Italy: Coastal Excursions

Between the exquisite food and rich history, Italy has always held a special place in our hearts. This time, we visited a few new spots, including Sicily, Capri, and the Italian Riviera. But we also returned to some old favorites, such as Amalfi Coast, Naples, and Venice, but this time with the kids in tow. In retrospect, we essentially traveled up one coastline to another on this trip.

Sicily
07/01-05/15: We started our trip by visiting Sicily, the big island at the south end of Italy’s boot. Sicily is known for fresh seafood and locally grown produce, especially olive oil. From the city of Palermo, we went to see a Greek temple and amphitheater in Segesta and also some medieval towns with cobble stone roads, castle walls and colorful shops. Cefalu was a seaport town and Erice was up on a hill. Agrigento is known as the Valley of the Temples and used to be a large Greek city. It took several hours to drive across Sicily to reach Taormina, a beautiful city overlooking the ocean, next to the volcano, Mt Etna. We stayed at palace hotel where many movies were filmed.

Amalfi Coast
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Italian Riveria
07/11-19/15: Next, we spent a week along the Italian Riviera. First, we stayed at Porto Venere then took a ferry and trains to visit the 5 towns called Cinque Terre, where we played in the waters and tried different food. The towns are named Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Varnazzo, and Monte Rosso. Corniglia was really hard to reach because it’s built high on a hill and we had to climb 365 steps to reach it. We also stayed a few days in Portofino. The hotel had a nice pool overlooking the sea port below. For the final few days in the area, we stayed in Genoa, home of Christopher Columbus. We took a hop on hop off bus tour of the city and visited the Aquarium in the Old Port. We also walked along Via Garibaldi, an old street lined with many palaces.

Venice
07/20-23/15: We finished our trip with a few days in Venice. When we arrived at the airport, we took a water taxi through the Grand Canal then through some smaller canals to the water entrance to our hotel. As we explored narrow alleys and many bridges, we saw many shops with beautiful masks and glass displays. On Murano island, we visited a glass factory where we watched the masters blowing and shaping glass into a chandelier. On our last day in Venice and Italy, we took a relaxing gondola ride throw the narrow canals, under many bridges, and past Marco Polo’s house. We enjoyed a fancy meal with a 7 course tasting menu at a restaurant overlooking San Marco Square with the famous cathedral, bell tower, and Doges Palace.