The Cinque Terre (Nov 7 & 8)

The evening of Nov. 8 - View from balcony of hotel "Vis-A-Vis"

Sestri Levante
The next morning-Breakfast in hotel dining room on top floor

We loved the breakfasts

View from the dining room - Too bad about the view & beauty
of the Liguarian Sea

Another view from the dining room

No, this is not a postcard!

Veggie and fruit stands on many streets

In the Cinque Terre - very typical

More of the Cinque Terre

"Via dell'Amore" - the pathway of love

Along the "Via dell'Amore"
Pretty cute, huh?

Along the "Via dell'Amore"
(Gene made a "make-shift" lock out of a tie to lock our eternal love
.......awe, how sweet!)

In the Cinque Terre - Pretty large water wheel

Our lunch in Monarola
"Trattoria Dal Billy" This is the black pasta with seafood.

Squid juice is what makes the pasta black!
(It looks gross, but really was delicious.)

After hiking way up, we walked down some tiny stairs to the restaurant.

Some very narrow streets in the Cinque Terre

More town color

An awesome church in Vernazza

This Gothic church is built from black stones & dates from 1318

Again inside this church

Right outside the door to the church in Vernazza
(I took this photo for you, Riley)

Vernazza - Our favorite town

Is this narrow enough ??

The train runs right along the waters edge with lots of tunnels

Now....our time spent today in the Cinque Terre was indeed an ADVENTURE!!! We both slept really well last night and had another delightfully "era squisito" buffet breakfast in the dining room atop the hotel. Let me tell you, we definitely are enjoying these breakfasts that are included with our room rate. We eat hearty to give us the energy to walk long distances each day. Today was no exception! The town of Riomaggiore is where we began our day tripping. It is the farthest south of the 5 towns. We found out this was the best way to visit the towns, by starting in the south and then making our way back to Sestri Levante which is north of the Cinque Terre. Our plan was to visit just 3 of the 5 towns as recommended by the hotel staff and the couple we met last night. (This has something to do with the off-season time we are here.) We did end up visiting just 3 of the towns and it worked out perfectly, arriving back to Sestri Levante at dusk. All of these towns are AMAZING! Talk about adorable, picturesque and different than we have ever seen before. Well, hopefully the photos I posted have shown you a little flavor of what we experienced today. All 5 of the towns are very close together, with 4 of the 5 right on the coast. There is only one, Vernazza, that has a natural harbor and some consider the jewel of the Cinque Terre.(We do too!) It is possible to hike to all 5 towns, but not now in the off-season because of the cooler and more inclement weather. We did, however, hike from Riomaggiore to the next town Manarola. This hike is called the "Via dell'Amore"--the pathway of love. Magnificent views of the sea and rocky cliffs!!!! Spectacular! We never did have any rain today, but experienced major force winds and chilly weather. One highlight of this adventure was hiking way up....and I mean way up, to a restaurant in Manarola, "Trattoria Dal Billy", where we had a fabulous lunch of black pasta (Squid juice is what makes it black) with seafood (squid, shrimp, mussels, clams). That was one dish. The other was grilled tuna.  Another highlight was the town of Vernazza. Here we felt the force of the mighty sea as waves broke with such tremendous force in the harbor. It was quite something to experience! We arrived back at our hotel room and passed out on the bed for awhile before getting ready for dinner in the hotel's fine dining room. We decided we didn't want to venture out again in the wind and cold. Had a delightful, relaxing dinner and now we are ready for bed. Actually, Gene just fell asleep. I'll follow close behind. Another amazing day in beautiful Italy. We leave tomorrow morning on the train back to Florence where we will spend two  more nights and then......California here we come, right back where we started from!

*I ended finishing this up back at our hotel in Florence on Tues. aft. We are heading out for a little more touring...early to bed tonight for a 7 am pick up to the airport.  *Mark is picking us up at LAX 4:55 pm (Wed) flight #0072 Air France