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Bloggings, Food Blog, Restaurant Reviews, Reviews - Travel, Snorkeling, Travel

Making Our Way To Kihei

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Today we got up a little early so we could check out of Napili Sunset and make our way to Kihei. We had breakfast again at Slappy Cakes. I thought about ordering something different than yesterday but I couldn’t do it. I had the carnitas benedict again, but Don tried something new- the veggie omelet. I love Slappy Cakes!!

Carnitas Benedict

After breakfast it was time to check out some beaches again! The first beach we checked out was Airport Beach, also called Kahekili Beach Park. There was a strong current, so we went South so we could float North. It was a very pretty beach and the snorkeling was good. There were a lot of people snorkeling and even some scuba divers. The coral was beautiful. I spotted a turtle and we watched an eel for a long time. I’ve never seen one stay out so long.

After we were done snorkeling here I had a weird conversation with a woman about a bird. While in line for the restroom this woman started telling me how she just got an awesome video of a bird eating nuts from her hand. I was like that’s cool, but she just kept talking. She wanted to know how she could upload her video to YouTube so she could get “all the credit for it”. She told me about a guy who uploaded a video of a lemon rolling and it had over 40 million views. Then she told me she needs to upload it because she only has 4 GB’s of storage on her camera but she doesn’t have a phone. I told her she could use a computer to put it on the internet and her response was “maybe at the library?”. It was a weird conversation, but basically ended with me telling her to make a YouTube account and upload her video at the library. Maybe she will go viral?

Next we tried out Black Rock Beach. We were able to park in a parking garage here. We made our way to the Black Rock and it was pretty crowded with snorkelers and swimmers. The rock was pretty cool and people were jumping off of it into the water. The current around the rock was strong. We went around the rock and started heading towards what looked like a cave. The rock formations were so cool underwater but as I got closer to the cave it felt too dangerous so I quickly turned around. When I turned around there was immediately a giant sea turtle in front of me! I swam with it for awhile, navigating around the rocks. It was difficult to swim here because of the rocks but it was pretty awesome. Pretty good snorkeling day once again. We have seen turtles every day here in Maui!

Once we were done at Black Rock we made it back to the car to make our way to Maui Coast Hotel in Kihei. We stopped once along the way to take some pictures.

We checked into the Maui Coast Hotel and it is really nice. It has a resort feel. After getting cleaned up we decided to get some food. We tried a place we saw on YouTube called Da Kitchen. The food here was soooo good!!!! Best dinner so far!! Don got the luau special and I got the plate with katsu chicken and luau pork. Absolutely delicious. We even tried some of their chocolate pie. After dinner we walked around the shops here for a bit and then we tried the shaved ice place that was in the parking lot. The place was called Beach Street Maui. I didn’t really know what to expect from a shaved ice. I have had sno cones before but this was completely different. We shared the Firecracker. It was blue raspberry, pina colada, and strawberry with ice cream and haupia. Haupia is like a coconut syrup. This shaved ice was so good, so refreshing.

After this delicious dinner we went to Safeway to get things for our trip to Hana tomorrow. We hurried back to the hotel to watch the sunset at the beach across from our hotel. It was beautiful. And of course we ended the night watching Big Brother haha.

Bloggings, Food Blog, Restaurant Reviews, Reviews - Travel, Snorkeling, Travel

Day 3: Oahu to Maui

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This morning we were up early again for our 8 am flight to Maui. We took a cab to the airport after raiding leftovers in our hotel fridge. Our flight with Hawaiian Airlines was on time and it was so short!  I couldn’t believe we were served drinks on this flight because it was seriously like 20 minutes. We were up in the air at 8 am and landing around 8:20. The views on the flight were awesome.

Once we landed we had to pick up our rental car. The lady at Hertz wasn’t very helpful and she was kind of rude but we were in and out of there quickly. We had planned to drive straight to our condo in Napili and find something to eat along the way. About 10-15 minutes into our drive a light came on in our Nissan Sentra. The light was something about the emergency braking system, so Don called Hertz to ask if we should come back and they told us to. Once again we were in and out of Hertz quickly and our help there was a lot nicer. We went from a Nissan Sentra to a Nissan Altima, both felt like giant boats.

