakfast had been left for us just outside our door.

Then it was off to Vernazza. We had planned to take the ferry, but due to continuing high winds, all ferries were cancelled today. No worries, the train is good too.

Down the narrow, winding road to the harbour – it is just as spectacular as we remember.

We stopped for a couple of must have shots and a quick drink (juice for three of us, beer for one – at 10:30 am!) and then headed up to the first 15 minutes of the hike between Vernazza and Monterosso for the money shot.

Here are a couple of wandering the back streets shots:

Time for lunch! We headed to the Cafe Luca, the closest place to the waterfront. The food and service were spectacular, and the crashing waves were over the top. Literally.

Our waiter’s name was Michael(eh), and when our order was easy, Dave remarked, “See, we’re easy!”, to which he replied, “I am too!”. Now we’re old friends.

Check out these meals:

Yum, yum and yummer.

Before we left from home, there was one thing I really wanted to do, and that was to visit a wonderful little morning restaurant that we had found in upper Vernazza (where tourists rarely go), called Il Pirati. In 2007, when we were last there, it was owned by Sicilian twin brothers, one of whom was a pastry chef. At that time, I got this photo of one of the brothers and myself:

Today, I got a photo with the self-proclaimed “better looking brother” and presented him with a copy of the other one.

He was thrilled and the other employees crowded around to see him from the olden days. Then they served us the most magnificent dessert and iced coffees.

Get a napkin, because you are going to drool.

With full tummies and happy hearts, we all headed back to our little slice of heaven for some serious quiet time.

The only plan for the rest of the evening is to have a light supper at our place, drink some more wine, and a rematch on the gin rummy game. Oh yeah – and watch the sun go down over the Ligurian Sea (not the Adriatic – I stand corrected!).

A domani everyone . . .

Travel Day! Today we took the train from Florence (which station was conveniently just a ten minute walk around the corner) to Riomaggiore in the Cinque Terre.

We had one last go around (make that three for Dave) at the breakfast buffet. I thought it might be interesting to compare breakfast plates.

Then we said good-bye to our lovely Hotel Croce di Malta and set off, bright eyed and bushy tailed (as one usually does, in the beginning).

There were some train station shenanigans while we waited:

We saw the Carrera marble mountains as we whizzed by:

Unfortunately our train was a bit late arriving at our connection station and we found our travel mates, all of us wearing the same confused expression and wandering aimlessly looking for someone to ask which other train would stop at our tiny village of Riomaggiore (many don’t). Someone else managed to find a guy who looked like security. He knew which train and he spoke a bit of English, so of course I eavesdropped like the veteran traveller I am and lead my little crew and our luggage to the new platform to await the new train.

There was a very suspicious-looking guy just lounging against a waiting train, and even though it was 20 minutes before our train was due to leave, he was telling everyone that this was indeed the right train. I believed him . . . Thousands wouldn’t (as my Grandad used to say).

Turned out he was right, and it was indeed our train. So we all got to where we were going in the end.

Heaven.

Lorenza greeted us with smiles, hugs, beer and snacks – such a warm welcome every time.

Don is in his happy place:

After much needed siestas, we headed out for dinner, so back by request – a little Italian food porn:

You’re welcome.

Beautiful Florence!! I’m just going to start with that, because I do like to do these blogs chronologically, and chronologically, there is some complaining (not ‘splaining’) that I need to get out of the way. Just a little.

We might be getting too old for these long travel days.

There – I said it. Though the alternative is probably not anything we want to do, ie getting ourselves across Canada and then possibly a week of enforced cruising across the Pacific. Already that sounds like something we don’t want to do, but we would probably arrive refreshed, at least in London. Which is close to everything else we could want to get to. So – maybe that’s the answer. With the size of airplane seats these days and the 2 square feet of personal space, even shorties like me are feeling claustrophobic. And no Swiss Air, chopping the tray in half and making it fold over into itself for storage is not helping. As a matter of fact, it screwed up Amazon Gadget Number 1, which was a cool tray cover with its own storage pockets (so you don’t have to reach inside the gross ones that everyone else has put their dirty Kleenexes into). Doesn’t work with the magical folding trays if you ever want to have the tray in the closed position. Amazon gadget fail #1.

