Fun in Pisa

We left Cinque for Florence early in the morning, but first thing first, we had to make a stop in Pisa.  And this picture sums up the cliche stuff we did in Pisa. 😂

Cinque Terra - Hiking, Eating and More

Our original plan in Cinque Terre was 3 hiking days plus 1 day in Portofino, which is just a short train ride from Cinque Terre.  Needless to say, we didn't get to do everything we had planned since we lost a day travelling.  We scrapped Portofino from the plan because we felt we should dedicate our entire time to Cinque Terra since we had worked so hard to get there.  Our new plan was to hike from Monterosso to Vernazza to Corniglia in one day, and tackle Manarola and Riomaggiore another day.  We were told that the hike from Monterosso to Vernazza was less than 2 hours, and from Vernazza to Corniglia was 1.5 hours.  Yes it can be done in one day.  But the trails from Corniglia to Manarola and Riomaggiore were closed due to landslides.  Apparently, those trails are often closed.  The only way to access those two towns was by train.  That was what we did.

Hiking from Monterosso to Vernazza was more like a walk.  The terrain was pretty easy although there were quite ups and downs, but nothing was too technical.  The view was breathtaking at the beginning of the trailhead.  

Beautiful view of Monterosso at the trailhead from Monterosso to Vernazza

It took us less than 2 hours (with a few rests) to get this panoramic view of Vernazza.  

We spent a couple of hours swimming down below.  So rewarding!!!

Kids love Gelato, but I love these.  Yum!!!

The best snack in Vernazza 

Getting ready for the next leg of the day...

the view of Vernazza from the trailhead at the high ground

 

About half way between Vernazza and Corniglia, there's a pink lemonade cafe.

We had to stop by to get a cold drink and enjoy the view of Corniglia, 

which had no access to the beach.  The entire town is located at the top of the hill.

  

Yah, we made it to Corniglia!

Gelato again!!!

View of Monarola from Corniglia Train Station

The train going from Corniglia to Monterosso was over an hour delayed that day.

It seemed happening often for the regional trains to be delayed.  

So not getting the train pass looked like the right decision to me now. 

On our day 2 of Cinque Terre, we had a lazy and relaxing morning, played beach volleyball on the beach in Monterosso,  had a lovely lunch at Tosca Bistrot, took the train from Monterosso to Manarola

Pasta with Squid

Pasta with Mussel 

A Glass of Rose

Warm Seafood Salad

Noah never gets sick of pasta

We really enjoyed our lunch

Town of Manarola

View of Manarola

Our Favorite town in Cinque Terre

We spent a good couple of hours diving into those water

We just can't get enough of it

Best View of All

Impossible to get a decent selfie without being photo bombed

Here are a couple of things we learnt.

To hike the trail, the Cinque Terre card is required, and can be purchased here or at the train station.  We purchased the card for a family of 5 at the train station before we started the hike.  Our airbnb host suggested that we get the card on the day of our hike.  Sometimes they close the trails due to weather or landslide and if you had purchased the card for the day when the trails were closed, you would not get any refund.  

At the train station, you can also purchase a train pass that gives you unlimited train rides between the five towns in Cinque Terre.  We opted to purchase each train ride instead.  It turned out that we made a wise decision.  The unlimited train travels sounded tempting, but they were not realistic for us, and the math didn't add up.  To make the pass worth a while, you would have to take 3 trains in one day.  That's a lot of train rides.  Even though the train rides are short between each station, but with delays, you just never know how much time it takes you to get to your destination.  So we purchased individual train tickets, which were 5 Euro for adults, and 2.50 Euro for children.  

We never made it to Riomaggiore.  It was totally ok.  We didn't want to spread ourselves too thin. Being present was the most important for us.  There will always be next time. 

From November to March, it's low season.  It's free to walk the trails.  Maybe that's something to think about when planning the next trip haha...

