Viva Italia part II: Cinque Terre

Where do I even begin? Cinque Terre is really and truly my happy place. It was hard to leave. Really hard. I very seriously considered quitting my job and trading in my international activist life for something more humble, perhaps as a fisherman's wife or a restauranteur.

So what exactly is this magical place, you ask? Well, Cinque Terre means "5 lands", and that's exactly what it is - 5 small fishing villages along the northern coast of Italy, not far from Pisa.

The villages are fairly touristy, but they still maintain a lot of their authenticity, and I was lucky enough to visit during off-season when things weren't too crowded. There are no cars allowed in the narrow and steep village streets, so most people travel between towns by foot, boat or train.

We stayed in Riomaggiore, the most southern of the 5 villages and probably my favourite.

The streets are amazingly narrow, cobblestoned and twisty - more often than not, you have to climb stairs to make it from one block to the next. The village really is built on the side of a cliff, with a marina at the bottom and vineyards at the top. The other towns - Vernazza, Monterosso, Corniglia and Monterola - are variously built at the bottom or halfway up other steep stretches of the coastline.

There are lots of amazing small markets and shops with really fresh food & delicious local wine. In Riomaggiore you will also find what I'm convinced is the most delicious pesto ever created.



I'm going back someday for that pesto. And the wine. I also hear that the steaks are also great in Tuscany, but of course I couldn't vouch for that.

Another great feature is the beautiful and unique public art everywhere. A lot of the residents are artists (those not in the tourism business) and it shows. We kept coming across frescoed walls and big painted murals. Even train stations and tunnels were muraled!

However, the most amazing thing to see was the Mediterranean itself. Even in late October, it wasn't too cold to go swimming. The water alternates between deep blue & this gorgeous shade of turquoise.

The towns we visited were all built on the edge of pretty steep cliffs plunging right into the sea. Since the land is so steep, the towns' residents developed a terraced system of agriculture, almost like Indonesian rice fields.


Today, the whole area is a UNESCO world heritage site, and agriculturalists from all over volunteer come to help restore some of the abandoned terraced vineyards and farms.

Since the whole area is a national park, there are great hiking trails which connect all five towns. Unfourtunately we weren't able to explore the most well-known stretch, the Via dell'Amore, because of an unfourtunatelt timed mudslide, but we did get in lots of other great hiking. The paths climb along the side of cliffs and meander through olive groves - I saw my first olive trees!


J.O. was disappointed that he couldn't eat the olives right off the trees, but not being such a big olive fan myself, I didn't much mind. There were also huge, prehistoric looking cacti and aloe plants scattered here and there among the pine trees.


The day we went hiking was a bit cloudy and grey so the picture here doesn't even begin to do the view justice, but here's the idea of what we saw while we were tramping along. It was pretty much hills and sky and oceans the whole way.

And here are the tired but happy hikers at the end of the day, on the top of a hill overlooking Vernazza, another town in Cinque Terre.

Which brings us to Liz's zen lesson of the week: there is nothing quite like enjoying a nice glass of wine on a terrace high above the mediterranean while watching the sun set. I hope that you, too, can find your happy place, since I certainly discovered mine this weekend.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ETHAN!

To the world's coolest 5 year old - have a great birthday!

I hope your party is lots of fun.



Tons of love & big birthday hugs
(and birthday bumps!)
from your Auntie Lizzie.

Viva Italia part I: Florence!

This past weekend, I decided to cash in some of my vacation time and head south for a few days to escape the rain. Although I definitely didn't manage to hide from the rainy weather, I did have a wonderful time exploring Italy. I spent a day and a half in Florence & then headed to the coast to play by the sea. Here's the scoop on my adventures in Florence:

Although I was a little disappointed at the hordes of umbrella-wielding tourists who seem to be the city's main residents, the city was really beautiful, with a lot of amazing scuptures found in open-air museums around the city.











Travelling during tourist low season definitely has its advantages. Although it wasn't quite ideal gelato weather, we also didn't have to fight for a place to stay in the city. We lucked out and ended up getting a huge hostel room right in the middle of the city all to ourselves - ahh, the luxury.

I was really excited to visit the Uffizi, the most well-known museum in Florence. Why was I so excited? Well, for starters, it houses, among many other renaissance works of art, classics by Michaelangelo, Leondardo da Vinci and Raphael. That's right, 3 out of the 4 ninja turtles - how much better can it get?

Unfourtunately, the aforementioned hoardes of tourists had staked out the museum before we got there, and we were informed that we'd have to come back at 8:00am the next day if we wanted even a shot at getting in. Ugh. My claustrophobia and extreme aversion to getting up before 7:00am got the better of me and we decided to skip the Uffizi this trip. Maybe I'll make it next time.

Here's the view from Ponte Vecchio, a famous bridge over the Arno river. I'm not really sure why it's so well known (I guess I should have read my guidebook better!) but what I do know is that there's enough jewellery for sale along the 50 foot stretch of bridge to make even the most ambitious Medici family member proud.