There might be a few of those over the course of this trip. Fail #2 (which is actually #1 I guess, is my handy dandy portable toilet. Yes. It is a thing. However, even though it folds up to a flat 2 lb in its own carry bag, not really doable when one is determined to only take carry on luggage. Which the Swiss Air website determines to be 8 kg/18 lb., and that should be the combined weight of your carry on suitcase and your one personal item. So we worked hard to get our contents down to the bare bones (without the handy dandy carry on toilet) and made it to between 9 and 10 kg. Don needn’t have worried so much about it though, since we were directed straight to the security line, no need to check in at a desk. No one ever even looked sidewise at our over weight carry on suitcases or over stuffed personal items. So that was a nice surprise.

Don’s complaint was that they charged us for wine on the international flight. He thinks that should be against the rules. Though they wisely charged us in Swiss Francs, so we have absolutely no idea how much our drinks were.

By the time we arrived in Florence, we were both wondering what we were thinking and our stomachs hurt from lack of sleep and movement. All of which was cured by a dip in the pool.

We asked for pool towels as we checked in – no, we don’t want to wait until we come back down – we’ll take them now thank you.

So we cooled off, had a spritz, and checked periodically at the reception area to see if Tina and Dave had arrived. Second time lucky, and there they were! We had all made it – and we are ready for our first once in a lifetime Italy adventure with our dear friends from California.

Once we had all cooled down and had the tiniest of siestas, we headed for a walk to the duomo and took in all the beauty that Florence has to offer along the way (to anywhere). Towards the back of the Duomo there was a guy playing so beautifully on his violin that we took a table across from him and ordered a couple of pizzas and a bottle of red wine. I took the all time cutest video of the four of us with the violin playing in the background. Unfortunately, I didn’t press record when I thought I did, but it was a wonderful moment that we will always remember.

Heading home Dave wanted to have a gelato experience and so of course we all joined him. And the first one did not disappoint – here are a bunch of happy, sticky faced gelato-eaters.

A good night’s sleep is what we all need, so we can drop the exhaustion, the travel concerns, the stress, and start living la doce vita, here in beautiful Florence.

Oh – and a quick trip to the rooftop deck – that was amazing too – complete with lightning in the distance. A portent of things to come? Who knows!

Well, here we are, at the end of our trip. At the beginning, it seemed like we would be here forever, but now – in hindsight – the time has flown by. Ayami asked me where was our favourite place in Japan and the answer actually was that each place had a “best” aspect to it.

Tokyo, obviously, for the wedding, but also for the cute district that surrounded our hotel. We loved wandering around there and watching the kimonoed women and other characters wander by. Kyoto was special because we travelled there and stayed as a family in our little rice paper house all together. We watched sumo on the t.v., Cam made us breakfast every day, Ayami made us many dinners, and we shared so many stories and so much laughter. Kobe was a good stop because of the onsen in the hotel, but also our day at the Arima Grand Hotel onsens. And memorable because of the flat tire debacle, which has since been resolved with us driving on the spare for the rest of our trip and the company apologizing for the inconvenience and not charging for the ruined tire. Then last night at the dinosaur robot hotel with Jenn and Cam – that was a unique and entertaining check-in experience! So, all in all, a wonderful and heartwarming family trip, with the highlight of highlights – David and Ayami’s wedding.

Enroute back to Tokyo, we stopped in at the Fushimi Inari red tori gates. I had seen photos of these in my trip planning, but we hadn’t managed to get there while we were staying in Tokyo. The one day we were close, we all drank too much sake and forgot all about it. Anyway, they did not disappoint.

From Fushimi, we headed to where we needed to drop the car off – Ayami dropped the rest of us and our luggage near a restaurant and went to drop the car off. She returned to the restaurant with the good news that we were not going to be charged for the ruined tire after all. So we had a good lunch, then boarded the bullet train headed back to Tokyo.

We kind of snuck on the fast train (there are non-fast bullet trains that stop at every stop) – even though the return tickets we had bought in advance were for the slow bullet train. This is how we know Ayami is one of us – it was her idea! And saved us over an hour of travel time, which we truly appreciate at this point in our travels.

We had to get off at the stop before they did, so we said our good-byes on the train and hopped off on our own to find a taxi to our hotel near Haneda airport. Jenn and Cam picked this one – the Henn Na – a dinosaur robot hotel. Sure, why not?

