Honeymoon Part 5: Cinque Terre

The third part of Italy we visited was Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre stands for "5 lands" and they are found along the coast of Italy. It took us 3 1/2 hours to get from Florence to Cinque Terre. which was a little rough because our trek came the day after my little bout with food poisoning our last night in Florence! When we finally arrived at our hotel, we discovered that they had "lost" our reservation! At this point, all we could do was laugh. Luckily, they put us up in an apartment across town which was owned by this adorable couple who ran a wine bar downstairs..and it ended up cheaper than the hotel we were going to stay in. In the end it worked out fine.

Our apartment

 Once we were situated there, we were starrrving. So we went and got ourselves some amaaazing pesto, which Cinque Terre is known for:

Our second day we decided to do the major hike between the 5 towns. We set out at 9am and I was determined to do the full 5 hour hike between all five towns.

Let me tell you this was a HIKE. Tons of stairs, lots of narrow steep walkways with no guardrails. This was a workout and a half.

But then you'd get these beautiful views like this and it was all worth it!

After an hour and a half on the first part of the trail, we started to see the second town below!

We stopped in town for a panini and powerade.

After some time in the first town, we started on the next part of the trail to Corniglia

Stopping to take in the view:

We started onto the third part of the trail between the 3rd and 4th town. After walking for a bit, we hit a dead end! That part of the trail was closed! I guess there was some rain damage, or landscaping issues that made the trail unsafe to hikers! I was so upset....we literally only had 1 hour and 20 minutes left of our hike and now we couldn't do it! We went all the way back to the previous town to try and get a train or boat back to our island. Well....of course, that town was the ONLY one that didn't have a boat service to and from it, and Cinque Terre was experiencing a train strike between 9-5 that day. We were pretty much stuck. I guess in the end, a few trains were sporadically running...so we caught one to the next town over and took a boat from there. which was very nice and worth the trip.

In one of the towns

So even though we didn't get to do the last two parts of the trail, we still hiked for 3 1/2 of the 5 hours!!I'm proud of that and won't let it get me down too much that we didn't do the full thing.

That really was the bulk of our short time in Cinque Terre. That night we had a wonderful dinner and watched a live band perform Italian music while many of the locals danced by the water. It was our most relaxing night yet, which was good because we had a FIVE HOUR commute to Venice the next day....

Honeymoon

FINALLLLY after spending literally hours on the computer his weekend, the bulk of our honeymoon to Italy is planned. We did book our flights back at the end of December, but I was really dragging my feet on booking our hotels. Don't get me wrong, I am extremely excited for our honeymoon, but planning it has definitely been my least favorite part of wedding planning so far!! I really don't like admitting that, but this is one area where I was literally clueless, and couldn't get motivated to finish. The hotel possibilities in each city we want to go are endless and how the heck should I know what areas are good or not? Luckily, Chris took the reigns on this one and really forced us to sit down, and tackle it. Together, with the help of his mother who has planned two trips to Italy before, we booked the last of our 4 hotels Sunday night at 10:00pm! I am so happy that part of the planning process is OVER and very thankful for the help we received from Chris's mom. (Also thanks go out to my boss, Ashley and Mandy!)

We are leaving the day after our wedding and heading to Rome, Italy

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 From there, we will go to Florence for 6 days:

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After that, we'll spend two nights in Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre is mostly hiking between the five towns. It's beautiful and peaceful and will be the point in our trip where we can relax a little bit and take a breather. I'm really excited for this part of our trip, because I think it will be the most different from the rest.

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We'll end with three days in Venice, and will fly out of Venice on Monday June 6th.

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We still have a lot more to take care of (day trips, and transportation between each city) but now that the general outline is complete, it feels so much easier to make the rest of the plans! So, I am taking Honeymoon off the checklist!

Where are you going on your honeymoon?

