Europe Part 1 (Cinque Terre and Parma, Italy)

Hello everyone! I am back from Europe. Special thanks to my lovely partner Nicole for being so diligent about blogging when I was gone! And also loads of thanks to our regular readers now, we've been monitoring a gradual increase in readership and we feel very happy about it! According to Nicole, we are making a steady income of 20 cents per week, so at this rate, I told her we will be set for retirement when we are a hundred years old. Hehe! Money is still money okay. In a year, we will be able to afford to treat ourselves to a meal in any foodcourt of our choice. :P

I want to blog about my Europe trip. Hopefully it will be enough to take you on my trip, see what I see, read what I did. Europe still remains to be one of my favorite destinations. THis time round, we decided to explore the less popular destinations and go where we haven't been before. Imma divide this into three posts, because I have just way too many pictures and well, we did go away for all of two weeks. Oh, and a final post on just the meals I had. Hehe.

We flew into Milan via Helsinki, Finland, because the finnair tickets were super reasonable. It was something like 1300 SGD to fly from Singapore to Milan, and from Brussels back to Singapore. I have never been to Finland before, but if the airport is like what the country is about, it's probably not my cup of tea. Very modern, very sterile.

I did like the high ceilings though......

We arrived safely into Milan, and had to take a 40min train from the airport to Milan Central Station. Pretty efficient, but both of us were super tired by then.

 This is right before we pulled into Milan Station. Why are ALL train stations so ugly, I asked Deron. He said it was for functional reasons. Meh, if I have a country, I would at least try to conceal the lines in archways and stuff.

 I have always loved the Milan Central Station. It's just so European and so regal looking but everyone always assured me that the rest of Milan is ugly except for one duomo that's pretty.

We next took the train to La Spezia which after we had to take a local train to Cinque Terre. Such a b**** to get to, this Cinque Terre.

Cinque Terre is on the west coast of Italy, and it means "five towns". Each of the towns are connected by a local train, but within each town, there hardly are any cars and people walk everywhere.

I chose this B&B because from the map, it looked like it was very close to the train station. I forgot to take into account the altitude. We were panting and swearing in the rain as we walked up the stupid hill. In the end, the owners had to send a car to get us. Oops.

The room was pretty nice, but like many Cinque Terre hotels, I thought it was overpriced for a B&B. It was something like 150 euros per night. :/ The daily breakfast was really quite nice though, with the local focaccia being super awesome.

 After the rain, this was the view from our place. Our first glimpse of Monterosso al Mare, which is the town we stayed at.

 The restaurant Miky is one of the most popular restaurants in the town, so we decided to try it. More about it later!

 Our first carafe of white wine. Heavenly!

 The next morning, we had breakfast overlooking the sea. The box like thing is where we had breakfast. I love it.

 We bought the local focaccia bread with cherry tomatoes (sooooo good, soaking in olive oil and crispy but hot and soft) and walked down to the beach. I loveeeee the beach. It was beautiful! All my pictures had no filters or anything, this is as good as it looks like in real life. And there's a statue of Neptune/Poseidon hanging off the cliff. So pretty!

Squinty picture of us.

 I love the beach!

 Walking along the pathway, we see these brown box-like structures, turns out they are changing rooms for people during the summer to change into their bathing suits. So cute!

 This is the center of the old town of Monterosso. If I could change anything I would have opted to stay in the old town instead of the new town. So much more rustic.

 Sooooo pretty.

We took the train to Manarola after, in search of this mystical restaurant Cappun Magru. More about that in the food post later on. I love Manarola! It's the most pretty town out of the five I thought.

The clock tower at the sorta top of the town.

One of the churches in that town.

Gruppo!  The restaurant was in Gruppo, which we had to find the "green bus" to get to from Manarola. We missed one because there is simply NO bus stop. Just a spot where the bus arbitrarily picks up people. We had to ask a few shops before we finally figured it out. The highlands are where they have vineyards and grow grapes. :)

 Finally we got to the restaurant! It was way more modern than we thought.

 A sneakpeek of the menu....

 One of my favorite wines of the trip. The Cinque Terre white. Yum!

 Us happily waiting for our food!

 Views of Manarola. I really love this town.

 Can't stop taking pictures of it. Hehe!

 We next went to Riomaggiore. This mural greets you when you step out of the train station. It is only like 20 years old, but looks ancient.

 We climbed to the top and was greeted by this beautiful view. It just looks like something out of a movie!

 I wish I could live there.....

 The next day, we went on to conquer the last two towns, Corniglia and Vernazza. Corniglia was surprisingly small, and perched on a cliff almost. It is one of the towns where the people are most adverse to change and development, so in a way it is the most preserved town.

 The waters were beautiful that day...

 The status in the city center. I think it is to remember the first workers in the town or something like that.

Vernazza was more bustling and affluent. The buildings were more well maintained and it is referred to as the "jewel" of Cinque Terre.

 Sitting on the waterfront breakwater, looking back on the town, it does seem like it deserves the title of the jewel.

 This is one of my favorite churches. Perched right next to the ocean, every window looks out to the beautiful view.

 I can just imagine going to mass here every Sunday. Ahhhh. And staring out the window.

 And that concludes our Cinque Terre segment. We left on the train for Parma, on a beautiful day.

 Our room in Parma, in a guesthouse called Opera11. It's beautiful, clean and well-maintained.

 I love the skylights in the whole room and the bathroom.

 Parma is a lot more affluent than I thought. You can just tell from the beautiful buildings and the well-manicured lawns. One of my favorite spots this trip.

 We went into this building to check out the museum and old opera house. It was really stunning.

 The front of the opera house.

 Looking out from the stage. I can just imagine the old performers, how they felt when they were on that stage, greeting a whole theater full of spectators.

 Deron trying to be funny. Ha.

 We went through the rest of the museum, and this was the only picture I could take before some Italian staff started following me around and telling me that I can't take pictures. Which is fine because this was my favorite one......

 We went to the national park of Parma, and it was just so grand!

 Lush greens, big grounds, couples rolling in the grass and making out.

 Looking from one of the buildings in the park. I just love the wide spaces.

What are people selling in the shop? Looks like a butcher shop, are they selling pork or beef?

 If you know Italian, you will know that the sign says "Horse meat".

So Parma is apparently not just known for its prosciutto. Actually, it is more known for the residents' love for horse meat. And they like it RAW. If you want to know what raw horse meat tastes like, look out for my next entry. Hehe.

 Of course, there were many prosciutterias around as well. :)

 Out of all the churches, the church of Parma is one of the most grand. It's hard to believe the amount of detail that goes into each part of the wall and ceiling.

And we bumped into a couple from San Juan Capistrano which is like 20 min away from San Diego who LOVES gelato, and they swear by this. It really is super modern and super cute. The gelato was thick and creamy and delicious, but the best gelato we had is still in Bologna......

Anyways this oncludes my first segment of the trip. I hope you will be excited for the next few!

Love,
Keira