Kelly & Chad Butler: Italy

This is Vernazza, one of the 5 fishing villages in Cinque Terra. It is where we stayed.

the harbor of Vernazza at night.

After WE, yes I said WE, jumped off some rocks about 20 FEET high. That is good for Kelly, not big deal for Chad.

This is the view from our room! The locals rent out rooms in their houses, it was fun. The first night we stayed at a different locals house next door. She was a cute older Italian lady who always had her head out the window talking to other neighbors, she always knew when we went in and out. She had us put a bottle of water in front of the door when we were not there. Everytime we left she went in and cleaned up. She would hang up our clothes and organize our things, give us new bathroom rugs after we showered, etc.. it was so funny.

We hiked inbetween all the villages. You have to pay for a pass to hike on the main trail, but we found out there are other trails that you can take for free. So we said we weren't going to pay for a pass and take the upper trails... we made it between two villages and said what the heck, we'll pay.. the upper trails were overgrown with every kind of thorn God ever made and it was STRAIT uphill. We ended up doing about 12 miles that day. It was super beautiful right along the ocean with a couple swimming breaks.

Part of the trail at Cinque Terra, it was so hot that we had to hike in our swim suites.

This is Juliet at her house in Verona. You can see where all the single men touch...

This was at the Serego Alighieri winery, which was the home of Dontay, just outside of Verona. It was an adventure getting there... We had it all figured out, the bus times and the stops. We left our hostel at about 7:30am to get to the bus stop and then no bus came. The next bus came after the time of our appointment at the winery (which was closed and was by appointment only). So then we tried to take a taxi, but it was something like 70Euros... so we tried to rent a car, but they were all closed.. So we tried to call the winery and ask them if it was alright that we came late, but our phone card doesn't work on payphones...only landlines.. so we tried our credit card, but the payphones only take Italian credit cards. So we sweet talked a lady into calling for us, and once we got through they didn't answer. So we didn't know what we were going to do. So we tried calling back about 10 minutes later and got through and said it was no problem. So we got the bus out there and couldn't find the winery right away, so we walked for awhile. We made it finally and Chad got to try a lot of good wines and a private tour of the winery. We were there for about an hour and a half and then we had to start our adventure home.. We went back to the bus stop and we were in luck, it came in about a half an hour. We waited, then an hour went by and still no bus...we saw buses going the other way, but none going towards town. It was another 1 1/2 hours until the next one, if the next one even came. So we tried to hitch hike, but nobody stopped. So we waited it out and it finally came. I don't think we made it back into Verona until about 6pm. Long day for a wine tasting, but we still had fun. (Chad bought me ice cream when we got back, it made it all better)

According to the Alighieri family they made the first Amarone wines by mistake.

A couple of the wines Chad got to try.

The Butcher of Seville!!
They were having a big opera while we were there. It was in their Colosseum, the oldest used colosseum, so we decided to give it a try since we had never been to one. Everybody said that we had to experience an opera where opera originated from. It was our first and definitely our last..ha We couldn't wait for intermission so we could go. I, Kelly, couldn't keep my eyes open after the first 15 minutes of it, I even tried really hard. But at least we could say we have been to an Italian opera in the Colosseum!
Butchered US!!