Since places were now starting to open for lunch I decided we should try a place that was recommended to me by Julia called Tin Roof. It was really busy and really nowhere to sit. We ended up sitting outside on a parking curb because that’s where other people were. I ordered the steak bowl and Don got the chicken bowl. We had a side of the pork belly. Everything was really good and I would recommend checking it out if you need a good place to eat near the airport.

After eating we started driving. I was surprised by the landscape; Hawaii seemed a lot more dry than I had expected, but it was beautiful. We arrived at our condo around noon and we were able to check in early. We are staying at Napili Sunset, which is in Napili Bay. The place seems nice, a little overcrowded with a lot of furniture but nice.

After settling for a bit we decided to check out our beach. We had to walk across the street but it was only about a 5 minute walk, if that. The beach was beautiful. There were a lot of people snorkeling, swimming, and boogie boarding. We decided to snorkel and we went pretty far out. There were a lot of cool rock formations and schools of fish. We were on the left side of the bay looking at the rocks when a giant wave crashed into us. It startled us a bit and we swam quickly away. When we got to calmer water we saw a turtle! I had read that you’re very likely to see turtles while snorkeling in Maui but I didn’t think we would be lucky enough to see one on our first day! It was cool, but it didn’t stay around for long. After this we decided to just relax in the water for awhile and float around. Then we came back to our place and checked out the pool. The water was extremely warm.

First Turtle! Napili Bay

After the pool we were getting hungry so we decided to check out Teddy’s Bigger Burgers in Lahaina. We had seen this place on a guy’s YouTube video about affordable, good places to eat in Maui. The menu at Teddy’s was a bit confusing because they have a lot of options.  We each tried a burger and after ordering one of their special ones I saw I could have just had an original one. That was a bit disappointing because it felt like they were pushing you to pay more and try one of their specialty burgers. The burger was good. We also tried fried pickles. Everything was good here and I would go again but just try their straight up burger. I can’t even remember which ones we ordered, but since we ordered a specialty burger it felt expensive.

After dinner we wanted to pick up some food for the condo so we went to a Safeway but we couldn’t find everything we wanted because it was under construction, so we went to a Food Land and a Walgreens. After getting some stuff we drove around to try to get a view of the mountains in the area. We did take a few pictures and the GPS took us through a neighborhood, which was kind of weird. Overall it was a pretty good first day in Maui.

 

 

Bloggings, Food Blog, Reviews - Travel, Travel

Last Day–Cats & Rome

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Today we woke up around 7 and got ready to leave the villa. We said our goodbyes and Greg drove us, Jim and, Doreen to the train station in Castelfiorentino. We were all taking the train from Castelfiorentino to Florence. From Florence, Don and I were going back to Rome for the day so we could fly back home the next day. The train from Florence to Rome was pretty cool, it was a high speed train, 247 km/h.

We arrived in Rome at noon and we were on a mission to find the luggage deposit so we could walk around Rome all day without our bags. I had found instructions online on how to get to the luggage deposit in Roma Termini but none of them were very descriptive. Basically the easiest way to do it is by exiting Roma Termini onto Via Giovanni Giolitti and walk South along the train station and just after the Airport Shuttle you can re-enter the train station and you will find where you can deposit your luggage. It was super easy and and I think it was around 10 Euros for us to leave our bags there for about 5 hours.

We wanted to leave our bags because we had to be back at the train station later to take the train to our hotel by the airport. Once we were not weighted down by our luggage we were free to roam Rome for the afternoon.

We wanted to have carbonara again because we couldn’t stop thinking about since the dinner in Montecatini Alto. I found a place called La Carbonara and we decided to have lunch there. It was pretty crowded and seemed like a tourist trap.  The carbonara was nothing compared to what we had earlier in the week at Casa Gala. It was ok though.

