Glass, Lace and a Thousand Colours

Venezia – Murano e Burano

A wonderful day out with wifey Emma. These are some picture postcard reminders of the calm, serenity and contentedness, along with colours so vivid it’s surreal.

Unimaginable but unforgettable.

Canal Grande

Murano

Canal Grande di Murano

Burano

Future home

Shining, Shimmering, Splendid

After a very last minute hostel booking, Emma, Jess and I set off to Le Cinque Terre via Portovenere via La Spezia for a couple of days.

Although it isn’t one of the Cinque Terre, Portovenere is pretty similar and just as beautiful. We stayed in the same hostel as Jenny, Lydia and I when we went in October, and got our own room. Always good seeing as we like to mess around and act like kids! In the evening we walked up to the end of the peninsula and to what’s left of Grotta Byron, (as in Lord Byron) and watched a lovely sunset over the sea. Seeing as we were by the sea we all went for seafood at dinner and then to a tiny little pub type restaurant in one of the many village backstreets for some coffee and cake before a fairly early night. Not before a few cheeky games of uno and shithead though…!

La Spezia

Early to bed, early to rise was our motto of the day on Good Friday, all ready with backpacks and trainers by 10am, ready to embark on our ‘Terre Trek’! First was the boat trip to Riomaggiore, the first of the five villages. As we got off the boat over glistening waters and into baking sunshine we realised all of the villages were indeed going to look exactly as they do on postcards, amazing. The only disadvantage was the number of other people doing exactly the same as us, something I’ve not really experienced yet seeing as our other trips haven’t been particularly touristy, or have been to bigger places where there’s more space, but I suppose it’s nice that people from all over the world are coming to appreciate the Cinque Terre National Park and the beauty of the coastline.

Portovenere

The paths between the second and fourth villages were unfortunately closed, which annoyingly meant we didn’t get to go to Manarola, (the second village) but did mean that we were definitely going to do the other two walks (between one and two, and four and five). The first is named ‘La via dell’amore’ and at certain points has lots of padlocks hung along the walls on wires, where couples or groups of friends have locked the padlock and (I think) thrown the keys away, symbolising their eternal love. We got the train from just outside Manarola to Corniglia, then had our first sweat inducing part of the day, a trek up 382 steps to get to the village. After more amazing views, wandering the pretty little streets and buying a few postcards we sat down for lunch and obviously, a few more card games!

Riomaggiore

Corniglia

Vernazza, the fourth village, had a bit more of a beach than the previous ones, but we didn’t stop long as we were keen to start the estimated 2 hour walk over the hills to Monterosso. It seemed as though we couldn’t go any further up every time the path levelled out from steps to flat for a while, but then there were more steps…and more…and more. The pain was worth it for the incredible views down onto the village and back along the coast that we had travelled thus far. And of course being the fools that we are we still had fun and giggles even when trekking up a massive hill! As soon as we saw the beach at Monterosso we got insanely giddy and almost ran parts of the way down. Ice cream was first on the agenda in the village, then a wander round. Just because we love other so much we ended up with some cute friendship bracelets to commemorate our trip :) and then found a bar serving sangria, to which we had to say yes! Due to lack of signs and the fact that the village is split between two bays separated by a tunnel, we missed the train back to La Spezia we’d planned to get, even after literally legging it to the station and platform only for Emma to touch the doors as the train started pulling away and then dissolving into fits of hysterical laughter, much to the bemusement of the other people on the platforms! So we had a while longer to wander along the seafront, get a sandwich and then get the train back.

Vernazza

Monterosso

An amazing, hilarious, fun-filled, eye-opening couple of days in one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. Wouldn’t have changed it for the world girls!

Crossans in Italia

When my family came to visit Parma for 5 days.

We talked, ate, drank, walked, saw sights, climbed a hill, walked round a castle, took many photographs, laughed a lot, cried a bit, and I think it's safe to say had one of the best weeks ever. 

I love them. XXX

Sardegna - sun, sea, sand and very little sleep

 

Cagliari

After vowing to get to bed early, Emma and I were still awake at 2am, the night before our 8am flight to Cagliari. Not because we were out being wild like the party animals that we are, but because we were too excited to sleep!

After calming down a little bit we had a nice morning flight and met Jess at the airport in Sardinia; so nice to see her and hear about her visit to Cuneo.

It was also lovely to be welcomed by warm temperatures, bright sunshine, palm trees and the sea! Although it’s still in Italy it’s completely different to Parma, so it definitely felt like we were on an actual holiday. We wandered down to the port and had some lunch whilst we waited for Lauren to finish school, then commenced our grand tour of Cagliari.

