España!

A few weeks ago Roy and I went to Madrid. The reason for the trip was for work for Roy but the long, summer, Spanish days made it feel more like a holiday - with a little bit of work thrown in. It was a totally different experience to Switzerland or it's surrounding countries. There were lots of people. The shops were open all the time. There was lots of cheap, tasty food and drinks. And the way the afternoons lasted forever made it feel like there were two days in one. Roy would come home from his workshop in the afternoon, laze around for a little while and then we would go out and meet up with other workshop goers for a long night of eating, drinking and laughing. It did mean that we weren't getting as much sleep as we would in Martigny, but it was lots of fun. A bit less sleep for a lot more fun was worth it.

It was our first time in Spain and I think because I was coming from a really safe country to a place where unemployment is high and the economy isn't too good I was expecting to have my pockets picked and money stolen. I was also expecting a dirty and somewhat smelly city but that was definitely not the case in Madrid. The city was clean, beautiful and bustling with life.

Every night there was somewhere new and exciting to explore. The endless streets of tapas bars. The many beautiful parks to enjoy the twilight in. The many street performers to laugh at or ponder. I think I have been living in a small town for too long. I was kind of like a deer in headlights. It had been a while since I had been in a big city. I think the last big city I was in was Paris in February but Paris has a very different feel to Madrid. Paris, despite it's charm and beauty feels little exclusive, like you need to be a local or part of the 'in crowd' to enjoy what it has to offer. Madrid on the other welcomes all types.

Mercado de San Miguel - the fancy place to eat tapas.

Palacio Real de Madrid

Flea market on Sunday

Parque del Retiro

Our visit there was timed quite well because Spain was playing in a semi-final of the Euro2012. There were lots of people wearing the red and yellow proudly for pretty much the whole week we were there. They won the match so the revellers were at it until all hours of the night celebrating their victory. It definitely feels like a constant party in Madrid - at least in summer anyway.

We had our fair share of Sangria! We went to this tiny bar called 'Yambala' where their main selling point was shisha or hookah. We went for the drinks and the atmosphere though. It was in this little bar that I had the tastiest and most excited sangria yet. It came in a cocktail glass, crushed ice, straw, pieces of fruit and when I sucked it through the straw I got a mouthful of sugar granules. It was delicious! I was expecting to have to pay a cocktail price but instead I was pleasantly surprised it was only the usual sangria price of 3 to 4 Euros.

I couldn't go to Spain and not have churros with chocolate for breakfast. Our hotel guy recommended this old place called Chocolatería San Ginés that specialises in them but he told us to order the "porras" too. Porras are basically a giant version of churros so you get more of a chewy texture instead of the crunchy texture of a churro. Nothing like a butt-load of sugar and fat to get your going in the morning!

It was a fantastic week of eating, drinking and partying. We even managed to squeeze in a visit to a themepark and flamenco bar! Olé!

Cinque Terre, Italy

I've had a little obsession with Italy ever since my Mum's friend kept talking about Italy, she was doing Italian language classes, they were making pasta and she travelled to Italy. It sparked a love inside of me. A love for somewhere I had never travelled to before. I bought myself an Italian phrasebook and started learning the numbers and a few key phrases and I fell in love with Italian food - really, what's not to love about pizza, pasta and pastries? I had dreams of travelling there and experiencing the Italian way of life. It wasn't until last year that I finally set foot into the country that I had fallen in love with, when we went and stayed near Lake Como with some friends. Then we went to Torino with Roy's sister and her friend and touched foot into the country when we drove over the Grand Saint-Bernard pass one summer afternoon.

A couple of weekends ago, Roy took me to Italy for my birthday. We're so lucky to live somewhere that we can just jump in the car and drive to a different country on the weekends. It was a three day weekend for Roy which meant we could spend two nights somewhere and he could be back for work on the Tuesday. We'd been wanting to go to Cinque Terre ever since Roy saw a travel brochure about it in our letter box. The colours of the buildings and the thought of staying in a place that was right beside the Mediterranean Sea sounded so inviting. We didn't manage to get there last year for various reasons and it wasn't until we started counting the weekends that we had left before we return to Australia did we realise that we need take advantage of our fantastic opportunity to travel.

Last October that region of Italy was devastated by terrible storms and landslides. Farms and vineyards were destroyed and towns were buried in layers of mud, demolishing shops and restaurants in it's way. We kept our eyes on updates on the status of the towns and their ability to accomodate tourists during their clean up. The thought of damaged towns and a clean up process didn't put us off our travel but it did put us off going too early since it would have been difficult to get around since most of the walking paths were destroyed also.

