Travel with Julie

3 Day-Trips From Florence In Luxury Or On A Budget

After visiting the famous museums, basilicas, and outdoor markets in Florence, it might be time for a change of pace.  Consider one of these day-trips either in luxury or on a budget:

Cinque Terre is five villages along the Italian Riviera coastline with pastel houses dangling from the cliffs. These scenic villages, founded by locals in the Dark Ages hiding out from marauding pirates, are linked by a train, a ferry and a hiking trail.

The Luxury Way:  Take a small group tour.  A guide will walk you through the Lovers Lane trail, take you on a boat trip along the coast, share some of the most scenic spots and help you explore the 5 villages in a memorable way.

The Budget Way:  Take the train from Florence to La Spezia, where you change to a regional train that makes all the local stops in the Cinque Terre.

Siena, the age-old rival of Florence, takes you back to the Middle Ages with its Gothic Duomo and Piazza del Campo where the Palio horse race is held each summer.

The Luxury Way:  Hire a guide.  A guide will conveniently pick you up at your hotel and drive you to Siena. Most guides include a short stop in the medieval village San Gimignano, too.  The drive takes you through the ever changing scenery of the countryside with vineyards and olive trees.

The Budget Way:  Take the train to Siena.  Plan ahead and check the train schedules.  Trains run at varying times and frequencies depending on the day.

A day in Chianti offers a unique landscape with green rolling hills, fields of vineyards and olive trees, medieval villages, stone farmhouses and country villas.

The Luxury Way: Hire a private driver.  Leaving from your hotel, your driver will take you to the heartland of Classico Chianti.  Along the way, you will stop in small villages to walk through ancient piazzas, wineries for tastings of the latest vintages, and nosh on rustic Tuscan fare.

The Budget Way:  Rent a car.  Map out your destination ahead of time, rent a GPS and set out early.  It's OK if you get lost (and you will!); take it in stride and take in the magnificent scenery!

 

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Typical Sasso Living in Matera, Italy

After walking through Matera's old city and hearing how residents lived in sassi (plural for sasso), naturally I was curious to know what living conditions were like.  Did they sleep in straw beds? Did they have dirt floors? Did each sasso consist of one big room, or were there rooms with walls?

Luckily, my guide took me to a cave-home recreated to resemble a typical sasso.

We walked into the cave, and I was stunned to see the likeness to a current day home.  While it was an open concept, it had a living area, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom.  The solid wood furniture was like much of the furniture in my grandmother's house.

The kitchen was a bit rustic, yet it contained all the amenities a family would need to create a filling meal. Iron pots, tools, urns and dishes were plentiful.

Lowering a pail to the underground cistern produced plenty of fresh water.

The only thing I had a real problem with was the bathroom.  Here you see a bucket and privacy curtain. Yep - that's the bathroom.

Going deeper into the cave, I found separate rooms.  These rooms were used more for storing tools and animals.  My guide pointed out how cows, chickens, goats and sheep were allowed to come and go inside the house like pets without an inkling for the lack of sanitation that caused. 

All in all, living inside a sasso looked very much like living in a regular home.  But look closely, and you will see the carving marks on the walls and floors.  The marks are proof how the home was literally dug out of the rock by the bare hands of those who lived in it.

 

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The Sassi Of Matera, Italy

Walking through the small lanes, alleyways and stairways of Matera, Italy, is like stepping onto the movie set of a biblical movie.  It's hard to imagine that communities of people lived here as recent as a 50 years ago.

The old city is carved out of a rocky ravine.  The natural caves were first inhabited centuries ago--as far back as the Palaeolithic era--then transformed into newer forms of architecture by later generations.  Look closely and these cave-homes (known in Italy as sassi) are arranged in such a way that the chimney of one home sprouts out of the road above.  While the alley above another home may be the roof of other houses below. The maze is an ingenious design, if not a bit chaotic!