Okay, educational update: My good friend google tells me that the Vecchio bridge is famous precisely because of the jewellery shops established there by the Medicis during the 17th and 18h centuries. Its other claim to fame is its mere existence - it was the only bridge not bombed by the Nazis during World War II. (Don't you just feel smarter now?)

Speaking of the Medici family, we also had a chance to visit their old estate in the middle of Florence, at the Palazzo Pitti.


We spent a good few hours walking around the Boboli and Bambini gardens and didn't even come close to seeing the whole property.

I don't know about you, but this is exactly how I picture Macchiavelli.











Another fun Florence fact: it's where the author of Pinocchio, Carlo Lorenzini, lived.






After a day and a half in Florence, we'd had enough of dodging the pointy end of other people's umbrellas while sidestepping street vendors and vespas. We got back on the train and headed for Cinque Terre, an area along the northern coast of Italy with 5 fishing villages and an amazing national park. Let me just say now that Cinque Terre is my new official happy place. Pictures to come!

La vie Suisse

Here's my very quick update, since I forgot to take pictures all weekend and therefore don't have any exciting visuals to hold your attention with.

On Friday night, a bunch of Canadians got a real treat when my Swiss friend Jüré made us delicious delicious fondue using his parents' famous secret cheese blend. I don't think you've seen 7 happier Canadians ever. Yum.

On Sunday, I finally made it into the Alps! Not the big Alps, which are a bit farther away, but I did manage to see la Salève, which is the closest mountain to Geneva. It was great- you can hike up or take a cable car to the top, and the view is amazing. Great fall colours starting, and lots of nice hiking trails with little meadows and people's summer cabins hiding her and there.

And that was my weekend. More details (with photos too, I promise!) coming soon.

See? I'm learning so much...



Fun fact of the week: did you know that in Quebec they don't really celebrate thanksgiving? I lived there for 4 years and had no idea, probably because I lived in a complete university bubble. Did anyone else from Montreal know this?




Lesson learned of the week: DO NOT ride your bike along the tram tracks, even if the bike lane clearly tells you to. It's an evil ploy so that you'll get your tire caught in the tracks when you try to turn & you'll fly over the handlebards and do a huge, spectacular face-plant in the middle of the pavement and then people will come running and try to pick you up, and you'll have no more skin on your elbows and you'll be all worried about your beautiful new bike....

umm...I mean, not that I know from experience. This is all rhetorical, of course.

P.S. Yes mom, I'm fine. I promise.

Hello to the little ones!

This is out of context & not even remotely in chronological order, but I just got some pictures from my last weeks in Vancouver in August and would like to take a short moment to point out how absolutely adorable my niece and nephews are:

This is my beautiful niece Alina.
Alina- don't forget who I am while I'm away now! Remember the bonding moments we had, like sharing the potato chip bag and that time I let you pull my hair. Don't pretend it wasn't special to you too.


And these are my budding celebrity nephews, Ethan and Nickolas. You can see they're already refining their paparazzi-ready shades. And of course they have their care-bear bodyguards on standby to deal with the legions of crazed fans that are waiting for them to make their big entrance in the sandbox.
To Ethan & Nick: Big love and hugs from Auntie Lizzie! And keep rocking the shades!

I'd also like to give a special shout out to another little munchkin while we're on the subject of the babies in my life. Here's my honorary nephew, Dominic, together with some kind of giant teddy bear:


My babies are beautiful, are they not?

And while I'm on the family pictures subject, here's the whole clan:

So to my family and honorary family: you're all beautiful & wonderful & I hope you're doing well. Keep the pictures coming- I love to see how you're doing (and of course subject others in my life to your updates).

With so much love,
Liz

Brrr.....fall is a'comin

Is it still warm wherever you are? Here, the weather is turning and it's definitely getting colder. As a native Vancouverite, I'm well prepared to handle the almost-daily onslaught of rain, mist, drizzle and showers. I still miss the summer sun, though! People around the city are crankier and it's starting to get dark very early.

I hear that the fountain in the middle of Lake Geneva gets turned off at the end of October, so I did the tourist thing this weekend and took pictures for posterity while it's still a'sprayin' and a'jetting. So here you have the giant jet d'eau in all its 140 metre high glory:


Unfourtunately, I was struck down with a bad cold this weekend & didn't get to see the Desalps festival myself. However, since I promised you all pictures of cows with flowers and bells and the like, here's a representative of a picture that I might have taken had I been at the festival:


Big cows, bill bells and big flowers indeed!

My work is getting really interesting as I become more actively involved with projects. For the past two days, I've been at a conference about integrating disaster risk management and climate change adaptation which, although probably not super exciting for all people, is fascinating for me. It also gave me the chance to meet a lot of people working with government funding agencies, research organizations & other UN bodies Plus, you know, there's free food. Can you tell I'm an underpaid intern?

I moved into my new apartment on the weekend, and can confidently say that I have never lived in a nicer place than this one. Because we're sub-letting, it's totally furnished and equipped with everything we need - a bonus for two girls on interns' salaries! Here is my beautiful room:


And here is my new roomate, Béatrice:



And that's all my news for now!