The Adventures of Lorie and Brian Groth

We had a couple of days in Paris between Cinque Terre and the castle in Ireland, so we did what we like to do the most in Paris: We walked around. Since it was somewhat nice out, we even had a coffee (Lorie) and wine (Brian) in the park near The Louvre, which turned out to be the worst we had on the entire trip. We also discovered a two new favorites. One is a casual wine bar called La Trinquette  and the other is Shabu Sha, where you pick your own ingredients to boil as they roll around the belt (like a sushi belt).

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Our Cinque Terre trip included 3 nights in Monterosso al Mare, with a hike over to Vernazza, which took us almost 3 hours in the heat of the day even though it’s only a 3km hike. I think jetlag, no breakfast, a bit of wine the night before, and not having enough water all worked against us. But, the highlight was the hike, since in goes through the vineyards in the hills, you can see how the local farmers live, and it has great views of the Tyrrhenian Sea along the way. It’s interesting to see how the farmers (mostly lemons and wine grapes) have a roller-coaster set up to help them move up and down the hill side. The direction we took, from Monterosso to Vernazza let us see Vernazza from the hillside, which offers probably the most picturesque view of a village I’ve ever seen.

The next day we took a train to Riomaggiore, and all 3 days we enjoyed pizza and wine. We found that not all wine and pizza in Italy are good though.

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Thankfully this little brewery in town sells socks.

Our home this week, while Lorie and I are playing bartenders for our friends.

Look closely, you’ll see the old, the new, the city, and some green.

Travel day via the Metro then Eurostar up to London.

Did a good amount of walking around today, seeing the sights, enjoying crêpes, and later maybe some fromage and champaign for dinner.

Arriving in Paris after a day of travel, we found Shabu Sha and made 9:30 reservations. Boiling our soup items was fun. But, to kill 30 minutes, we enjoyed champaign nearby at a very cool wine bar, La Trinquette.

That’s more Nutella gelato during our few hours in Florence.

We went to the southernmost town of Riomaggiore today, hiked around and enjoyed some Nutella gelato. Plus a sampling of wine from each town with dinner.