(April 23, Pisa & Chianti Region): Room (dis)Servizio

Thanks to some pre-trip internet perusing we learned that a lot of tourist attractions in Florence are closed on Monday.  So at first we were a little worried that we'd have to be served alcoholic beverages by our new friend Sandro poolside all day.  That would be tragic, wouldn't it?!  Luckily the hotel concierge came to our rescue and arranged a car and driver to take us to Pisa and then to a winery in the Chianti region nearby.  (I seriously can't say enough how much our hotel, the Villa Cora, rocked.) Saved by the bell(hop)!

For the second day in a row we received a VIP pick up straight from the hotel and headed off to Pisa.  The only thing on our agenda for the city was to get to see the famous leaning tower and of course take the requisite pictures in various poses "supporting" said structure.  The drive to Pisa was approximately an hour or so drive.  Of course like all of our drives on this road trip- the scenery was amazing. 

When we arrived our driver dropped us off right by the tower.   Apparently he appreciated our interest in touristy efficiency.  This was the first place that seemed crowded.  I guess word that the rockstar were coming to town had gotten out?  I am not sure what exactly I expected of the tower, but I really liked it.  It was much prettier in real life than I expected.  Plus, I appreciate it's lean-y-ness.  It's reminiscent of Ryan and I's first Christmas tree, which obviously holds a special place in my heart.

Sliiiide to the left.

I didn't get QUITE as into my turn in front of the camera as some of my fellow travellers as you can see.  Obviously I'm just as strong though.

It's all in the knees.

It's a bird.  It's a plane.  No, it's Supermom!

Watching your caretakers pose awkwardly is enough to make you want to drink.

Speaking of awkward... this was.  After we wrapped up our mini photoshoot, this gentleman asked Melanie if he could take a picture with Jake.  This opened the floodgates.   Right after, 2 more people asked to take pictures with him.  Melanie thinks it's the blonde hair.  I think it's proof that To Catch a Predator: International is just around the corner.

Piazza del Duomo & the Baptistery.  The Tower is just to the right.  See all those crazed fans?  McMartin-sanity!

Next we piled back into the van to head to a winery.  Melanie's only requests to the concierge were that he find a place with fabulous wine (duh) and animals to entertain Jake.  The conceirge chose Tenuta Torciano.  It's not only a winery but also a bed & breakfast.  Pierluigi, the owner and host, is one of something crazy like 14 kids.  The winery has been passed down through the family since the 1700s. 

Pierluigi had all the things I love about a man - passion, enthusiasm and more wine than he knew what to do with.  He greeted us at the car and quickly ushered us into one of the private dining areas.  We were both surprised and excited to learn that the large table seated in the room with us was full of ladies from the Dallas area.  There were about 14 of them and they were on a chick trip.  I hope that when I'm that age I'm still going on world tours with my lady-frans.  Heaven knows Pierluigi would support it! 

To kick off our dining/wining experience we got a plate with salami, another type of meat I didn't pay attention to the name of, bread, cheses and salad with balsamic.  We also got 4 different glasses of wine.  Our task was to try each of the types of wine with a bite of each and to write which taste combo we liked best with each type of wine.  This proved to be an overwhelmingly difficult task for Melanie who immediately lost sight of the task at hand and started mingling wines and foods.  Tuition dollars have never been better spent than on the 4 of us, clearly.

Just looking at it, you wouldn't know it was harder than the TAAS test, would you?

Oh man, I never did figure out what this was but it was INCREDIBLE.  I think it was vegetables doused in olive oil.  This was our second course.

Every bit as giddy as they look.

You would think having that splendid vegetable medley, the 4 glass flight and the bread, salad, etc would be enough, wouldn't you?  Clearly you have forgotten about Italian hospitality.  I stopped taking pictures- probably because it hindered my face stuffing- but after these courses we got served another flight of 3 wines.  THEN Pierluigi capped it off by feeding us his Mama's Lasagne with homemade truffle oil.  Somewhere in the midst of that we also got to sample 2 different Torciano olive oils.  You know how you can change your name?  Is there a way to change your ancestory?  My family tree is severly lacking some Italian.

