Thursday 14 Nov 2019

Today we drove from Italy, the province of South Tyrol to Weiler I’m Allgau in Germany passing through Austria.

Rob and I agree it was a postcard day, recent snow falls along with a crystal clear sky coupled with some of the prettiest mountains made for some stunning scenery. We both agreed it had been one of our nicest days driving yet.

Most of the photo’s are taken as we drove along but we still hope you enjoy these as much as we did.

Vandoies

Brennero outlet village – there’s a car under there!

Zirl

Mon 11/11 – Thur 14/11/19

Monday morning early we set out from Le Spezia for a long drive – 400 kilometres up to the South Tyrol region, our last stop in Italy. For the next four weeks we plan to tour Germany, up to the Netherlands and then down through France.

Rob had been checking the weather and had found it would be snowing in the Province of South Tyrol this week so we thought we would try to catch some real winters weather.

From La Spezia we head NE towards Parma and Mantova. Just outside Verona we leave the Autostrada so that we can drive up Lake Garda which runs for about 100 kilometres.

Mountains tower each side of the lake which has wind whipped waves on this cold rainy day. At Gargnano on the opposite shore we see a village on a cliff top and a bit further on there is another under the cliff at Campione.

At the end of the lake at Nago- Torbole a gorgeous village then morphs into a rural vista of tightly packed fields of grapevines and fruit trees.

Back on the Autostrada we pass Castellano – which has a Castle high on the hill above the town.

Snow is predicted from 6pm. We exit the Autostrada at Bressanone and arrive at the village of Vintl Weitenal, grab a few supplies and head up the mountain to our destination, villa Wohrerhof. As we leave the village around 5pm, it starts snowing. Wow!

I feel like a child with the wonder of it. Our host Agnes meets us, speaking German and we quickly bring in our gear, then we are both out trying to catch the snow on our tongues, laughing and giggling.

On Tuesday we wake up to a smattering of snow that turns to sleet by about 10am. We go for a drive further up the valley to the village of Pfunder where it is -2 degrees and snowing. We visit the local church, go for a very slippery walk and then play in the snow for a bit before relaxing in the local bar with a warm drink.

Back in Vintl it’s still wet and the snow has all but disappeared. We take a walk around Vandois, the village below our villa, it’s very cold and there is no one about except the Poste lady and very little traffic. Rob and I ponder that from now til April next year, people in snow areas mainly live inside.

Later in the day it starts snowing again and this time it snows all through the night going down to -7 degrees.

On Wednesday we wake up to a Winter wonderland.

Snow everywhere! Its very quiet and very beautiful. We go for a walk around the villa and up the mountain road beside us a short way.

Across the morning it keeps snowing and by 10:30am the wheels on the car are half buried. It’s supposed to stop snowing soon and we are hoping for a walk later…

At about 11:30am Agnes is outside shoveling snow. I kindly offer Rob’s help as my right hand is still not up to hard manual work although it is healing well. After snapping some pics and dodging snow thrown my way I start work on a snowman.

Rob and Agnes clear snow around the cars for about an hour and Agnes explains a tractor will clear the drive later.

It continues to snow for about another hour and stops around 1:00pm. We have had nearly 40cm of snow and Agnes tell us that this unusual for November but that it will be a clear tomorrow. Good to hear as we have to drive out then.

On the news today we hear that Venice has flooded and is under – 1.7metres of water and that other areas further down in Southern Italy have flooded also – so sad to hear. So challenging weather abounds.

Rob and I are also both very sad to hear about the devastating bush fires at home in Australia. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected.

Robs walk – love this shot

I’m in love with this place and enjoying the photography immensely. A full moon on the 12th presents an opportunity to good to miss so I get up and take some shots at 2am from our balcony. It’s -6 degrees and I had read about a meteor shower due about now but no sign of it, just the lovely moonlight.

The next morning the sun is shining and it looks like a bonus day for our drive through Austria into Germany.

Next stop Fischen Germany.

Saturday 9 Nov – Sunday 10 Nov 2019

Our host Gianna has recommended visits to Portovenere and Lerici so we are keen to explore both.

Porto Venere is a village on the Ligurian coast of northwestern Italy. It’s known for Porto Venere Regional Natural Park, a protected area with trails and dive sites. The park encompasses Palmaria Island, dotted with beaches and caves. The Gothic-style Church of St. Peter sits atop a rocky headland. Nearby is the centuries-old Castello Doria, an imposing clifftop fortress with views of the Gulf of Poets.

