Karl and Leslie walk and study in Italy, Germany, and around the Med
We couldn’t leave Siena without one last visit to our favorite restaurant, La Taverna di San Guieseppi.La Taverna is a very special place. It specializes in Tuscan cuisine and is often rated the best restaurant is Siena. It is really well run with great attention to detail. The service is outstanding; visible when you want …
Continue reading “Sometimes, happiness can be measured in grams!”
We stopped in Florence for a day on our way to Barcelona where we caught our ship home. While there, we wandered around revisiting some of our favorite areas and found ourselves at one of the sprawling outdoor leather markets at lunch time. We decided to stop in again at the Casa del Vino, a …
The countryside around the Via Francigena in central Tuscany is breathtakingly beautiful. Soft sage, pink, violet, Siena, and light olive colors envelop the hiker in blissful after blissful scene. Whiffs of olives and grapes complement the visual feast. Walking through this beauty is incredibly uplifting and restoring. A hiker could repeat this walk every year …
It is going to take us a while to get back to Virginia, but we are on the way. We left Siena on October 30 and went to Florence so we could catch a flight to Barcelona the next day. In Florence, our paths crossed one last time with Jane and Jim, who had been …
The view from our room in San Miniato The view from the highest point in San Miniato Anything else I could say would be superfluous.
Three years ago, when we walked the Cammino di Francesco from Assisi to Rome, we put up a post entitled “Why We Walk” (which is here if you’d like to read it). This is a follow up on the same subject after studying Italian for a few years. Walking, we experience some of the most …
Today, Thursday, we walked from Camaiore to Lucca, a little over 25 kilometers (15.6 miles) with an ascent of 375 meters (1,230 feet) and a descent of 392 meters (1,286 feet).Not the furthest we’ve walked (we once did 43 kilometers on the Cammino di Francesco) or the highest climb or descent (the Grand Canyon last …
On Tuesday, we walked from Messa to Pietrasanta. As is so often the case with the towns through which we are walking, we had never heard of Pietrasanta. In order to remember the name of a new town, Karl likes to look for a hook, some sort of mnemonic to help remember it. Pietrasanta was …
Continue reading “Saint Peter, marble, and the importance of gender”
We were very excited when we walked into the town of Massa in Tuscany and saw trees hanging full of beautiful, grapefruit-sized ripe oranges.The trees lined the streets and piazzas and walkways, emitting sweet orange perfume. That is, we were excited until we were viciously attacked by falling fruit. The breeze came up and large …
In the Carrara area, the streets aren’t paved with marble, but marble is used for just about everything else. The white veins of marble in the mountains can be seen for miles awayand there are dozens of marble processing plants.Of course, we knew marble was used for beautiful statues.What we weren’t expecting was to see …
Continue reading “Some say the streets in heaven are paved with gold”
ITALY, GERMANY, AND MORE!