OMG, how did you get that much food in your mouth?  I've never seen anything like this.

Beautiful dining backdrop.

Once we'd finished sampling everything Pierluigi would let us, we somehow managed to remove ourselves from our chairs without the use of the jaws of life.  We headed outside to explore the grounds and to check out the animals for Jakey-pants.

Pretty shot of the buildings on the property.  We ate in the one on the right.  I think the one on the left may be the bed & breakfast.

C'mon!  Perhaps if you hadn't finished your lasagne this wouldn't be so hard for you.

Geeeeeese!  If I'd known how mean these boogers were as a youth, I'd probably have felt differently about Mother Goose's fairy tales.

Hot chicks.

You would never guess they were from Texas based on their comfort level in this picture.

Melanie & Jonathan in the courtyard.

Late in the afternoon we bid adieu to Pierluigi and hoisted ourselves back into the van to head back to Florence.  We convinced our driver to drop us off in the center of city by the Duomo so that we could take a look at it from afar and grab some gellato before he dropped us back at the hotel.

Watching the adults is a tiring, thankless job.

Be-a-utiful countryside on the way back to Florence.

Do you think Italy has HAR?  Note to self: look that up.

Here's the Duomo in the center of Florence.  I love the architecture and lines.

Typical Martin family photo.

Over the river (Arno) and through the woods to the Villa Cora we go...

Of course, since this was our last night in Florence, we decided to take one last soak in the hot tub (and one more scented breeze shower for my better half) for memory's sake.  Had we known what the dinner situation held in store for us we may have tried to stock up even further on relaxation.

Show me to the ya-cuzzi!

For our grand Florence/Villa Cora finale, we decided to take a bottle of wine up to the roof to watch the sun set and to reflect upon our favorite parts of Florence.  (Collective awe- yes, we are so Keaton family).  We all hung out on the roof and watched the sun go down.  The view was even more spectacular than we expected it to be thanks to the hotel's location on the top of a hill just on the outskirts of the city.

Just sittin' on top of the world.

Oh so pretty.

We were so relaxed sitting on the roof that we decided to order room service so we didn't have to leave.  At first we were under the impression that you could order room service anywhere at all in the hotel.  We carefully selected a cool cigar/wine room in the basement of the hotel.

That's one hot barkeep.

Distinguished gentleman.

Eventually after what felt like an unusually long wait, we chased down the maitre d of the hotel who informed us that no, you can not in fact have room service (room servizio) delivered anywhere in the hotel.  It had to be to your room.  At this point we were roughly 30 minutes deep into this decision.  Melanie & I were starved.  So we relayed this new information to our men who had not interest in food nor ensuring our growling tummies were fed.   Strike 1 for the room service crew and strike 1 for McMartin men.

So we womenfolk took matters into our own hands- Melanie, Jake & I went to Ryan & I's room to order room service.  We ordered a hamburger (for Ryan), pizza (for me), soup (for Melanie) and something I can't remember for Jake.  Jonathan didn't get dinner because he had already exhausted the no tolerance policy.  After about 30 more mintues our servizio arrived - hallllllelujah!  Immediately it became evident that Melanie's soup was wrong.  They neglected to tell her that they were out of what she ordered when she placed her order.  So they took it upon themselves to decide what type of soup she would prefer.  To amend the situation she ordered a hamburger. 

Flash forward another 15 minutes when Melanie's hamburger arrives.  At this point I have blown through the fries with Ryan's meal, so we order another hamburger for Ryan.  I think we added at least 1 more thing to the order then- maybe a pizza for Jonathan?  After they left for the third time, Melanie cut into her burger which may as well have been mooing.  Hello gas- meet fire.  The boys strategically choose this time to return to the room.  While trying to explain the situation to them, Ryan gave me some lip about what HE would have ordered.  Meanwhile Jonathan asked if the red, mooing burger was off-limits.  Let's just say stuff popped off between the men and women in the room. 

