Food Run-Down: Cinque Terre, Italy 2009

Posted on February 17, 2013 by Kristin

Cinque Terre is a hidden gem on Italy’s Ligurian coast that is a must-see. It’s becoming more and more popular, but the pedestrian-only towns with colorful buildings is still worth a trip. If you try one dish in Cinque Terre, try the trofie al pesto – Cinque Terre is the birthplace of pesto and this dish highlights the flavors. The homemade trofie pasta is mixed with pesto, green beans, and potatoes and goes great with a (cheap) glass of local wine. If your visit is longer, take advantage of the fresh seafood, caught earlier that day.

Meal: Lunch at Taverno Del Capitano (Sept. 7, 2009)

What we ordered:
(1) white wine (looks like a half liter)
(2) mixed bruschetta (they all had tomatoes, and in addition we tried: capers, mozzarella, anchovies, and pesto)
(3) pesto pizza
(4) pesto lasagna

Price: $$-$$$ – I don’t remember the exact prices, but somewhere in the neighborhood of €10 for the main dishes.
Overall thoughts: this restaurant is situated at the edge of the harbor, so it was a perfect spot to take in Vernazza on our first afternoon. Our waiter was very friendly and was encouraging me to practice my Italian (or my Spanish, if I felt more comfortable), which was a great was to be welcomed to the city. It was here that I really fell in love with bruschetta – the tomatoes were fresh, juicy, and full of flavor, and I loved their creative pairings with other local foods.

Meal: Happy Hour at Ananasso Bar in Vernazza (Sept. 7-9, 2009)

What we ordered:
(1) bellini
(2) prosecco
(3) white wine
(4) snacks (various – they were free)

Price: $ – reasonably-priced drinks with a 5-star view.
Overall thoughts: one of my favorite spots from Cinque Terre – I still dream about this place! We reflected on our day while enjoying a drink and watching the sun set into the water. An added bonus was the snacks, which kept us from satisfied between lunch and dinner.

Meal: Dinner at Trattoria Gianni Franzi (Sept. 7, 2009)

What we ordered:
(1) anchovies cooked in lemon sauce
(2) trofie al pesto (homemade Ligurian pasta with pesto)
(3) spaghetti ai muscoli (spaghetti with mussels)
(4) a bottle of the house white wine
(5) local cheese (to finish the meal)

Price: again, I don’t remember and I didn’t write anything down. I don’t think anything was too outrageous throughout Cinque Terre. Probably a $$-$$$ price range.
Overall Thoughts: This meal was perfect as our first dinner. We tried it all – anchovies, trofie al pesto, seafood pasta, wine from the region, and local cheeses. The pesto was amazing – more Parmesan cheese than I typically taste, which was a huge plus for me. I also loved the additions of potatoes and green beans, and of course the trofie pasta itself – once mixed up, the trofie is left with a thick coat of pesto. This is the dish to try while in the Cinque Terre!

Meal: Lunch at Dau Tinola in Corniglia, Cinque Terre, Italy (Sept. 8, 2009)

What we ordered:
(1) Prosciutto e melone – €11
(2) Spaghetti ai frutti di mare – €11.50
(3) Trenette al pesto – €11.50
(4) Cinque Terre “La Polenza” vino (a bottle) – €17.50

Price: $$-$$$
Overall thoughts: probably the worst meal in Cinque Terre, but it could have been because our experience wasn’t that great (as opposed to the food). I will say that the trofie suits the pesto sauce better than spaghetti/linguini. The seafood pasta was still fantastic and included a larger variety of seafood than normal.

Meal: Dinner at Gambero Rosso (Sept. 8, 2009)

What we ordered:
(1) insalata caprese – €15
(2) tegame di Vernazza (anchovies baked with potatoes and tomatoes) – €12
(3) mussles cooked with wine and parsley – €12
(4) vino della casa (1 liter) – €12
(5) dessert (not sure what it was, but there is a picture below!)

Price: $$-$$$ – this is getting boring, but it’s another very reasonably-priced dinner in Vernazza!
Overall thoughts: another restaurant underneath the umbrellas. It seems you can’t go wrong with the restaurants around the harbor in Vernazza! Ryan tried the fresh anchovies which are another local specialty to try while visiting (much different than the salty canned anchovies, although those are great, too!). The crowds at the restaurant were lively, and we had fun people-watching while we enjoyed the meal.

