Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Cinque Terre







Cinque Terre is a set of five small villages on the Italian coast a bit north of Pisa. They were built right into the side of the mountains, so everything is stacked very close together. Cars are not allowed inside the villages (except for special taxis) because the roads are less than 6 feet wide. The villages are linked only by train and by trails that follow the coast. Because of my pregnant condition, we only dared to do the hike between Riomaggio and Manarola, which is definitely the easiest of the hikes. We spent two days in Cinque Terre walking around the towns, seeing the sights, eating some great pesto and seafood (even anchovies!), and spending a bit of time on the beach. The first night we were there, we were just getting ready to go to bed and we heard some huge BOOMS. We quickly threw on some shoes and ran outside to see what was going on. Over the water, the town was having fireworks in honor of the Catholic holiday of Assumption. It was one of the most beautiful firework shows we have ever seen (doesn’t rival Belmond, IA ground show) and the sounds were amplified because of the water and the mountains. Another neat thing about being there during assumption is that, while we were taking our town tours on foot, we frequently heard singing in the local churches that drifted through the streets to greet us. In Cinque Terre we were also introduced to our first gelatos…yum! Gelato is surprisingly cheap in Italy and amazing delicious- we were averaging about 3 cones a day between the two of us! How many times do you get to eat real gelato though??










Our great cliff-side restaurant.




Ben in Vernazza.







Scenes from Vernazza & Monterosso




The sunset where we ate dinner.











Coastline in Monterosso.








Scenes from Monterosso.

1 comment:

  1. The pictures are beautiful and so are you with that cute little baby!! Laurie

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