Huge recap! Verona, Venice, Cinque Terre, OH MY!

Only three more weeks until the first day of shooting. Trying to get in all my sightseeing while Erin, Billy and Alicia are here and before the 12 hours+ days kick in!

This past weekend was a 4-day one (thanks, I guess, Italians? we fell behind on work...) and I tagged along with EB&A to Venice Sat and Sun and Cinque Terre (Riomaggiore to be specific) on Mon and Tues. SO many pictures, so little time.

I posted two albums worth of EB&A's photos since they tend to take the better ones (ie the goofier ones of us) and I tend to take the scenic photos - a LOT of them.

We drove to both Venice (about an hour, 20 minutes) and Cinque Terre (about 3 hours). Now, Venice is a pretty straight shot, but thanks to my GPS (nicknamed Beatrix) we went about 40 km out of the way down an autostrade that had virtually no exits. It's an incredibly long story not worth telling, but let's just say I've become hip to Beatrix's faulty ways and have learned that reading the signs usually yields better results.

Additionally, I've started a competition with Beatrix to see how much time I can take off the "estimated time of arrival" feature. As in, she estimated it would take us until 1:20p to get to Cinque Terre when leaving a little after 10a. What time did we really get there? 12:59! And even on the way back there was traffic AND I stopped for gas, and I still beat her time by about 10 minutes. Victory is mine.

We had perfect weather on Sat and Tues - Sun and Mon were pretty moody all around, but not awful. Sunday was cold in Venice, and Monday was rainy in Riomaggiore, but it gave us a chance to hang out and take things easy, esp in Cinque Terre where it's ALL about hiking the trails! http://wikitravel.org/en/Cinque_Terre

A few things we learned:
Venice:
You can walk the streets with open alcoholic drinks (ie, fresh mojitos!)
What they have done to the Bridge of Sighs is unforgiveable
Cappucnios that cost 5 Euros are pretty much worth it
Anything with the name Florida in it is good
Venetian masks look best on Billy
Cinque Terre:
Limoncino is the devil
Hiking is dangerous unless Billy is there is help you get over your fear of falling off a cliff
Gelato is even better sitting down
Don't sit too close to the tracks in a train station or you'll seriosuly regret it
French fries are better in Monterosso

Here are the links: Some photos from my camera in Venice before it died-scroll down to the 5th row from the bottom
My photos of Riomaggiore, Cinque Terre
Erin's Italy photos part one
Erin's Italy photos part two

And tomorrow I think I leave for Rome for the weekend. They are in Florence/Tuscany today and tomorrow and will meet me there. So much to see in Roma!! And Romain is joining us, too. One extra person, 4x more the fun.