Meal: Lunch at Trattoria La Scogliera in Manarola, Cinque Terre, Italy (Sept. 9, 2009)

What we ordered:
(1) linguini alle vongole veraci (fresh clams) – €7.80
(2) ravioli al pesto Genovese – €7.80
(3) formaggi misti (mixed cheese plate) – €6
(4) Cinque Terre D.O.C. wine – €15

Price: $$
Overall thoughts: Luckily this restaurant stayed open a bit later than others in the area (we didn’t make it to Manarola until a little before 2:00pm). I stuck with one of my favorites: seafood pasta in a white wine sauce, which was an ideal lunch (light and fresh!). Ryan wanted another round of pesto pasta, this time in the form of ravioli, which was very tasty (I still like the trofie pasta the best). The outdoor seating allowed us to watch the busy walkway as people made their way down toward the marina.

Meal: Dinner at La Torre (Sept. 9, 2009)

What we ordered:
(1) spaghetti scoglio (“reef spaghetti” – served with crustaceans & red sauce) – €11
(2) pesto lasagna – €10
(3) two glasses of white wine – €5 each

Price: $$
Overall thoughts: this is a great option if you want to sneak away from the main square in Vernazza. It’s a bit of a climb, but the result is an intimate restaurant with outdoor seating. I would suggest going for lunch or an earlier dinner to enjoy the views of the town and sea below. The food was consistent with our other meals in Cinque Terre – fresh, reasonably-priced, and delicious local specialties (pesto and seafood).

Cinque Terre, and especially Vernazza, is on the top of my recommendation list for Italy. The pedestrian-only towns, the friendly locals, the carefree tourists, the sparkling sea, and the fresh and delicious food are just a few reasons to make a stop here on your trip. Don’t forget to try many of the local specialties – trofie al pesto, fresh seafood (including anchovies!), and local wine. I can’t wait to visit again for another taste of the Ligurian cuisine!

From There to Here

Posted on January 12, 2013 by Kristin

As a non-journaling scrapbooker, I find that transition pages help me tell the story of a trip. I don’t always remember to take pictures during the travel time and sometimes the trips are short or uneventful, but when I do, I’m always happy to include them as part of my scrapbook. It’s a seamless transition from one city to the next and serves as an introduction to the following pages.

Ryan and I traveled by train from each city to the next on our first overseas trip together. Each leg took about 6 hours and the journeys began early in the morning (all before 7). Like us, you may be spending quite a bit of time traveling from city to city, so why not memorialize it? The saddness of the goodbye, the anticipation of the next city, and the excitement upon finally arriving are all priceless memories to keep in your scrapbook.

As I mentioned above, if I have the pictures, I like to use the travel between cities as a transition from one section of my scrapbook to the next. These are some of the easiest pages for me to create; I keep them fairly simple since they are just my “in between” pages. Below I’ve included my transportation pages from our Italy and France trip in 2009. Please excuse my first attempt at scanning my pages (unfortunately the machine cut off a bit from the bottom) and enjoy!

1. Arrivederci Venice, Ciao Cinque Terre. The titles on each side were the most time consuming part of the page. I used my Cricut machine to cut out the squares (both the blue outer squares and the tan inner squares), so that saved me from doing too much manual labor. The early morning shot of the Grand Canal is one of my favorites from Venice – I’m glad we took a few minutes to snap some pictures and say goodbye to our first stop in Italy.

2. Leaving Vernazza & Arriving Nice. This page was the easiest of the three. A simple border around each picture was enough because I chose detailed vellum paper as the background for each side (although it’s hard to tell in the scanned pages). I love the juxtaposition of peaceful and slow Vernazza with the high-tech train station in Nice. It was a whole different world, located on a different part of the Mediterranean Sea.

3. The high-speed train from Nice to Paris. I like to use anything other than pictures when possible to mix up the pages. I try to save all tickets, receipts, business cards, etc. in case they work with a scrapbooking page (or help me remember something when I’m wrapping up my journal). I love this spread because the paper I found was perfect – the background for the Nice side is a map of France and the background of the Paris side has a repeating pattern of the Eiffel Tower and a fleur-de-lis. However, my favorite part is the repeating “Paris” title.

Next time you’re traveling in between stops on your trip, don’t forget to take some pictures and save tickets or other memorabilia to document the transitions. Not only is it fun to memorialize your last and first moments of a city, but the pages serve as the perfect segue to the next destination!