So named as this region was popular with poets, Shelley drowned at Lerici, Byron swam between Porto Venere and Lerici. Before them, other poets, Dante and Petrarch lover the gulf also.

We walk around the harbour admiring the pretty town and the views across the bay to Lerici before heading up to explore St. Peters.

Apparently Lord (and poet) Byron was a keen swimmer and he swam from Porto Venere to Lerici often! We estimated this to be about 10km’s so a pretty sound effort!

After St. Peter’s we headed up the hill to view the church of San Lorenzo and Castello Doria.

After another lovely day exploring we head home and later that night we get thunderstorms and lots of rain.

The next day as we are about to leave I spy this street art near our building. Could this be a Banksy style version of Klimt’s kiss perhaps?

Today we drive in the opposite direction from Portovenere to Lerici.

Lerici is a town and comune in the province of La Spezia in Liguria, part of the Italian Riviera. It is situated on the coast of the Gulf of La Spezia, 8 kilometres southeast of La Spezia. It is known as the place where the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley drowned.

After we leave Lerici Rob decided to drive to the end of the point. Ponta Bianca. The road quickly becomes very high, winding with lots of signs saying don’t go off the edge! The drop off is very steep and at times the only barrier is olive trees! Very hairy drive indeed!

Ponta Bianca

La Spezia is a great spot to visit. It has so many interesting places very close by including the Cinque Terre and Italian Riviera and is also ideal and not far from quite a few other places like Pisa and Florence. I loved this location.

Tomorrow we head North to our last stop in Italy before touring on towards Germany, to the province of South Tryol. We think there may be snow too so it’s an exciting prospect!

Wednesday 6 Nov 2019

We woke to a thunderstorm in Florence and a lot of rain.

After a slow start I took one more photo of our amazing view from villa “On Top of the World” and then we set off for Le Spezia, our next destination, which is near the more familiar Cinque Terre.

Beautiful Firenze

Rob had planned the route so that we could visit Pisa on the way and see “Le Torre de Pisa”

Only about an hour from Florence, we had lots of rain on the way and once we arrived and parked it was apparent from the swollen and fast flowing Arno River, that Pisa had received a lot of rain the last few days.

The famous Tower of Pisa!

Of course we had to do the corny photo too! Mine turned out best. 🙂

The Tower of Pisa is actually the bell tower of the Cathedral and along with the Duomo and the Camposata comprise the area that make up the field of miracles as it is so called.

The Cathedral is dedicated to Santa Maria Assunta.

It really is an extraordinary sight, even for the beautiful Architecture but the tower has quite a lean to it.

Even more apparent when you get up close is how much it’s leaning! My next shot tries to show this but you may have to zoom in. On the left side of the pano shot there are one and a half blocks, on the right side, four and a half! Each block is about 50cm high so by my reckoning that’s 1.5 metres variation!

Walking back to the car we pass through Piazza Vittorio Emmanuel II which has a state of The first King of Italy, Vittorio Emmanuel, and another lovely arty sculpture.

Vittorio Emmanuel

Back in the car and heading to Le Spezia which is on the Coast we have storms chasing the mountains on our left all the way.

The next photo shows a mountain that is shaped like a caldera and as we got closer the sun broke through and a beautiful rainbow appeared.

We arrived Le Spezia around 5pm and after meeting our host Gianna and settling into our apartment for the next five days, the rain had cleared and we were able to have a walk through town. It’s a lovely place and we can’t wait to explore Le Spezia further and visit/hike Cinque Terre.

Sat 2 – Tue 5 Nov 2019

We arrived Firenze later than expected from Siena due to a breakdown on the motorway, it’s a long weekend in Italy, All Saints day Friday the 1st being a public holiday.

We were only a kilometre or so behind the accident which looked like two smaller cars had side swiped each other on a bend but who knows, the traffic quickly banked up and we were delayed about an hour. The days are shorter now too as they switched the clocks back an hour at the end of October so it’s dark around 5pm.

After settling in at Villa La Sosta we headed down the hill to Piazza Della Liberta for a “Florentine” at Perseus Ristorante as recommended by our host.