Out of all five towns, Monterosso is the one with the most accommodations, and proper beaches.  It is also very expensive to stay.  But it's worth every penny.  We enjoyed our run early in the morning when the majority of day tourists haven't arrived yet or our evening strolls along the beach.  It was such an enjoyment to get to know the town at its best.  

Getting to Cinque Terre

Following the landslides, train cancellation, bus delay, we reached Turin at 20:30 on Aug. 30th. By then, there were no more trains out to Cinque Terre for the day.  Crashing at the train station seriously crossed my mind...but with 3 kids?  Better not!  Found a hotel 5 min from Turin Porto Susa train station. No reservation, just showed up, never in my lifetime showed up at a hotel without a reservation lol.  I didn't even know it would still be possible.  They happened to have a two storey family suite available.  Ha... Everyone gets a bed, the most luxurious accommodation to date 😂

The next morning, bright and early, Nick and I went to the train station and had our tickets sorted. We had a few hours to spare, enough time to have a nice breakfast. Nick was determined for everyone to have a good breakfast before we got moving. He was right. The most important meal of the day!!! We're a serious breakfast family. So we found a neighborhood cafe with espresso, croissants and sandwiches etc. I was absolutely petrified when he asked if they had American breakfast What happened to the guy who always encourages kids to adapt to the local custom in a foreign country? What's gotten into him? The server was nice, didn't seem to be offended (or he hid it well), and said they do have pancakes, eggs and bacon, just not on the menu. Oh man he was thrilled. In the end, we had our first-ever American breakfast with freshly squeezed orange juice in Italy since we left Canada, for just €25. Oh man we love Italy already.

Getting on the train headed to Cinque Terre

Arriving Monterosso, and this is what was in front of us

outside the Monterosso train station

Time to celebrate - longest travel to date

Beanie was happy to get a good meal finally

Noah's favorite Pesto Spaghetti

OMG, Italians sure know how to make pasta!

Gelato Time!!!

Night View of Monterosso

This was our first night in Monterosso.  Despite losing 24 hours, we were just happy that we got here safe and sound.  We will start our hike tomorrow, and see what other towns have to offer.  

Rough Start to Cinque Terre

I'm a planner!  Once we know where we're going and when, I start making reservations.  I booked trains to Cinque Terre out of Chambéry 4 months ago.  Good price when you book early, less than 250€ for the whole family from Chambéry to Turin, to Genoa, then finally Monterosso.  Can't beat that. 

I can't plan for Mother Nature.  Rain started to come down a few days ago and it rained and rained.  Thunder and lightning!  Not good news for us.  Our train out of Chambéry was cancelled due to a landslide.  All railroads are closed until further notice.  Alright, that's ok.  We'll take bus.  Scooped up the last 5 tickets with FlixBus into Turin.  If everything goes well, we'll still be able to make our connections in Turin.  That's a big if.  Our 7:50am bus didn't show, was delayed to 10:50am.  Ten fifty came and went, no bus.  It didn't show up until 2:30pm.  We remained hopeful.  We should be able to get in Monterosso by midnight.  

We got on the bus, feeling pretty good about the rest of the trip.  I could finally close my eyes and take a snooze.  And I did.  

An hour later, I woke up, checking our progress. Looking at the map, I was surprised to see that we were travelling away from Turin.  😂 Looked like the bus had turned around and took a different route.  Oh man... May this day end soon.  Safe and sound!!!

 

Mango Smoothie, Anyone?

So on our last day in Lyon, as usual, Nick went to get fresh du pain for us.  That's our go-to breakfast (refresh du pain, corn meal, le saucisson, and fresh fruits, and coffee for Nick, soy milk for me and the kids).  Yeah we take breakfast seriously.  

Nick: Honey, look at what I found at the market...fresh mango smoothie!

Me: Oh that looks so good...Kids are gonna love it.

Nick couldn't wait, opened it and poured a glass for himself.  It was 8am and 28 Celsius already!  Fresh mango smoothie sounded like a great option to cool down.  

Nick: Hummm...interesting...wanna a sip?