2009 Europe Scrapbook: Colors and Creations

Posted on July 22, 2012 by Kristin

The following scrapbooking layouts are some examples where I was inspired by something – colors, an object, an idea. Our trip to Italy and France brought us to so many different cities and sights, and as I put together my scrapbook, I wanted to incorporate as much of their unique qualities as possible. Enjoy!

On colors: In the first two scrapbooking layouts (Burano and Vernazza), the brightly-colored paper choices were influenced by the colorful buildings seen throughout the towns.

The only “side trip” we took from Venice was to the nearby island of Burano, known for colorful buildings and delicate lacework. The other option we considered was Murano (known for the glass blowing), but we opted to go to the less popular, slightly further island of Burano. We spent our time wandering through the empty streets, admiring the colorful houses, and shopping in the many lace and souvenir shops. I wanted to capture the fun, colorful aspect of the town in my scrapbooking page for Burano.

Taken on our visit to Burano, Italy. A nice break from the crowded island of Venice!

Vernazza was our home base for the three nights we stayed in Cinque Terre (the other four fishing villages in Cinque Terre are Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, and Monterosso al Mare – we spent at least a little bit of time in each). All five fishing villages are known for their colorful buildings. I wanted to construct the Vernazza scrapbooking page by capturing the dominating salmon and yellow colors of the buildings and the beautiful aqua of the Mediterranean.

A picture taken on our hike from Vernazza to Monterosso al Mare.

On creations: In Nice, we stayed at the Mercure hotel, which was separated from the Mediterranean only by the Promenade des Anglais. This wide promenade was perfect for strolling throughout the day and one of our favorite routes to travel to different parts of the city. I decided to recreate the look of the promenade by using gray paper for the aspahlt and white ribbon for the line separating the two sides. While it isn’t a super accurate depiction, it’s a fun way to decorate this scrapbooking page!

A closeup of the paper-and-ribbon Promenade des Anglais.

Finally, one of the last pages I completed for the Europe 2009 scrapbook was the Montmartre page, in Paris, France. I wasn’t feeling terribly inspired, however I loved the Montmartre area and wanted to include the pictures and memories from that time on our trip. I had a thought of using a chevron design for the background, but couldn’t find anything that fit what I was looking for. So, I decided to make my own background. I love this because it’s something anyone can do – I used a ruler, a pencil, and scissors. No special scrapbooking tools. Best of all, I was able to choose the colors and exactly how I wanted the design laid out on the page.

I don’t always have a great idea or use the colors of the photos to influence my pages, but when I do, I generally love the results! My favorite of the above layouts is probably the Vernazza page – the layout is clean and those colors look fabulous together.

First Complete Scrapbook

Posted on June 29, 2012 by Kristin

I have finally finished a project that I’ve been working on for the past two and a half years (though not continuously – moving, buying a house, finding a new job, planning a wedding and honeymoon, and living life got in the way): a scrapbook of Ryan and my trip to Venice, Cinque Terre, Nice, and Paris. Also known as my first trip out of the U.S. Also known as the trip when Ryan proposed. Also known as the trip that confirmed a future full of travel for the two of us.

We obviously have great memories from this trip, so I wanted to make sure to capture the special moments, beautiful places, and the fun activities we experienced througout the week and a half we spent in Europe. Scrapbooking seemed like the perfect solution. It’s been a hobby of mine for almost 10 years. I’m definitely not an expert, but I’ve found that it’s a relaxing activity and it produces some amazing results! I love playing around with different layout ideas and finding creative ways to make each page different. Plus, it’s a way to give more meaning to the pictures from our travels. Many scrapbookers journal on the pages and, while I haven’t done much of that in this scrapbook, it’s something that I will likely incorporate in the future.

Without getting too much into the details, I want to share a few of my layouts from this scrapbook.

1. Exploring Venezia. Much of our time spent in Venice was exploring the fish-shaped island.

2. Castello Doria. A castle on a high point in Vernazza that was used as a lookout for pirates. The views were spectacular!

3. Colline du Chateau. Castle Hill is the best place to go for breathtaking views of Nice.

4. Arc de Triomphe. From the top and the bottom, the Arc de Triomphe in Paris was one of our favorite sights to visit.

This is only a small subset of the pages I’ve created for this scrapbook of our 2009 trip to Europe. I can’t wait to share more!

SuitcaseJournal

Travel experiences and insights from a young couple

Tag Archives: Vernazza

Food Run-Down: Cinque Terre, Italy 2009

From There to Here

2009 Europe Scrapbook: Colors and Creations

First Complete Scrapbook