Cam and Jenn weren’t too far behind us (they had come from a different starting point after visiting Hiroshima, the Kawasaki Museum and Universal Studios Japan) and their room was just down the hall. We headed out to find dinner that wasn’t from 7-11, but none of us wanted to venture far, so ended up with fried chicken, which is a bit hit here in Japan. Good enough. Hit up the 7-11 for some drinks and had “cocktails” in our room. In our matching (supplied) pajama shirts.

Right now I am enjoying a glass of red wine in the departure area, while our plane is being cleaned and restocked for our flight in about half an hour. It has been amazing, but we are looking forward to our own beds tonight.

See you all on the flip side . . .

Our second to last stop was a two night stay right in the middle of Nara National Park. We are staying in a (very) budget friendly hostel/hotel called The Deer Inn. It is very cute – in a hostely sort of way – and there are deer everywhere. Hence the name.

David figured out how to make the deer bow.

That last photo shows the communal kitchen, stocked with “emergency” ramen.

These are the communal washrooms – complete with toilet shoes. If you see them there, you know no one is in the toilet. You change your slippers for toilet shoes to go in.

Well, that’s me told.

While Ayami took a very well deserved nap, the rest of us went to check out the largest bronze Buddha in Japan. It did not disappoint.

Due to covid, you are no longer allowed to kiss any of this guy’s body parts for healing prayers. Whew.

Did I mention there are deer everywhere? You can buy special deer crackers to feed them and they an be very persuasive if they know you have them.

After dinner we walked to the temple where the light the lanterns at night.

This morning David and Ayami left bright and early to join Cam and Jenn at Universal Studios Japan in Osaka. That left Don and me to our own devices. We had a list of the shrines and temples in Nara, as well as a walk in the older area of town, and a place in mind for lunch. Don took his turn at asking the deer to bow, but he pretty much did all the bowing.

There are a lot of temples and shrines – but this next one had a special room with flickering lanterns that was pretty amazing.

These amazing trees are all around.

With all the templing, it was time for a snack. I had read about the hand pounded strawberry mochis here, so had to try one. Don chose a cracker thing instead.

PS – the mochi was delicious!!

So, we are templed and shrined out pretty much. Ready to get back on the bullet train tomorrow and stay our last night near Haneda Airport. It has been a wonderful trip, full of special moments, lots of laughs, a few puzzlements, and a new-found confidence that anything is possible, even if you don’t speak or read the language.

But after a couple nights in this cute hostel, Castle Currie is looking pretty damn fine . . .

Putting the previous day behind us, we headed for the famous Himeji Castle. It was glorious in the beautiful sunshine.

The castle complex is massive – and there are stairs inside to go to the top of that building behind us. I found a bench on the fifth floor and read the information brochure while the rest hiked to the tippy top. Once difference between these castles and ones we have encountered in Europe is that the rooms are all empty. So far, in the ones we have been able to go in, there have been very few displays, no decorative art, or furniture. So that’s a lot of walking when the money shot is on from the outside!

As we were leaving, walking along the sidewalk, I looked up to see a camera pointed right at me. I leaned and stepped to my left to get out of the way of whatever the photographer was trying to photograph behind me, only to discover that he was trying to take a photo of me!! He looked up from his camera and gave me a big smile and a thumbs up. I can’t imagine my expression on my face, as I was trying to dive out of the way, but ok . . .

Have I mentioned the important role that the 7-11 plays over here? They are everywhere, together with their sister stores, Lawton’s, and contain everything you could want, at good prices. The hot food includes curry potato croquettes, spring rolls, baked sweet potatoes and a bunch of other exotic items (not a hot dog on a rotisserie in sight). There are also bento boxes, take and heat items of all sorts, and fresh sandwiches. The egg salad is to die for, having been made with Japanese mayo, on good old fashioned white bread, with the crusts cut off. Just like Mom used to make. So good. And booze! Seems like most countries can be trusted to have booze in their corner stores – take note Canadian government!!

This particular area is apparently known for their squid balls (takoyaki), so Ayami got some of those and David was feeding her the squid parts out of his while she was driving.

One thing about travelling with your kids is that there are different budgets to consider. This evening, our dinner cost about $9 for both of us, plus the less cheap bottle of red wine. Definitely a budget booster! Tomorrow we feast!!