As my guide walked me through the old town, she pointed out groupings of sassi, in essence, neighborhoods. Each grouping typically had a small square or common area that accommodated several family residences. While each sasso (singular for sassi) was made up of several independent families, the neighborhood worked together for the greater good.  For example, one family in the neighborhood may have raised chickens, and therefore, supplied eggs to the other neighbors; while another family may have had a cow that provided the milk.

In the sassi, you not only see cave-houses, you also find cave-churches, each with their own distict style. As the town began its deterioration, many of these churches were converted into homes for sheep, widows with no family, nuns or the homeless.  Many of these churches are open for public viewing, but hours vary. Other are only available to see with a licensed guide.

 

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Italy's Cave Town, Matera

In the southern region of Italy lies the town Matera, looking as though it was misplaced from an ancient bibilical location.  Filled with cave dwellings, the town has had a sad, not-so-distant past.  The caves of Matera had been inhabited for centuries, but even up until the 1950s, hundreds of families still lived in the crowded, poverty-stricken cave-houses.

The conditions grew horrible, ridden with malaria.  It became a national scandal when the Italian government learned of the squalor and required the residents to move to modern conditions on the hill above.  Most residents were resistant to move.  My tour guide, a Matera resident whose grandparents once lived in a cave-house put the scenario into perspective:

"The people didn't want to leave their homes. Their way of life was the only way they knew. They weren't familiar with modern conveniences -- it was a very uncomfortable transition for them. They were forced to learn how to do everyday things in a new way.  There was also a great amount of embarassment and shame associated with the entire ordeal."

As residents moved out, ancient Matera became a ghost town.  It wasn't until the 1980s when a few wealthier residents move back to renovate old cave-houses that the area began to breathe a little life and not carry so much shame. In 1993, the town was made a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Today, modern Matera thrives while the ancient town has slowly revived with a few hotels, B&Bs, restaurants and renovated homes.  Few tourists make their way to Matera.  Most of those that do, give much thanks to Mel Gibson for bringing the town to their attention.  He chose Matera as the backdrop to "The Passion of Christ," a film that required a unique landscape.  Mel Gibson's spoke of Matera in this way:

"Some parts of the city are two thousand years old, and they resemble the landscape that probably existed in Judea.  The architecture of the city, the rocks and the surrounding landscape have furnished us an exceptional background...The first time I saw Matera, I lost my head, because it was simply perfect!"

The best way to visit Matera is with a local guide.  It is very hard to get your bearings in Matera.  A guide will not only navigate your way through it, but will introduce you to the life of the cave-dwellers.

Matera is one of the most memorable towns I have visited in Italy.  It's picturesque, fascinating and humbling all at the same time.

 

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What is a Paris Arrondissement?

Map courtesy of Beau Paris

I know.  For you well-seasoned travelers, the question of what is a Paris arrondissement is like asking what color the sky is.  But I work with a lot of newbie travelers who have never heard the term.  Without an understanding of what an arrondissement is and how it plays into navigating Paris, they would be lost.  So, for you who may be traveling to Paris for the first time, I will explain.

An arrondissement is a city district.  The pronunciation is "ah-rohn-dees-mawn."

The city of Paris is divided into 20 arrondissements.  They spiral from the center of the city outwards in a clock-wise direcion.  The arrondissements are encircled by the peripherique, a ring highway (or loop, as we might say in the U.S.).  Outside the peripherique are the suburbs of Paris.

Arrondissements 1 through 8 are where most tourist attractions are located. Take a look at the map above. You see the Eiffel Tower is in arrondissement 7; the Louvre is in arrondissement 1; and Notre Dame is in arrondissement 4.

Paris' arrondissements are identified by the last two digits of an addresses zip code.  This is helpful to know when locating a specific address, say for a hotel or restaurant.  For example, if an address has the zip code of 75003, the "03" tells you the address is in arrondissement 3.  Arrondissements are also written in two other forms:  3eme or 3e arr.

 

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