Ciao Italia!

Hello everyone! So we concluded our exploration of Italy with the 5 town area known as Cinque Terre and the canal filled city with 444 bridges also known as Venice. Cinque Terre was indescribably beautiful- offerring a nice break from the chaos that was Rome. We stayed in the first town (Riomaggiorre) but decided that the 3rd town Vernazza was our favourite, we already know where we will be staying during our next visit! Our main day there was spent on a 5-6 hour rigorous hike between all of the towns on the coast (see photo below). Honestly there was a point when we asked ourselves, " Can there possibly be anymore stairs?" Dan found the best strawberry gelato in Italy and finally got some color on his pasty chest :). Otherwise we hung out on the huge rocks in the surf sipping Corona and lime...

Venice is so cool. Previously home to Marco Polo and Cassanova (we saw their houses), it sports hundreds of canals, 444 bridges and consequently you cannot find your way anywhere! Having an itinerary for the day is practically useless because the chances of finding what you are looking for are slim to none. Definitely more than once we have found ourselves going in circles, or at dead ends facing the waterway with no bridge or simply just a crumbling wall. Thus our plan most of the time was just to go in a gerneral direction of something we were trying to get to, or we just wandered around these crazy streets and stumbled upon really cool things like music museums, crazy bookstores and cool churches. Everything is ancient and crazily still standing in this sinking city- our hostel was over 600 years old! We took a gondola ride which was beautiful but crazy expensive!- definitly a splurge, but well worth it... Dan has taken to saying "Gondola?! Gondola?!" everytime we pass one, like the Gondoliers do. We're now off to Vienna, Budapest, and then Prague for the week before heading back to Germany. See you all in 2 weeks! (We can't believe we've been gone 6 already!)

PS- WHY do the Italians like marble so much?? honestly each of us have slipped or tripped on marble stairs AT LEAST once a day. Erica bit it in the hostel (huge surprise there) but only suffered a bruise. Honestly, we're both shocked and thankful that, knowing us, we haven't broken anything... :)