After lunch we walked to the cat ruins at Largo di Torre Argentina. When we were in Rome earlier in the week I had noticed there were no cats roaming around and I thought this was weird because every where we have traveled has had cats. I usually make it a point to photograph cats in places to travel to, so I was a bit disappointed by the lack of cats in Rome.  A friend commented to me on facebook that we should visit this place and I hadn’t even heard of it so I wanted to check it out on our last day. Largo di Torre Argentina is an archaeological site where there is also a cat sanctuary. Stray cats are cared for here at the shelter and they are allowed to roam the ruins. This place is also were Julius Caesar was killed. It was a weird place. When we first arrived we were looking down at the site and we saw a few cats sleeping among the ruins. It was so hot. We were trying to find a way to get down into the ruins and we found stairs that went down to the shelter. We went into the shelter to check out the cats. The shelter was divided into two areas: one area had cats that were recovering either from sickness or injury and the other side had cats that were just roaming freely. The cats were well cared for and it seemed like you could adopt cats. I am still unsure about that. All of the products they were selling were used to benefit the shelter. I bought a magnet here. We spent some time with the cats and it was pretty cool. I was a bit disappointed because while you could look down into the archaeological site and point out cats you could not go into the site. The site itself seemed a bit forgotten, there were signs around that you could read about the place but other than that there was very little information on site. It seems like they could do more to this place but maybe they are working on it. It was very cool to see cats in the ruins.

After the ruins we didn’t really know what else we wanted to see but we were not ready to go to our hotel. We decided to check out this park we saw on the map earlier, so we risked taking the city bus again. We successfully rode the bus to Villa Borghese Park on the North side of Rome. It was a nice park, we walked around for a bit, and then we noticed there was some kind of horse show going on. We stopped for a bit to watch some horses run around and do some tricks. It was pretty cool, we have never really seen anything like it. Then we walked around some more and came across a small pond where people were in rowboats. Later I found out this area was called Temple of Asclepius. It was a really pretty area. Then we decided to walk back. We stopped at a cafe in hopes of using a bathroom but their bathroom was closed. We each had an overpriced cappuccino and enjoyed being outside at the park. We tried to take the bus back to Roma Termini to get our train but the bus was never coming so we ended up walking. It was about a 30 minute walk.

On our walk back to train station, I may have left my hat in Rome….I just didn’t want it anymore.

We got our luggage from the luggage deposit and we were both so happy that it worked out for us. Then we took the train from Roma Termini to the airport. Once we got to the airport we couldn’t figure out how to get to our hotel. We were staying at a Hilton but there were two Hiltons near the airport. We ended up walking to the Hilton that was connected to the airport because it was right there and we hoped that there would be a shuttle we could take to ours, but there was not. The walk was so long and I was getting tired and grouchy. We had to walk back to into the airport where we ended up calling our hotel and they told us where to find our shuttle. We were staying at the Hilton Garden Inn Rome Airport hotel, which was still very near the airport but you could not walk. It is also cheaper than the Hilton Rome Airport, so if you are ever trying to get to it the shuttle is at terminal 3 door 3 in the airport. The shuttle was weird because it went all around the airport and airport workers would use it.

Once we got to the hotel we were surprised to see the check in line was out the door. The check in went pretty fast though. There were a ton of police checking in and all around which I thought was weird but apparently it was the G7 Summit here.

The room here was nice, along with the lobby. I would definitely suggest staying here for the convenience and the price. We decided to get some dinner at the hotel restaurant, it wasn’t very good. Don had carbonara and I had pizza. During dinner we were watching a couple from afar who were in an obvious fight. They were American and we had fun commentating on what the fight could be about. It lasted a long time.

I can’t believe tomorrow we are leaving Italy. This trip has been awesome. I really don’t want to leave.

 

Bloggings, Food Blog, Reviews - Travel, Travel

Lucca and Pisa

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Today was our last full day at the villa. We got on the bus around 9 again to check out Lucca. On the way there our driver, Fernando, told us a bit about Lucca and what we should see. Lucca was a very cute city. There is a wall built around the old part of Lucca. The wall was cool because you could go on it and walk the perimeter. You could also bike the wall and we were planning to do that but we got caught up walking around and seeing different things.