There was one shop close to our hotel that I had to go in. They sell these celebration dolls. I asked if it was ok to take photos and he said yes, but please don’t touch! They are all hand painted and painstakingly made – priced in the thousands of dollars.

Then it was goodbye Kobe, and on to Nara National Park. The tire is still holding out – so far so good. Ayami makes sure we eat, even from the driver’s seat. The gyoza like delicacies are also from 7-11.

Last morning in our cute little 100 year old house made of rice paper – Cam made us all breakfast and we all were packed up and ready to go. Jenn and Cam were going their own way for next four nights, riding the rails with their JR train passes, and the rest of us were renting a car for that time. Our last night in Japan we meet up again at the Hotel Henn Na near Haneda Airport – couldn’t leave Japan without a dinosaur robot hotel experience!

This is our little car for the next four days – Ayami got us a great deal and is our driver, because David forgot his license in Tokyo.

First stop was the little onsen town of Arima. The natural hot springs here, and the little village surrounding them, are some of the oldest in Japan. There are two types, “golden” (or red) and “silver”. Each pool is a different colour of water and they have their own restorative properties. After doing a little research online, David found that we could get a day pass at a swanky hotel that had many pools on both sides of the building (one side being for girls and one for guys). For $42 each, you could spend all day in the hot springs and surrounding relaxation areas AND got a $20 credit towards a delicious lunch (basically the whole cost, including beer). We’re in!!! Only catch is that this will be Don’s and my first naked onsen experience (no option on that). Sure, why not?

The parking lot was filled with expensive cars, including this showy Lamborghini

Lunch was some of the best tempura yet!

This is a photo of one of the onsen pools in the ladies’ area from the brochures, no cameras allowed (thankfully!).

One of the pools – this one I think, was open to the outdoors and I sat at the edge and let the little rain drops sprinkle down on my head – it was truly lovely.

No a bit about the “being naked” thing (because I know some of you are wondering). It’s really not that bad. Think walking between the shower and your locker in any pool changing or locker room. You have a little towel that you can hold in front of you as you walk or sit on the edge, but by the end, I wasn’t worrying about it. It may just be the stage of life I am at, but I realized that I didn’t really care and neither did anyone else. No one is openly “looking” at you and we all have more or less the same bits anyway, so I think we have over-thought this one by quite a lot. The Japanese have it right. And as a way to ease into it, the golden pools are virtually opaque, so when you sit down, you don’t feel so exposed.

So after a lovely and relaxing couple of hours, we piled back into our little car and headed for Kobe. Less than five minutes down the road we all noticed a weird noise and vibration.

And that’s when our day went south (not literally) . . . apparently we had a flat tire. No problem, the Currie men are on it. Get the spare out, an the jack . . . Wait, where’s the jack?

No jack. Really. We all looked.

There was a worker nearby on a big rig so Ayami spoke to him. He came to have a look, but alas, had no car jack. He said some guys were coming, and maybe they could help, so we waited a bit more while Ayami contacted the car rental company and then their insurance company. But flat tires are apparently not their problem.

So the three new guys arrive, with a tire jack – Yay!. Alas and alack, none of their things to remove the lug nuts were the right size (who knew there were different sizes). More head scratching, before decided that there was nothing they could do and so they all drove off.

By this time, the triple A equivalent was on his way. The rental company kindly agreed to pay at least to get the spare on, because there had been no jack. Unfortunately this particular rental company has no affiliates here in Kobe. When the guy got there with the right tools, the spare was on in no time.

So at least we could limp to our hotel in Kobe. Needless to say, all of this took hours and the rest of the day (evening) was pretty much a write off as Ayami phoned around and even got a guy to come out at 9:40 to assess the tire – all to no avail. That guy wanted $300 to fix it! The next morning they took it to a garage nearby, where they were told that the tire is a write off, but it should be ok to drive on the spare for the three more days we have left, as long a we took it slow and didn’t go on the speedy toll roads.

So that’s what we’re going to do – cross your fingers for us everybody!

Good night from Kobe, where our hotel has it’s own onsens, free ramen after 9:30 pm and – most importantly – free ice cream after 3:30 pm!! We feel a little better now . . .