Italy

Cinque Terra - Vernazza

We made it to the last leg of the trip.....Italy. First stop was the Cinque Terra. Five little coastal villages you can start in the first village of Riomaggiore, and hike to the other villages of Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso along the Mediterranean Sea. We stayed in the fourth village of Vernazza. The day we arrived was the best weather we had had all trip, so we decided to to hike the trail and explore the other villages. Our room was a hike all on its own, the lady we rented from wouldn't even walk us all the way up to it, she just pointed and said keep going up. We didn't have a direct view of the water from our room, but you lean out just a bit and we had a fantastic view.
We grabbed a bite to eat, some nice focaccia bread with tomato, lettuce and fresh mozzarella cheese. After lunch we started our walk to Corniglia then on to Manarola and then on to Riomaggiore. All these little coastal villages practically built into the hillside. We decided to catch the ferry back to Vernazza instead of hiking back as it was getting dark and we wanted to watch the sunset. While waiting we found our first gelato shop and decided to grab one.....of course I went for Strawberry and chocolate......terrible thing to try since it lead to at least 2 gelato stops a day the rest of our trip. We made it back to Vernazza in time to grab some dinner, some lovely pesto lasagna, and watch the sunset. After the sunset we walked around the little village of Vernazza and took some pictures and then headed back up to the room.
We are going to try to find a cafe that was recommeded by, I'll just call him Rick as I tend to get the name wrong quite often, called the Pirate Cafe.
We found the Pirate Cafe on the other side of the village, run by two brothers. Super delicious food, we over indulged a bit, but too good to pass up. The brother that was there was hilarious to listen to and had a lot of energy. After breakfast we headed off to the last village of the Cinque Terra, Montorosso.
We found another gelato place and walked along the beach, tested out the water, warmer than we thought and did some shopping before heading back to the little balcony that our hotel had for it's guests. We sat in some chairs and looked out over the water.....pretty relaxing. I could probably do that for the rest of my life....good food, gelato, sitting watching the water....just needed some dolphins or something jumping out of the water. So sad we have to move onto another city, but if I ever get back to Italy, Vernazza is on my list.