We saw this awesome kid driving his car.

We ate outside at a cute little place called Bistrot e Winebar Des Arts. We had an appetizer of meat and cheese and of course it was great. I had a pesto pasta that was also amazing and Don had some kind of quinoa dish.

After lunch we walked around more and came across a very pretty church.

We also found the amphitheater which is all shops and restaurants now. We quickly got some gelato here and made our way back to the bus.

Our next stop was Pisa to see the Leaning Tower. It was pretty cool. It was fun to watch everyone trying to get the perfect picture of themselves trying to hold the tower up. It was crowded and hot but we all got our photos and headed back to the villa.

Once we got back to the villa we immediately wanted to make the most of the pool on our last day. We all were relaxing and having drinks at the pool. The water finally felt like it had really warmed up and most people were in it. All of the sudden Greg and I were in a diving/jumping contest. We had fun providing entertainment for everyone. Hanging out in Lucca today and seeing the leaning tower in Pisa was very cool, but the dive contest was probably the highlight of my day. It was so fun!

While we were swimming the chefs had arrived with their wood fire oven to make our final meal of pizza. The pizza dinner consisted of about eight different types of pizza that we all got to try. They were amazing! The ones that stood out the most to me was the margherita, veggie and burrata cheese pizza. The burrata cheese pizza was amazing!! I wish I could have some again right now. We also had an anchovie pizza, which wasn’t bad. The tuna pizza was probably the most interesting one and I don’t think I would eat that one again. After dinner we had some more drinks then we had to start packing so we could leave in the morning. This trip has been awesome!

Bloggings, Food Blog, Reviews - Travel, Travel, Uncategorized

Crazy Bus Ride To A Winery and Pool Fun

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Today we left on the bus around 9 again to head to a winery for a tour and tasting. We had a new bus driver today named Riccardo and we got a little lost on the way to the winery, although I don’t think it was entirely his fault. The route was really confusing and the GPS didn’t seem to be working correctly. We had to stop a couple of times and ask random people for directions and no one really seemed to know anything. Finally Don saved the day by using his awesome navigation skills and some google translate to tell the driver in Italian what we were doing wrong.

The drive was crazy though. We were on a tiny road on a mountain pretty much the entire time in a giant bus. There was barely any room for the bus and often you could not see far ahead of you to see if another car was coming. At times we would be inches away from the wall of the mountain and one time we even had a car coming at us head on. I have to admit I don’t even remember how we got out of that, I think the car backed up. I was not feeling so great with a bit of car sickness and it was really scary so I didn’t look outside a lot.

 

We finally made it to the winery after about 2 hours and they were shocked to see all of us because apparently we did not finalize our reservation. The winery was called Montefioralle. We had some time since they were not expecting us so we took a few pictures. Everything around the winery was beautiful,but what did you expect it’s Italy.

Once things settled down we got a brief tour and then we were seated for some snacks and tastings. We were able to taste five wines and they were all great. We also had meats, breads, and bruschetta. I normally do not like bruschetta because I don’t really like raw tomatoes but as usual everything in Italy taste better and I even ate the tomatoes! We really enjoyed our time here and a lot of people purchased a lot of wine to be shipped back home.

On the bus ride home many people slept, I was one of them. Once we got back we went to Castelfiorentino to buy train tickets for Saturday. We also went to a grocery store. Once we got back we all had fun at the pool and cannonballs were done.

After the pool we went to dinner where we were greeted with little dolls.

Dinner tonight was very good. It started out with an appetizer of asparagus and mozzarella on bread. Then there was a truffle pasta, which I didn’t even know if I liked truffles, but this was soooo good. It was probably one of my favorite pastas of the trip. I wish I could have some right now! The rest of the meal was veal with potatoes and salad. We also had a little birthday celebration for Greg during dessert. After dinner we went to bed pretty early.