Our next stop was Aix En Provence, a gorgeous French town tucked away in the country side. We had a few days here, that were spent exploring streets, eating market food along with drinking the local wines and tasting the oils and cheeses. We felt like we were experiencing authentic French culture, with barely any tourists around.
Our next stop was Cannes. It was our favourite part of the French coastline, with long stretching sandy beaches and crystal clear water. We spent our time here going on runs along the coast and relaxing at the beach. It’s a very beautiful place, so we weren’t surprised to hear that celebs like Leo DiCaprio and Beyoncé spend a lot of time there. We then moved onto Nice, we were staying in the Old Town which was nice and quiet and close to the gorgeous rocky coastal part, around the corner from the main stretch of coast. The beach in Nice is very rocky, so not the most comfortable place to set up for the day. So we decided to catch a train (which was only a 3 min journey) to a pretty, sandy beach, Promenade des Marinières where we spent our day! We spent our next day exploring Monaco, lots of expensive boats and incredible architecture!
We farewelled France (& it’s delicious pastries) and hopped on a bus to Italy. We had an over night stop in Genova on route to La Spezia. We had two days to explore the beautiful Cinque Terre, such a breathtaking coastline with fisherman towns scattered along. We spent our first day exploring the first three villages, with a swim stop in Vernazza, and our second day exploring the last two. We were lucky to get a beautiful sunset in Manarola, but unluckily missed the train which we learnt only came once every hour at night.
Our next stop was Florence, with a stopover in Pisa to see the leaning tower. It was cool, but it was the most densely packed tourist place we’d experienced with very over priced food for lunch (we won’t be back to Pisa). Florence immediately impressed us with its beautiful streets, bridges and river. It was just stunning to walk around and soak up the culture and history.
We then ventured out into Tuscany, with its incredible vineyards on rolling hills everywhere! We had a few days to explore local towns like Siena, San Gimignano, Monteriggioni, and we even drove out to Assisi for an afternoon which reminded us of Gondor from Lord of the Rings. Tuscany is very slow paced which was a nice change from the past month of busy European cities. A highlight for us was a day of pizza making and wine tasting at a local vineyard. We had a one on one lesson with an Italian chef who took us through the whole process of making pizza (it is so much more complex than you think!). We then were taken through to the restaurant where we ate our pizzas and had a wine specialist teach us about the local wines and oils.
We moved onto Radda in Chianti where we spent 3 special days at a beautiful Villa for our 2nd wedding anniversary. Our time was mainly spent relaxing by the pool. We then said goodbye to Tuscany and headed to Venice for a day. We spent the morning exploring around the streets & going inside Saint Mark's Basilica before we headed out on a ferry to Burano Island for the afternoon. Burano was the most brightly coloured place we’d ever seen, with all sorts of different coloured houses lined along the canal. Definitely worth visiting. We then headed back to Venice and continued some more site seeing.
The next day we moved onto Verona, a very clean and romantic place. We did what everyone does and visited Juliet’s balcony and ate more of the local cuisine. We walked up to the top of the fortress to get a view of the beautiful city. It was one of our shortest stops on the trip so far, but we are glad we made it to Verona.
The next stage of our trip was planned just 2 weeks prior, we decided we were ready for some cooler temperatures and fresh mountain air so went to explore the Dolomites! We were lost for words at the sites we saw and the roads we drove. The photos say it all! Our favourite part was a hike we did on our last day to Lake Sorapis. We started early to miss the crowds, and made it out to the lake mid morning. How amazing is creation, a baby blue lake at the foot of mountains with alpine trees surrounding. A highlight of our entire trip.