Fourth of July fireworks have nothing on the McMartin family civil war.  Just looking back on it all makes me laugh.  The names will be withheld to protect the innocent, but imagine with me... a dramatic exit, a command to "wipe that smirk off your face," a threat regarding a stroller and an adult trying to wheel a room service cart across a hotel and over cobblestone.  Who knew when we were on the roof just hours earlier that the part of the trip that makes me laugh the hardest hadn't even taken place yet?

Luckily Melanie and I are very forgiving women and by the time we left the next morning we were all laughing.  Needless to say - the room servizio marathon some bill confusion upon check out.  I still maintain that the memories are priceless. 

Up Next:  Road trip back to Geneva

(April 22, Cinque Terre): Olive this Place

On Sunday we woke up bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and ready to do some touring.  Destination?  None other than Cinque Terre.  What is that?  Well, the short answer is it's the best place ever.  The more scientific response would be - it is a beautiful destination on the Italian coast comprised of 5 different villages (clever naming, right?!) connected by a huge trail.  Science has never been my thing though, so I'm sticking with the first one. 

All of the villages are nestled in gorgeous terraced hills, some higher up and some right on the water.  As soon as you arrive you feel like you've accidentally stumbled upon some fabulously kept secret.  According to our tour guide that isn't the far from the truth because there weren't even roads to this part of the world until the 1970s.  I'm fairly confident that you still can't make it to some of the villages via automobile, but I was pretty intoxicated on sea breeze, so don't quote me on that.

For those more ambitious types, you can do an all-day tour which takes you on a sweet hike through all 5 villages.  However, given my past history of falling on even the flattest of surfaces, the fact that we were with precious Jakers and our lack of combined hiking experience (thanks for nothing Texas), we opted for a tour heavy on the being chaffeured and light on the actual physical exertion.  The agenda for the day was to meet up with our tour driver in Florence, head over to the first village, take a short boat trip to a second village, walk on Lovers Lane, and then eat lunch in the third village.  We skipped 2 of the villages because one was inaccessible due to a landslide last year (#mountainsidelivingproblems) and the largest of the villages isn't that much different from a regular European town per our driver.  So the tour company skips it.

Thanks to the fact that we were travelling during non-peak tourist season and thus no one else signed up for this tour are such international rockstars- we got picked up directly from the hotel and got on our merry way.

Just stunning.  Our first glimpse of the promiseland.

I can't remember which village this was but we were definitely appreciative of a little break from the drive for a moment.

Adorable family photo.

Anyone who's ever ridden in a car on impossibly narrow one way roads in the mountains (think the Road to Hana, if you have done that) can clearly imagine the excitement and suspense of our ride there.  If you haven't ever done that just imagine having these thoughts in rapid succession for 30-45 minutes: Will this next sharp turn be our last?  Will this game of car chicken work out in our favor?  Who will take care of Lola?  Should I have eaten that much for breakfast?  Thankfully our tour driver was far more skilled in the art of sharp turns and navigation than we are.  We arrived safely at stop #1, Corniglia (I think- sadly I didn't write this down), and the view was more than worth it. 

Jake, Mama Mel & I at the entrance to the main alley way of Corniglia.

The gorgeous view at the end of the alleyway.  Whoever said that a pot of gold was at the end of a rainbow didn't dream big enough.  I'd take this over a pot of gold any day. (To be clear, I'm referring to the view of the water as opposed to our posteriors.)

It was cloudy at the time and you can still see how wonderful the water color is.

No wind machines were used in the making of this photograph.

I love the way cloudy days cast shadows over the hills.  Makes some of them seem like they're glowing.

My super hetero husband.

Escape artist!  P.S. this is the main alleyway I was referring to.  Note how narrow it is.