The restaurant was crazy busy, probably due to the long weekend and we had to wait a short while, even with arriving just after the restaurant opened at 7pm. But it was worth it!!!

pop on

Chianti and Salad

Rob and I share a “Florentine” for two; which at home would be a two inch thick T-bone, aged and then cooked and seasoned to perfection.

It was delicious to say the least and the whole experience was lots of fun, in a very busy and typically Italian restaurant.

We finished the meal with biscuits and wine and then headed home. The walk back up the hill in a fine misty rain was okay too.

Sunday was a free gallery day in Firenze and as we had planned to visit the Uffizi Galleria, we thought that this was good; at first, until we found you couldn’t reserve tickets on line for this day. You had to line up on the day!

Nevertheless we headed out for the day after a lively breakfast shared at the villa with other guests from Argentina and Italy.

This time we caught the bus down to Piazza San Marco and then walked to see the Duomo and Santa Maria Del Fiori. So beautiful, it’s hard to describe. Florence is known for it’s art and beauty and for its statues of course!

The square was busy as had been the streets since we left San Marco. The line at the Academy Galleria had been long as we passed by, snaking around the corner.

As we walked on to the Uffizi I wondered how long that line would be, the day was fine so far but rain was expected later so we thought we would walk on and up to Piazza Michelangelo before tackling the line at the Uffizi.

The lines for the Uffizi were both very long, one for tickets (door 3) and door one to get in so we decided to continue on.

A walk across Ponte Vecchio was a treat. The “river of gold” shops are well known and the jewellery extremely beautiful and very expensive.

Once over the bridge we headed up towards Scala passing a house used by Galileo as an observatory and on to the gardens at San Niccolò.

The views across Florence are stunning and there is free parking for 1 hour if you drive up and a couple of cafe’s for a coffee if you walk up like we did.

A shower of rain swept across the city so we dove into a small cafe and had a quick espresso at the bar. We then caught a beautiful rainbow.

We head back down through San Niccolò taking a slightly different route this time over Ponte ale Grazie.

As we cross the bridge it starts to get windy and before long it’s raining in earnest, thunder, lightning, the whole shabang so we dive into the nearest bar and while away an hour watching a female soccer game while drinking a beer and sharing a burger.

It’s about 3pm by now and the lines to get into the Uffizi is as long as ever. We check in at the information desk and are disappointed to hear the allocation for tickets for the day has gone, even with the gallery open for another 4 hours.

One of the good things about travelling as Rob and I are is flexibility, so we decided to extend our stay in Florence for two days as the Uffizi us closed Monday’s, leaving Florence Wednesday rather than Monday. That decided, we spent the next hour enjoying the sights before grabbing some Chinese and heading back to our villa.

Monday 4/11

Rob had found us an amazing apartment for the next two days so we spent Monday as a down day; visiting Fiesole, (original Roman settlement around 283BC) and perhaps Florences oldest and most wealthy city, and moving apartments.

Tuesday 5/11

Today we have tickets for Uffizi and Pitti Palace and it’s off to the Uffizi we go.

The building itself is 16th century and it houses vast collections of Renaissance art, Masterpieces and sculptures. A must see if you visit Firenze!

We both took way too many photos but here’s just a few that we both enjoyed seeing. I’m sure you will recognise a few.

The time got away from us at the Uffizi, we spent 5 hours and could have stayed longer we enjoyed it so much.

After a snack and a cup of tea we headed on to the Pitti Palace.

The Pitti palace dates back to the mid 15th century, was home to the de Medici family for over 100 years and it has several import museums as well as the Boboli gardens.

We visited the Palantine museum and it too was amazing, over 500 artworks including masterpieces and we were able to join a free private tour of the kitchens.

Again we took way to many pictures… the interiors and ceiling frescoes impressive enough and then there was the art. Here’s a few.

An absolutely fabulous day! We pick up supplies for dinner and head back to our amazing apartment with its view to enjoy our last night in Florence.

We are of to Le Spezia (Cinque Terre) tomorrow via Pisa.

If you had a bet on the Melbourne cup today I hope you backed a winner and Happy Birthday to my nephew Kenny. xx

Sat 2 – Tue 5 Nov 2019

We arrived Firenze later than expected from Siena due to a breakdown on the motorway, it’s a long weekend in Italy, All Saints day Friday the 1st being a public holiday.

We were only a kilometre or so behind the accident which looked like two smaller cars had side swiped each other on a bend but who knows, the traffic quickly banked up and we were delayed about an hour. The days are shorter now too as they switched the clocks back an hour at the end of October so it’s dark around 5pm.

