We woke up to a gorgeous day. Sunny and light.
I was feeling hungry and wandered out into the hall...there were delicious smells wafting in. I bumped in to Inoka, the woman running things, and I asked her when breakfast was. She laughed and said, "8:30...you are hungry?" I said, yes and she laughed again. She told me she would put it out at 8:15...for me.
haha...I was starting to feel a little sheepish. I'm sure I could've waited 15 more minutes, but I wasn't sure how to communicate that to her without offending. She was so pleased that I couldn't wait to dig in to her food!
Mom was still in the shower and I suddenly realized that not only had I rushed the sweet lady doing all the cooking, I had essentially ditched my mom for breakfast! I called through the bathroom door that I was heading to breakfast and went out promptly at 8:15.
It was so sunny and pretty!
By the time Mom made it to the table, I had already eaten a bowl of fruit, yogurt, toast, croissants, and eggs. I washed it all down with apricot juice. It was just about that time that it occurred to me that I didn't actually have to scarf down everything that was offered to me. There was a German couple enjoying a nice cup of coffee and a slice of toast. Mom just had the fruit and yogurt.
Then Inoka brought me apple strudel!
I'm starting to understand why Americans are fat. We don't know how to say 'no'! To ourselves or anyone else!
After breakfast, we hopped on the train and got off in Monterosso, the first of the five towns that make up the Cinque Terre.
Each town has it's own beauty and feel. Monterosso had lots of shops and people walking up and down the beaches with beautiful blankets and colorful wraps. I was so tempted to buy one! But there is no way I could have fit it in my luggage home.
How is everything so vibrant here?
I love the striped covers for the boats. It reminded me of the puzzle I did over Christmas a couple years ago.
These umbrellas would make a great puzzle!
We walked up the hill toward's Vernazza, thinking that we might try out the hike before the day was over.
We got all the way up and it was blocked off. There was a sign that said "This is not the trail to Vernazza." We were a little miffed that they waited to post a sign until the very end. Why not post one down at the bottom of this trail?
Oh.
They did post one.
They posted MANY. Which we saw on our way down. Whoopsie!
But it was totally worth it! The dead end was the perfect place to take a great photo of Monterosso. We followed the directions to where the real trail started and we immediately knew we were not going to be making that hike today. It was straight up!
Instead of heading toward Vernazza, we hiked the other way (also straight up).
We climbed and climbed until we reached the Capuchin Monestary. I liked this place. It was quiet and warm and there was soft music playing. Sitting in on the benches and looking at the way the light streamed in, I could understand wanting to spend a lot of time praying in here.
We walked back down and met the train to Vernazza. Once you got off, you needed to walk through a long tunnel to get to the town and shops. They say that Cinque Terre has no cars. They are mostly telling the truth, but, of course, there has to be some service vehicles and things like that. And those come whipping down this tunnel without a thought for who is walking there!
See that faint white line on the side? It is wise to walk on the inside of that line if you want to make it out the other side.
I liked Vernazza. It was busy and bustling with tourists, but it wasn't as commercial. The beach was pretty sandy and there were lots of kids down at the water playing.
The marina was pretty compact. It really curved right around and was easy to walk from one end....
to the other.... This is one of my favorite photos of the trip. I love those boats!
Vernazza is a fantastic place to wander. There were endless passageways to explore. I can't help but look at those little bridge-like supports that separate the houses and imagine one neighbor saying, "I'm going to build my house right here. Don't worry! It'll be a whole 3 feet away from your house! And here...I'll build this bridges from mine to yours. That way my house probably won't fall over onto yours."
Oh.. Okay!
This place is heaven for a person whose favorite color is yellow. I'm in love with hanging laundry!
We peeked into the different street food shops and tried to figure out what we wanted for lunch. We finally settled on vegetable tempura (delicious!) and rice balls. When we asked for "rice balls", he smile and showed us one. Ah...those are huge. One rice ball will do, thank you! We shared back and forth and I'll tell you, that rice ball wasn't that tasty. It had a very "beef stew" vibe going on. Not so great. But everything can be fixed with a cup of gelato!
We took the train on to Riomaggiore, just to get a peek at where we would be staying the next day. This town also had a tunnel to walk through and it was bright blue!
We took a quick look around just to get an idea of where "Scorci da Mare" was and make a plan for getting ourselves and our luggage through that tunnel and up all the stairs to meet up with the owner and get our room. Riomaggiore is pretty compact, so it didn't take us long. We found the address on the light blue house on the very far right of this photo. No problem!
We went back through the tunnel and continued on to La Spezia to make our reservations for the train back to Vienna in a couple days. The man at the window spoke almost no English and we seriously wondered at times if we were getting the correct reservation. But he was a laugher. He used the few words he knew and we used our Sesame Street Spanish and a bit of charades to get our message across. And we succeeded! He was so pleased and we were just happy to not be scowled at by someone mad at us for not knowing Italian. Nice people make the world go around.
We jumped right back on the train back to Levanto and made a quick stop at the hotel. I didn't have any idea how much fun it was going to be to open this gate! I'm a total sucker for these keys.
We went back to the same place we had dinner before. I had my eye on the Pasta con pesto...and Mom ordered what she thought was a pizza with sausage. But, when they brought it out, it was covered in sliced hot dogs!! ack! She picked them off and left them in a pile on her plate. She says she still feels bad for leaving them there and possibly hurting the cook's feelings. I was thinking we should have tossed them onto the street one at a time to give passing dogs a little snack. I think we've both learned to stick with the pasta!
We went back down to our spot on the beach, the sun was setting and there was beautiful sunset.
Still can't get over these great terracotta stones.
On our way back we remembered that we still wanted to go check out the castle! We turned around and directly across from our little hidden hotel entrance was a straight shot, right up to the castle! How did we miss that before? No sniffing or wandering powers were required.
The castle is privately owned, so we couldn't get to close, but it was still neat to see something still standing that has been around for almost 900 years.
We took another peek at the cathedral in the moonlight. It's so stripey!
Then we found yet another set of stairs and headed down. It was steep and winding, often passing by the back steps of homes and restaurants. It felt like a short cut or something. We got dumped out suddenly on the street and there we were...right across from our hotel again! How many ways are there to get up to that castle, anyway?
We were craving something sweet and the gelato place around the corner was closed.
No problem! We spied a vending machine in the laundromat and we found some suitable goodies there. Mom made the smartest choice and got a box of dark chocolate Pocky sticks.
Then a quick Facetime with the kids and off to bed!
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