After we took more than our fair share of pictures of the gorgeous view from Corniglia, we piled back in our tour bus to head to Manarola.  (Editors note: I have tried for about 30 minutes to piece back together what order we went in on our tour and I'm still not sure I have it right.  So if you catch where I'm off, I apologize.  Have I ever mentioned you should be drinking while you read this blog?  You probably should.  I'll probably seem a lot more with it.)  We were supposed to get to go on a boat ride in Manarola but due to the water being too rough, we didn't get to do that.  As the photos below will evidence, I don't think our day fell short on beauty because of it.

Best coping mechanism for sharply winding roads: taking photos out the window.  It's a fact of life.  Also, all these terraced hills are used to grow grapes, lemons and olives.  Man this caption is educational!

Cool church.

I love how colorful all the buildings are.  It's like the Heights on steroids.

We are so good at assimilating.

Apparently they knew what they were talking about.  That water looks a littttttle bit dicey.  Gilligans Island part 2 could have happened.

After we spent some time moseying around Manarola, we purchased tickets to walk along the portion of the trail between Manarola & Riomaggiore which is referred to as Via Dell'Amore (Way of Love).  This portion of the path is more non-hiker-friendly.  It was every bit as breath-taking as you would imagine.

My staple tree pic.

Railroad carved in the hillside.  I bet that's an awesome train ride.

Live action shot- I'm sure you were wondering what we looked like walking along the trail, right?

"I walked along a hillside cliff that dropped off into the ocean to get my lunch," is the new "I walked uphill in the snow 2 miles to school each day."

Lova & I on Lovers Way.

Upon arriving in Riomaggiore, our tour guide let us loose to choose a place to eat lunch and explore the town.  Because we have incredibly American priorities, we headed straight to find a restaurant.  Do not pass go, do not take photos.  Good thing we didn't do the all day tour- I can only imagine what would have happened if our appetites had been amplified by about 10.

We selected a restaurant that I can't recall the name of.  The owner of the restaurant was unimpressed with us from the moment we stepped onto his patio.  I'm not sure if he didn't like our accents, the fact that we came baring a stroller or if our stomachs were loud enough to offend him.  Regardless, we didn't help our cause when we proceeded to drop a fork and spill 1/4th of a bag of chocolate cheerios on the floor.  Perhaps this guy had good instincts?

Our view during lunch.  Well this and an Italian scowl.

That was the last time that fork was seen above the table.

Oh... there are more forks?  Awesome.  Let me have them all.  Is he not the cutest little man ever?!

To wrap up our tour day, we explored the remainder of the town.  We poked our heads in a few shops and just generally enjoyed the vibe.  Melanie procured some adorable flats and the rest of us procured some beers.  We sat outside and enjoyed people watching- both the locals and Jake getting his calf workout on by tirelessly running up and down a steep hill in the middle of the village.

KarMar?  Is that you?  Fancy meeting you here.  (I think this was meant to show how steep the road Jake was running up and down on was... this pic definitely doesn't do it justice).

Then sadly, it was time to head back to Florence.  Big time sad face.  If you ever have the time to make it to Cinque Terre- you definitely should.  It's so incredible.

Ciao bella!

Sunset from the car window heading back in to Florence.

After we arrived home, we rested for a bit and set mon feces up with a babysitter so we could do an adults feast.  For dinner we asked our concierge to recommend the best pasta shop and pizzeria he could think of.  He sent us to Baldovino and I can't thank him enough.  The atmosphere was completely perfect for a relaxing dinner.  The wine, pasta, pizza and company were second to none.  It was the cherry on top of a perfect Sunday (haaaa, do you see what I did there?!)

Ryno & yo in front of a pretty chapel.

Melanie & Jonathan in front of the same pretty chapel.

Beautimous shot down a side street near Baldovino.

Ryan & Jonathan toasting with their salsas en frescas (this was deemed the "bite of death" and ended in some sweating on their part- Melanie & I are indeeeeed lucky).