Thursday, April 22, 2010

One Thing Thursdays, Portovenere, Italy

Absorb this: a post NOT about a non-existent deck.
I'm a very selfish gift giver. A few years back, I got a wild hair to give the dude that would be Hubs a trip for his college graduation, mostly because I wanted to see somewhere new and of the Italian persuasion. Seeing as how I'm a mature, older woman (by almost two whole years!), this seemed a fitting gift for a guy who had only been to Europe with the group that most closest assumes the definition of my least favorite traveling pack ever - People to People* (have you ever served hot chocolates to hoards of pre-teens in red polos and khakis? When you're the sole American working in New Zealand's national museum, you see some things, man. Some bad things. Some hot chocolate-spilling, pre-teen, khaki-clad things. Man.).

Ahem.

I plotted an amazing trip to Italy as a surprise for hubs and off we set on a ten day holiday to Levanto, Italy to explore Cinque Terre. We stayed in a gorgeous villa and took lots of day trips, one of which was down the coast to Portovenere, a precious city hubs had actually visited once before with the poloheads.

My one thing: Open your eyes!

Grab your walking shoes for this one. There is a lovely little church, right on the edge of a cliff. It's open air and you feel like you're in a tiny floating chapel. If that doesn't just make you want to stop and breathe slow, you're crazy.
Then, you walk a little more to the fort. There are graves below and then a drop to the sea. Best final resting place I've ever seen (too morbid?).
There are also turrets! Old, tiny turrets, for old, tiny Italian soldiers!
I think we took about 5,000 pictures in our ten days in Italy and at least 20% of those were in Portovenere. It was just gorgeous. A sunny day, surrounded by the sea and sweetly crumbling churches and forts, walking around with my favorite guy? It can't be beat! Plus, I think we had a really salty pizza for lunch at an outdoor cafe, further upping the perfectness of it all.

More Italian adventures to come in upcoming OTTs!

*Actually, I'm jealous - why wasn't I jaunting the globe as a pre-teen? I had the khakis, but not the tickets. Or the knowledge this program even existed. Deep, dramatic sighs.

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