The Wigleys in Cinque Terre: A weblog and photo gallery

This blog (and associated photo gallery) is being constructed over the course of several weeks after returning from our trip to the Cinque Terre. I'll keep this post on top and try to edit it everytime something changes

• Update: 11/27/05: added a blog post about Piva, the guitar-playing restaurant owner in Vernazza.


• Update: 11/26/05: We've created 14 photo albums in the Cinque Terre photo gallery and annotated many of the approximately 150 photos. (We snapped over a thousand. Be ever so grateful we've whittled down the pile for you.) The photos in the gallery are in three sizes: thumbmail, medium-sized (640 pixels wide), and full-size originals. Click the mediums to see the originals.
  
• Update: 11/15/05: I've added a few weblog entries from the beginning of the trip.

Posted by Griff Wigley at 03:27 PM | Permalink

We have posted a photo of the night when Piva and friends were singing on the Vernazza piazza.

This is a short video clip of the scene and the music.

Rick Steves writes briefly about Piva's guitar-playing here. We got lucky, as this photo can attest. And here's a journal entry by someone who had a similar experience in 1999.

Posted by Griff Wigley at 09:27 PM | Permalink

Our first full day here. We start it off with some caffeine and focaccia in Gianni's, our hotel which also has a bar (cafe) and restaurant. Robbie's not a coffee drinker but on this trip she's decided to experiment and has one of those mostly milk with a dash of coffee drinks.

Continue reading "Day 3: Vernazza" »

Posted by Griff Wigley at 03:22 PM | Permalink

A travel night/day. I only sleep about an hour on the flight to Amsterdam. We arrive at 6 am which is 11 pm. Customs goes quickly and it finally hits me we're in a very diffenrent world when we board the Alitalia jet and the flight attentand says "bon giorno" to me. We arrive in Milan about 90 minutes later and when we find out our plane is delayed about an hour, we stroll about the airport, get our first experience with Italian and an ATM machine: "Mi scusi, dove bancomat?"

Continue reading "Day 2: Amsterdam to Milan to Genoa to Vernazza" »

Posted by Griff Wigley at 03:17 PM | Permalink

Sixty seconds into the flight from MSP airport, our plane flies over south Minneapolis and there, just north and a little west of Lake Nokomis, is St. Joe's Home for Children.

In early May, 1971, after a job interview on the first floor with a social worker named Tom Behr, I took a brief tour of the 3rd floor unit called Meagher Hall where I'd work if I got the job. At the end of the hallway was a linen closet, and there, on her knees rearranging its contents, was a woman named Robbie. Thirty four years and four months later, she's in the window seat next to me as we make our way to Italy for a two week vacation.

Continue reading "Day 1: Departing" »

Posted by Griff Wigley at 08:12 PM | Permalink

My wife Robbie and I are heading to Italy for vacation on Tuesday. We plan to spend our entire two weeks in the Cinque Terre region. (The best photos we've found are here.)

According to Rick Steves: "The Cinque Terre... is a series of villages clinging to a remote stretch of the Riviera coastline. Each town is a variation on the same theme: a pastel jumble of homes crouching in a gully like crusty sea creatures in a tide pool, undisturbed by traffic or modern development."

Continue reading "Arrivederci! Off to Italy's Cinque Terre" »

Posted by Griff Wigley at 03:02 PM | Permalink