Cinque Terre October 23 - Blog and Pictures

I went a bit overboard at sunset: http://www.flickr.com/photos/debstah1/sets/72157622726192848/ videos too!


5:00pm: sitting in the room with the windows open, listening to the sea slap against the breakwater and the people below enjoying a cloudy and drizzly but otherwise nice late afternoon while I snack on some olives.

Started the day at Il Pirata again, this morning with a croissant bisected and stuffed with nutella. Went to catch a train around 9:30 to Riomaggiore but it was delayed 25 min. So it finally came at 10 and we started there. Riomaggiore is quaint with some lovely views. There was one shop in particular where a lady made dolls out of mohair and stuff. They were adorable. I almost bought a mouse but it was small and 20 euros. Around 11:30 we went to a snack place and got some focaccia pizza. Mine was covered with a couple slices of salame. They heated it for us and we got cans of Lemon Soda and ate it outside on a bench. Around noon, we did the via dell'Amore to Manarola. It was an easy level stroll but I was not particularly thrilled with walking 20 min on the side of a cliff :) the views were quite amazing though. In Manarola, we stumbled upon a wonderful ceramic shop I'd read about and I bought a couple small things. Then we did the Rick Steves walking tour, stopping at a gelateria where I had the best dark chocolate ice cream/gelato I've ever had. From this point forward, all chocolate ice creams will unfortunately be compared against this one :( I also bought my obligatory cheesy magnets.

We made it to the top of the town to a church and some amazing views, then we did this great 20-30min or so vineyard walk which was high but not too scary. It ended in the town's cemetery which is pretty unique and interesting (I guess they all look like this). There are pictures of the person outside the tomb, which I find to be a little creepy. We made it back to town and went to the train station where we had to wait almost an hour for the train back to Vernazza. What I'll really remember about this walk is the smell - of rosemary, lemons, and grapes (even though they'd already been picked). Really amazing.

Once back, I picked up something and we went to the "Internet Point" but the internet was down. Awesome. So we went to the Blue Marlin Bar where they also have a couple computers and we checked the train schedules for going to Pisa tomorrow. The guy/owner was hilarious. I didn't even notice but I was kind of half sitting on the stool and half standing and he was like "why don't you sit with your whole ass on the chair? Do you prefer the left half of your ass to the right? I like my whole ass." We were dying of laughter. So we confirmed the train schedule and got our tickets to La Spezia tomorrow. Then came back to the room to pay the owner since we'll be leaving early tomorrow. We buzzed from downstairs and he (the dad) casually just shows up and we pay and just will leave the key in their box tomorrow. So casual.

10:05pm: So around 5:30 we went down to the water to see if there'd be a visible sunset. Though it was drizzling a bit on land, there were clear skies in the distance, so we figured in a little while the sky would be quite beautiful. We wandered around a little bit. I got some money from the ATM which is just next to the Blue Marlin Bar and the hilarious guy saw me and came up and started joking. What a character. Anyway, we went back down to the breakwater and along with everyone else took tons of pictures and enjoyed the sunset. It was gorgeous and around 6:30 or so the sun was finally set. We moseyed up to the Il Pirata restaurant once again and it was almost full just before 7. They're one of the few places - maybe in all of Italy - that serves dinner starting at 6pm. Maybe it's an off-season winter thing but I doubt it. Anyway, our buddy from the morning has a brother (twin maybe?) and it was quite funny. The brother we'd seen in the morning was telling stories about what job he does when they close from December to March and which people from which cities request bacon and eggs the most (the two I remember were DC and Chicago). Anyway, I had risotto and it was pretty good. We tried to order tiramisu for dessert but he made a face at us and went into a long diatribe about how bad it is and they only make it because people requested it and how we had to have the panna cotta with strawberries. He didn't really give us a choice actually. It came out wearing a pink cocktail umbrella. It was pretty tasty but not what something chocolate would've been. Then we asked for 2 pastries to take tomorrow on the train. He was trying to convince us to come back early tomorrow morning because they'd be fresh, which is great but we explained it'd be early and we wanted to just get on the train and it'd be easier. So we got 2 nutella twists and he just gave them to us for free. He also went into a whole diatribe about how Mike's Pastry - so he's heard - has nothing on their cannoli. I'm sure that's probably true ;)

Then we came back here and looked at some of the pictures I took and watched some downloaded TV shows. Ah, stuff in English!!!!!!

Gotta go to bed early - or at least try to - tomorrow I finally see the leaning tower - and also have my first experience driving in italy - yikes! I am especially nervous since I turned on the GPS here today and couldn't get a satellite signal. Hope it's OK in Tuscany tomorrow…or else we'll be in trouble and I'll be pissed since this is the only reason I got it!!