Apart from the sea, the other feature that Cagliari has that Parma doesn’t is HILLS. And with hills come amazing views. Hundreds of cute little buildings, murals left on walls from Mussolini’s time…and lots of stories from Lauren about the bandits – the Mafia of Sardinia, leading to many discussions about Italy’s political history.

Of course being girls, and with loan day having been recently for Emma and Jess, we managed to fit in a bit of a look round the shops, and then headed to a really cute restaurant for the biggest pizza I have ever eaten in my life, followed by a compulsory limoncello for all before we returned to the hostel for a much needed rest!

The next day we got up early enough for the hostel breakfast and then headed out to find the bus to the beach…as soon as we got there the shoes and socks were off and paddling was a must, even though the Mediterranean was still pretty chilly! Beer on the beach was lunchtime order of the day, and we were treated to a gorgeous chicken and mozzarella salad and homemade bianchini, little white meringue type things, by Lauren’s ‘mum’ at her house. We washed the sand off our feet and got ready to go out, trying to mentally prepare ourselves for the all-nighter ahead of us…luckily a few cocktails were there to help us along the way! After throwing some shapes on the dancefloor and one of us receiving a rose from a mystery german navy sailor, we embarked on an epic trek around the city to find some food…and once again, luck was on our side as we found a 24 hour café and got ourselves a coffee and a sandwich before the 5.20am bus to the airport for the ridiculously early flight back!

Our remarkably perky mood at the airport and immense satisfaction at having had such a brilliant couple of days soon turned into sheer exhaustion and we slept all the way back to sunny Parma, got home at 9am, pulled down the shutters and pulled on our pyjamas to begin our night’s sleep!

BIRTHDAY NUMERO DUE

And this time it was MINE!

Yes, I turned 21 earlier this week, and whilst my family and friends from home sadly weren’t here to share it with me, all the lovely people I know in Italy were!

I won’t make this into a recount of every single one of the day’s activities, but basically I had a wonderful time, eating, drinking and doing whatever I liked (yes I broke Lent for a day) and the sun was shining which made everything even better.

In true British style, I decided to have a bit of a house party and then go out to a few bars, with one classic twist – fancy dress! After much deliberation the theme was ‘anything beginning with S’, which sparked many weird and wonderful ideas including a sealife centre, string, snow white, and a storm! Mega bonus points for effort guys!

Gus and I 

Girlies enjoying curry time

The storm and the sailor

Sad face, string and smiley face

Snow white and the sea-life centre

So now I have many thanks to give…whether these people will see this or not I don’t know, but…

Thank you Emma for birthday breakfast, Eve and Gus for cooking curry, Lydia for morning coffee and also Jess for the joint birthday cake effort and to ALL for dressing up so amazingly and for all the beautiful presents which I shall treasure!

X

Birthday number one

So yesterday Italy as a unified nation turned 150! Buon compleanno Italia!


This of course meant a national holiday for all, and so we took the opportunity to have a day out in Parma, doing some wandering and making the most of the day and the sense of celebration. 

Thursday antiques/vintage market on the street where I live

Various reactions to the newly unveiled statue of Garibaldi

Properly getting into the holiday spirit with an afternoon mojito

Happy St Patrick's Day for yesterday also! We partied for the Irish too last night.

Pretty pointless ramblings

Recently appearance has been on my mind a lot. Unnecessarily so, I think. Nevertheless, my thoughts of appearance have taken on new perspectives since moving to Italy, the ‘country capital’ of the style world.

Italian fashion and our (the British Erasmus collective) opinions on it is quite a common topic of conversation; it is mostly quite conservative, with little variation in style even amongst youngsters and students, unlike British universities, or Newcastle anyway. But then every so often a few people will have a quirky twist to the conventional style, a dash of bright colour or an alternative way of wearing something. To me, that’s what style is - taking whatever you like from what is around you and then adding your own personality to it. And with Italians, it seems as though many appear to make little effort to put details into what they wear, and are quite unbothered about their appearance…maybe they really are just elegant and stylish, or maybe they just want everyone else to think that. Because when you look closer, the details are more obvious, the subtlety of a mother’s make up, the shine of an old man’s shoes or the tailoring of a young lady’s coat. If there was a way to describe their style in general, I think it would be the old saying ‘less is more’.

a nice photograph, completely unrelated to text

As vain, shallow and sometimes trivial the topic of appearance can be, thinking about it has helped me draw some conclusions about other aspects of my life – ‘less is more’ is often a good thing to keep in mind. Or as Thoreau puts it, ‘Our life is frittered away by detail…simplify, simplify.’ Simplicity often helps calm, serenity and relaxation, and with these comes the space to enjoy life, which afterall, is what we’re all here for.