We didn't have the best start to our road trip. I noticed one of our headlights wasn't working. We drove to the nearest petrol station, checked in the manual how to get the bulb out, bought a new one, put it in, tested it... nothing. Then we thought perhaps it might have been a fuse. We checked the manual again, bought some fuses, changed a few of them, tested it... nothing. We decided that since the sun doesn't go down until late and we wouldn't be driving at night that it would be safe to continue on our trip without a headlight.

We drove up the mountains and through the Grand Saint-Bernard tunnel, into Italy. We stopped for some petrol along the way and I previously didn't know this but they still have good old service at the service stations. An attendant came and filled up our car. He also noticed that our headlight wasn't working and proceeded to remove it. He didn't speak any english and we don't speak much italian so it was hard to explain to him that we had already tried to fix it. He then threw our brand new bulb in the rubbish bin. Finally we managed to explain to another attendant (in french) that we had tried to fix it and the bulb that he had thrown away was indeed brand new. The guy fished it out of the trash and fitted it back in and we were on our way again.

We drove to a town called Levanto and asked the tourist centre where we could park the car for two days. She drew a cross on a paper map and said that there is an unofficial parking area where we can leave the car for as long as we want for free. We drove to where the cross was on the map and arrived at a grassy lot that didn't look much like a car park. We decided to trust the lady and leave the little panda for the weekend. It was a short walk to the train station where we waited to catch the train to our destination - Vernazza.

Vernazza suffered the most damage during the landslides last year so there was a lot of shops and businesses that are still under construction but it was still a very beautiful town. It just so happened that we arrived on the day they were holding an award ceremony for the local police so the town was bustling with people.

The guesthouse that we stayed in was up lots of steps and it took us a little while to find it. We wandered through the narrow pedestrian streets and eventually we spotted the place. We were greeted by the owners sister who didn't speak a word of english but we managed to work out that we needed to wait for her brother to come and he would sort us out. We sat and soaked in the view. We had such a nice view out of our window.

We spent the afternoon wandering around Vernazza and enjoying the seaside way of life and eating gelati.

Dinner time came around and rather than eating at a restaurant we got some takeaway, a bottle of sparkling wine and sat up on our terrace and watched the sunset change the colours of the mediterranean. Beautiful!

The next morning we went to a restaurant up the hill that was recommended to us by the owner of our guesthouse. It wasn't that good of a breakfast (coffee, cake and orange juice) but it did have some spectacular views.

Part of the attraction of Cinque Terre is the many walking and hiking paths that wind up and through the hills. Roy planned out a nice day of hiking, kayaking, boat tripping, gelati eating and exploring. We set off on a hike to Monterosso.

We met some kitties along the way.

An old WWII Nazi Pillbox bunker.

We hired a kayak from the beach at Monterosso and followed some advice from the guy we hired it from. He told us to paddle around the nearest headland to 'zone A' where boats and fishing is banned. The water was cristal clear and so beautiful. After our paddle, we took a quick dip in the sea. We didn't last very long in there because it was quite cold but it was really nice to freshen up after a sweaty paddle on the kayaks. 

After our explore of the town we hopped on a boat which stops in four of the five towns. It doesn't stop at Corniglia because unlike the other towns, it sits high up on a cliff away from the sea. We got off the boat at the most southerly town - Riomaggiore and had a quick explore before we walked to the next town called Manarolo. Roy did some research before we came on our adventure and found that a lot of people recommended a gelateria. Both of us can never turn down a good, sweet thing so we indulged in our second gelati of the trip. Despite the rave reviews, it was fairly mediocre compared to the nice gelati we had in Vernazza. 

Corniglia

Riomaggiore

Via dell'amore between Riomaggiore and Manarolo.

Sfogliatelle - lobster tail pastry.

Manarolo.

Dinner was eaten that night whilst watching the sun set again. It was beautiful!

Enjoying a prosecco and limoncino.

Even though it was only two nights, the fact that we didn't have wifi distracting us and the bustle of everyday life weighing us down, it felt like we were there for ages. It was such a nice break. We were lucky enough to see dolphins during our boat trip, eat FANTASTIC food, see AMAZING views and get a taste of the relaxed lifestyle by the sea. Such a great place to visit!