Italy:Cinque Terre

Have you ever heard of Cinque Terre? I first heard about it from a friend. Then I saw it in "Cooking Light" magazine.  And it looked so nice.  And you can walk from town to town.  Well, between some towns you would call it a "walk" and others you would call a serious, heart rate through the roof hike.  We loved hanging out in the town we were staying in, called Riomaggiore. It was cute and comfortable, with not too many tourists...but it also wasn't too dead.

This was the view from our room the first night..

This was our room the second and third nights...see the awesome balcony/terrace?  and below that, the windows show our place the fourth night.

 When we stayed here, we cooked in the room both nights, because we could eat on the awesome table on our terrace...listening to the waves crash into the shore below.  See the windows below the terrace? We moved into that room on our fourth night.  Not booking in advance has it's disadvantages....but it was also very cheap to stay in this awesome room on the water, so no complaints here!  We also had a cat here. She lived there about 60% of the time. We're not sure where she was the rest of the time.  If you see the window on the terrace (next to the door)....we kept it open in our bedroom so we could watch the moon as we slept and hear the ocean.  In fact, one night as I was reading late into the night, Brandon woke up and said, "look at the full moon. It is beautiful" and then he fell right back asleep.  But the next morning when we woke up, our cat was in the house. She must have entered through the window. I found her in the kitchen the next morning.  I fondly named her "Cat Cat" :)  We even bought her some Sheba cat food. I was missing animal love. I don't even like cats, normally, but at this point, I suppose I wanted to take what I could get :)

View from the Terrace at Sundown

This was the awesome view from our balcony.  B met another american guy who really wanted to swim in the frigid waters. So they did.  And I watched and took pictures. Brandon talked the guy into diving off these rocks.  I was so afraid he was going to get hurt and sue us :)  Always an adventure :)  Brandon is in black shorts, climbing onto rock.  To be reminded: I broke my kneecap the summer before college by climbing on slippery rocks...so I'm obviously real comfortable with slippery rocks! :)

At the top of the toughest hike, we got this view of the largest town.  We had just eaten lunch there.  We felt like we  might puke that lunch up by the time we climbed stairs in the mountain for 20 straight  minutes :)  

Sweat marks courtesy of the backpack containing *MY* camera. Thanks hubby :)

Do you see this man in the rocks? I can't even fathom how that was done. Just amazing.

More to come on this trip. Maybe not as glamorous as you think :)