stillLUV2go

Day 8 - Our optional excursion is a visit to Portofino & Sestri di Levante.   PORTOFINO   Enjoy Andrea Bocelli’s “Love in Portofino”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWP9Nv6DUsg Portofino is a small fishing village in the province of Genoa.  It may be better known as a resort for the rich and famous. Facing the harbor is the Piazzetta, the central gathering place with boutiques, cafes and beautiful views.  A walk from the harbor leads to the promontory.  The surrounding sea is a marine-protected area established to protect the rarities of the seabed - sea fans, sponges, corals, seagrass meadows and red coral.  Upon the promontory stands the Chiesa San Giorgio, a Catholic church once completely destroyed by WW2 bombs. It holds the relics of St. George, patron saint of Portofino. High above, defending the harbor since the 15C,  is Castello Brown, now a museum.  Below it is the cemetery.  In the sea between Port...

The afternoon of Day 6 and all of Days 7 & 8 will be spent in colorful Cinque Terre (Chink-qwa Ter-rray) Cinque Terre has an interesting story about why villagers ran to the hills -  then fled back to the sea.   Read about it here. https://cinqueterre-travel.com/information/history/ We will tour the villages of Monterossa and Vernazza.   Monterossa  For info about the ginger hairs, Il Gigante, an anchovy salting center and more: https://cinqueterre-travel.com/destination/monterosso/ For info about the beautiful John the Baptist Church and more: https://thatsliguria.com/en/monterosso-the-town-of-the-undiscovered-van-dyck/ For info about the Capuchin church & monastery and more: https://thatsliguria.com/en/where-is-the-most-magical-place-in-cinque-terre/ Vernazza  For info about castles and bastions, the gossip corner, the best views and swimming spots: h...

Day 6 - After our visit to the monastery in Pavia we will leave the Lombardy Region and continue on our way to  Liguria and the Italian Riviera Liguria, a 186 mile-long boomerang-shaped region of Italy, stretches from Frances’ Provence-Alps-Cote d’Azur on the west to Tuscany on the east. The name comes from the Liguris who inhabited the whole northwestern part of Italy 2,000 years ago. The continental shelf on which Liguria sits is very narrow and extremely steep.  It is divided into 4 provinces - Imperia, Savona, Genoa and LaSpezia, with Genoa, the birthplace of Christopher Columbus, being the capital and Italy’s main port.  We will visit the province of La Spezia and the villages of Cinque Terre with an optional excursion into Genoa to visit Sestri Levante and Portofino. Liguria's coastline is the famous Italian Riviera. The area east of Genoa is known as “Riviera di Levante - Coast of the Rising Sun”, while the area west of ...

Day 6 - As we make our way from Milan to the Italian Riviera, we will stop for a visit at the  Certosa di Pavia Monastery. As the pilgrims did hundreds of years ago, we also will be watching for the ornately carved facade of Certosa di Pavia as it rises out of the middle of the Italian countryside, among the rice fields and vineyards. Enjoy this drone footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEmSomqJFaU It is said that this early Gothic and Italian Renaissance masterpiece was born from a vow by Caterina Visconti to the Holy Virgin Mary in which she promised to establish a Carthusian monastery if she were blessed with a male heir. After she died in childbirth, Gian Visconti, first duke of Milan, commissioned the building of the complex on his family's hunting grounds. "Certosa" is the Italian name for "house of the monastic order of Carthusians". The church was the last of the complex to be built and would serve as the Visconti family mausole...

Day 5 - On this day we can choose to spend a free day in Milan or take the Optional Excursion to Lugano, Switzerland From Milan we will travel by bus, about an hour and a half, across the Swiss border to Lugano, the  largest city in southern Switzerland's Italian-speaking canton of Ticino.  Lugano is on the northern shore of Lake Lugano,  south of the first ridge of the Alps, but it is surrounded by mountains, two of which are the "twin peaks" of Monte Bre' and Monte San Salvadore.  The city of Lugano is 63% in Switzerland.  The remaining 37%, mostly smaller communities, is in Italy.  Lugano is one of Switzerland's most important financial cities with its conference, banking and business center.  While the citizens of Lugano might be busy at work while we are there, we hope to enjoy "dolce far niente" - an Italian idiom meaning "pleasant relaxation in carefree idleness"- while we soak in the beauty of Lugano's mountain scenery, ...