Ashley and Jeff's Wedding

This past weekend was Ashley and Jeff's wedding at Glen Foerd Mansion in Philadelphia, PA. The entire wedding was just beautiful from start to finish and I am so happy Chris and I were able to celebrate with them and so many of our friends on Ashley and Jeff's special day. Chris, Matt, and I arrived at the Radisson hotel at around 3:00pm. We didn't have to leave for the wedding until 6:00, but we had plans to get there early and catch up with some other friends who were at the hotel. We went to the hotel restaurant, the Atrium Bistro Cafe, for lunch and had a lovely time catching up with the newlyweds, Christina and Kenny, who had just arrived back from their honeymoon in St. Lucia! We went back upstairs and freshened up just in time to catch the 6:00 bus taking us from the hotel to the Mansion. Half an hour later, we pulled up to the gorgeous entrance, which was also right along the water!

Chris and me arriving at the wedding

When we entered the building, we walked around a bit taking in all the wonderful, personal touches Ashley had added to the place. We signed her guestbook she made at blurb.com.

Smith signing the guestbook

We ventured downstairs to the wine cellar:

Left our card in her birdcage card holder:

Stole a look at the main dining room all set up for dinner:

Sweetheart table

And finally made our way outside for the sunset ceremony right along the water. We were greeted by the lovely faces of Ben and Kyle who were handing out programs and bubbles to all the guests.

Smith and Ben!

So gooofy! "Bubbles??"

We took our seats. Remember these lovely fan programs that I had helped Ashley cut at her apartment? They came out wonderfully!

Fan program

 The Wagner Gang!

The ceremony began. The families, bridal party, and Ashley with her father, walked down the aisle to the sounds of a live classical guitarist.

After the beautifully touching ceremony, we headed inside for cocktail hour. We were served passed hors d'oeuvres of spring rolls, beef carpaccio and bri on a crostini, tuna tartar, and fried pumpkin ravioli with a butternut squash dipping sauce (oh my heaven). The big crowd pleaser was the tomato herb soup with miniature grilled cheese dipper! How cute is this??

soo cute, sooo good!

Me and Matty!

The bridal party and Bride and groom were announced, and Ashley and Jeff shared their first dance to Nat King Cole's "When I Fall in Love"

This is one of my favorites from the night.

We were then escorted into the dining area where we were treated to beautiful speeches from Ashley's dad, Jeff's best man, and Ashley's maid of honor/sister, (to which I balled during her toast). Then it was time for food! After our salads, I was served a salmon filet with lump crab meat, mashed sweet potatoes and green beans. YUM! the steak was a huge hit as well, everyone at my table was raving about it.

After dinner it was time to dance. The dance floor was in a different wing of the mansion and was a real cool stone floor surrounded by tables for dessert.

Beautiful candles on the tables:

I kid you not, Ashley made this cake topper. I think she made it using something called paper clay, or something like that? She got it at a craft store and molded it to make cartoon figurines of both her and Jeff. Seriously amazing.

Ashley danced with her dad, and jeff danced with his mom. Then, what wedding would be complete without the cake cutting?

And then it was time to get our groove on:

Some good old air guitar!

Before we knew it, it was time to leave. We were having so much fun, we had no idea how late it had gotten! We waited outside for the bus to take us back to the hotel, and then hung out some more at the Atrium Bar in the hotel lobby once we got back. By 3am, I was exhausted:

We closed out the weekend on Sunday morning with brunch at Cracker Barrel, which has become a bit of a tradition with weddings. (Well, we went there two years ago after Erin and Derek's wedding), but it's tradition! I had a glass of my first apple cider of the season (Yay!!), a good country style breakfast, and great catch-up time with good friends.

Kyle's taking the picture...he was there too. Sorry Kyle!

Ashley and Jeff are now off gallivanting in Egypt and Italy for the next two weeks! I can't wait to hear all about their trip and talk about the wedding when she comes back. Per usual, here is the animoto slideshow of the whole wedding. Again, this should be entitled "Laura's experience at Ashley and Jeff's wedding" because it's me and all my friends.  Congrats Ashley and Jeff and enjoy!