Update September 6th

Mike and I hope to do a slide show and talk about our trip to Italy during a College Hour at COCC this winter. Once the slide show is completed, we'll post it here!

In the meantime, here is one of my favorite photos of Manarola: we were in one of the pink houses high up the cliff overlooking the water.

Trastevere and the Tiber River, Rome

Street Scenes in Orvieto (day 17)

View from San Gimignano

San Gimignano (where Tea With Mussolini was filmed--with Cher playing the Peggy Guggenheim-like character) is a small hilltop tourist town not far from Siena. Mike and I figured out how to take a local bus there...



While the main small streets of the town are packed with very pricey tourist shops, outside of the walls of the town is a beautiful trail--looks like the trails in Orvieto and Lucca, two other small hill towns that we loved.

After our walk around the walls, we found a quiet restaurant where Mike had a pizza and I had bruschetta.

Siena and James Bond

We arrived in Siena on Tuesday, May 13th, after a very long multi-train ride from Manarola (changing at La Spezia, Pisa and Empoli). While not my favorite town at first (our hotel room faced a noisy street, so lack of sleep had something to do with it), it did grow on us as we found a few pubs we liked overlooking the piazza, and a beautiful church on the outskirts of the center of town, and our day trip to San Gimignano.

Another highlight was watching the filming of the next James Bond movie (see the notice to the left)--and seeing a very spiffy Daniel Craig in a white tux. Here are some of Stacey's photos (don't worry: I'll sent out e-mails once I get Mike's photos up here!):

Above is a view of Siena from the Church of Saint Catherine's, a quiet oasis in a rather busy little city. Below is a view of San Gimignano, a cute, much smaller town about an hour bus ride from Siena. This is where "Tea with Mussolini" was filmed. This is a walled city with a wonderful walking path outside the wall.

Cinque Terre (the Five Towns on the Italian Riviera)

Cinque Terre was our favorite place in Italy perhaps because it was the least crowded, the most visually stunning, and the place where we felt entirely relaxed. We rented an apartment called Maria 3 that I found online (casa5terre.com): it was the top floor of a house on a cliff (86 steps from "street" or harbor level). Tom and Kirsten from Portland were in the downstairs apartment. We had several "decks" including two that were above the apartment level, all overlooking the Ligurian Sea. We ate one of our favorite meals here, saw an art opening (I need to find Luigi's web address to share), walked the wine trail, Mike hiked the Cinque Terre trail and I put my feet in the Ligurian Sea. Here are some photos from Stacey's camera (Mike's photos to be posted eventually, perhaps in a slide show!). Above is the ocean facing part of Manarola--our apartment was on the other side of that rounded building at the edge of the cliff (I think!). Below is sunset from the lower deck of our apartment.

Here is Mike on the beach at Monterosso.

To the left is a view of Vernazza from the boat we took between towns.

And here is the Manarola train station (you have a choice of boat, train or hiking between towns):

Lucca's downtown ambience

I forgot to mention that just like Brooks St. in downtown Bend, Lucca's Piazza San Michele also has a dude sitting on the street with his dog and, instead of a cat, a rabbit! The rabbit would clean the dog's ears once in a while! The man was dressed in a colorful costume and playing music (Mike: I think you have pics of him?). Clearly, I was more interested in the bunny/dog friendship....