Me (took a huge gulp): This is NOT smoothie!  

Examining the label...pomme de terre and oignion...

Me: This is potato onion soup!!!

It was yummy though.  Warmed it up and had it for breakfast LOL

Aillon-le-Vieux

We left our second favorite city, Lyon, hopped on the train eastbound toward the French Alpes, rented a car, and drove to a teeny tiny village, Aillon-le-Vieux, a commune with a population of 200 or less.  It's located in the department Savoie (73) of the Rhône-Alpes region.

Map of French Regions

Map of French Departments

Aillon-le-Vieux is less than 2 hour drive to Chamonix, Mont Blanc.  This will be our base for the next eight days.  I'm super excited about this stay, looking forward to escaping the heat wave,  living in the mountains, and enjoying the fresh air from the Alpines.

The drive from Gare de Chambéry to our French Gite, le Sabot de Venus, was out of this world.  It felt like we stepped into the story book, Heidi.  Our little 5 passenger Peugeot was kicking up clouds of dust on those beautiful hills dotted by tiny houses, any of which could probably be featured in a Switzerland architecture magazine.  I kept snapping away, hoping to capture the beauty in its entirety in front of us.  We just couldn't believe our eyes.  Are we still in France?

Musée du Louvre

This was our first attempt to visit the Louvre although it was our first visit to Paris.  It's just such a taunting task, not your typical pleasant stroll through an art museum.  But since we're leaving France, and who knows when we're coming back to this beautiful country again in the future, we decided it was a must-do.  So over a month prior to our last trip to Paris, I booked the tickets to the Louvre online.  It was stressful from the beginning.  We had to decide the time of the entry 40 days before our actual visit.  So pediatric dental visits are not allowed, or any kind of unforeseen events would not take place that day. The upside of it was kids were free admission. LOL...instantly, I felt I made some precious Euro. 

The Louvre is such a beautiful piece of architecture, no doubt about it!  I just can't get enough of it.

Our entry to the museum was uneventful although it took over 20 mins to just get through the security check, which was a bit of a joke.  Three security guys were at work, one of whom asked you to put your packs through the scanner, the 2nd guy sat in front of the screen, supposed to be scanning for any dangerous items like a weapon, but he was dozing off, catching up on his afternoon nap LOL...and the 3rd guy just stood there making sure you grabbed your packs.  These jobs would probably be replaced by AI in the future.  The kids had a good laugh about that.

Louvre is Louvre.  The reputation is there for a reason.  It's absolutely massive.  One could easily spend an entire day there and not scratch the surface.  It turned our kids into art addicts.  I had never expected them to be enthusiastic about the arts in the past.  Here we were, at the most renowned art museum, they had the patience to read through the descriptions of each art piece.  They would look at the sculptures, talk about the piece, and recognize all the gods and goddesses (mostly from reading Rick Riordan's books).  They would comment on why the sculpture looked the way it did, and the stories behind it.  To be honest, I felt this stuff was a bit out of my league, haha...

This was just one of the two floors of French sculptures.  

We only had time to cover one floor.

Napolean III's dining room.  

Louvre was his residence when he was the emperor of France.

This entire section was about him (dining, reception, ball room, bedroom, 

and an entertaining room etc..)

We had to see her.  That was on every visitor's mind.

Please watch the video and prepare yourself in case you want to visit her one day.  

I wonder if it would be a different scene if we had visited in the low season?

There she is, teeny tiny, 

but attracting people from all over the world

and you get less than 30 secs with her 

before the security guys usher you along

These two enjoying "dark" paintings

Levina's more excited about the Crown Jewel Room

The Crown Jewel Room when every single tourist had been kicked out.

We spent over 4 hours at the Louvre, and didn't feel enough at all.  I'd definitely go back.  Kids were most interested in the sculptures, and we only had time to visit the French sculpture room.  There was a room full of Italian sculptures from the renaissance period we didn't get to see.  Next time for sure.