After settling in at Villa La Sosta we headed down the hill to Piazza Della Liberta for a “Florentine” at Perseus Ristorante as recommended by our host.

The restaurant was crazy busy, probably due to the long weekend and we had to wait a short while, even with arriving just after the restaurant opened at 7pm. But it was worth it!!!

Chianti and Salad

Rob and I share a “Florentine” for two; which at home would be a two inch thick T-bone, aged and then cooked and seasoned to perfection.

It was delicious to say the least and the whole experience was lots of fun, in a very busy and typically Italian restaurant.

We finished the meal with biscuits and wine and then headed home. The walk back up the hill in a fine misty rain was okay too.

Sunday was a free gallery day in Firenze and as we had planned to visit the Uffizi Galleria, we thought that this was good; at first, until we found you couldn’t reserve tickets on line for this day. You had to line up on the day!

Nevertheless we headed out for the day after a lively breakfast shared at the villa with other guests from Argentina and Italy.

This time we caught the bus down to Piazza San Marco and then walked to see the Duomo and Santa Maria Del Fiori. So beautiful, it’s hard to describe. Florence is known for it’s art and beauty and for its statues of course!

The square was busy as had been the streets since we left San Marco. The line at the Academy Galleria had been long as we passed by, snaking around the corner.

As we walked on to the Uffizi I wondered how long that line would be, the day was fine so far but rain was expected later so we thought we would walk on and up to Piazza Michelangelo before tackling the line at the Uffizi.

The lines for the Uffizi were both very long, one for tickets (door 3) and door one to get in so we decided to continue on.

A walk across Ponte Vecchio was a treat. The “river of gold” shops are well known and the jewellery extremely beautiful and very expensive.

Once over the bridge we headed up towards Scala passing a house used by Galileo as an observatory and on to the gardens at San Niccolò.

The views across Florence are stunning and there is free parking for 1 hour if you drive up and a couple of cafe’s for a coffee if you walk up like we did.

A shower of rain swept across the city so we dove into a small cafe and had a quick espresso at the bar. We then caught a beautiful rainbow.

We head back down through San Niccolò taking a slightly different route this time over Ponte ale Grazie.

As we cross the bridge it starts to get windy and before long it’s raining in earnest, thunder, lightning, the whole shabang so we dive into the nearest bar and while away an hour watching a female soccer game while drinking a beer and sharing a burger.

It’s about 3pm by now and the lines to get into the Uffizi is as long as ever. We check in at the information desk and are disappointed to hear the allocation for tickets for the day has gone, even with the gallery open for another 4 hours.

One of the good things about travelling as Rob and I are is flexibility, so we decided to extend our stay in Florence for two days as the Uffizi us closed Monday’s, leaving Florence Wednesday rather than Monday. That decided, we spent the next hour enjoying the sights before grabbing some Chinese and heading back to our villa.

Monday 4/11

Rob had found us an amazing apartment for the next two days so we spent Monday as a down day; visiting Fiesole, (original Roman settlement around 283BC) and perhaps Florences oldest and most wealthy city, and moving apartments.

Tuesday 5/11

Today we have tickets for Uffizi and Pitti Palace and it’s off to the Uffizi we go.

The building itself is 16th century and it houses vast collections of Renaissance art, Masterpieces and sculptures. A must see if you visit Firenze!

We both took way too many photos but here’s just a few that we both enjoyed seeing. I’m sure you will recognise a few.

The time got away from us at the Uffizi, we spent 5 hours and could have stayed longer we enjoyed it so much.

After a snack and a cup of tea we headed on to the Pitti Palace.

The Pitti palace dates back to the mid 15th century, was home to the de Medici family for over 100 years and it has several import museums as well as the Boboli gardens.

We visited the Palantine museum and it too was amazing, over 500 artworks including masterpieces and we were able to join a free private tour of the kitchens.

Again we took way to many pictures… the interiors and ceiling frescoes impressive enough and then there was the art. Here’s a few.

An absolutely fabulous day! We pick up supplies for dinner and head back to our amazing apartment with its view to enjoy our last night in Florence.

We are of to Le Spezia (Cinque Terre) tomorrow via Pisa.

If you had a bet on the Melbourne cup today I hope you backed a winner and Happy Birthday to my nephew Kenny. xx