Bravo, Cinque Terre!

Vernazza sits beside her 4 sister cities in the Cinque Terre, and for us, seemed the sweetest. It has a natural harbor, a small main street with everything a traveler needs, and a population of friendly natives who genuinly seem happy to have tourists around - I think we must provide entertainment for the old ladies who sit on the bench at the top of town, watching the world parade by.

Our first day here was lovely and surreal, having spent the night before traveling. Older residents pointed to Linus, slumped over in the grocery store and the internet cafe while we waited for Rosa Vitale to prepare our rooms; I simply replied, "Night Train", in English, and they nodded knowingly. Rosa's apartment provided us with a gas stove to cook up the breakfast we had been longing for - scrambled eggs! Along with locally produced sausages and fresh bread, we had a feast! And we saved lots of money eating in our "own place"; Venice had sucked up our travel budget, and anyway, we were tired of restaurants at this point.

In between rain showers, Rosa's family celebrated the baptism of her very young neice; we heard the commotion three stories below, and Linus went running down the stairs to make sure he got his share of the candy showers. In accordance with tradition, the host family tosses great handfuls of candy down to any and all spectators. When the crowd yells for more, they comply! Without even trying, I scooped up pockets full of goodies, while Linus competed with the agressive and wiley old folks in the center of the crowd.

Golden light filtered through the clouds that evening to give us a glowing finale to our day. Mark and I wished we could have more time to stay and paint the colorful town, but we were able to take some bright photos using Jan's digital camera.

Sunshine greeted us the next morning, perfect for our hike from the far end of the Cinque Terre, along the trail which connects the 5 towns and offers fabulous views of the sea. We rode the milk train down the line to Riomaggiore (Mark dubbed it "Rigamarol-ay" because he couldn't remember it's real name), where we started hiking along with a surprising crush of other tourists (many were Italians, enjoying a Sunday outing with their families). After a 30 minute hike, we arrived in Manarola, taking coffee in the bar overlooking its harbor; thanks to Senior Rick, we had learned to save money by enjoying our drinks standing at the bar, instead of occupying a sidewalk table when we didn't feel the desire to lounge. A lovely 45 minute hike brought us into Corniglia, and whom do you think we met there, in front of the local pizza take-out? Shannon and Ryan, from the night train! They had found a room in Monterroso al Mare, the largest and most touristic and of the 5 towns. It is a small world, no piensas?

A quick train back to Vernazza to pick up our stuff from Rosa, milk train to Monterroso, coffee in the train station, then hopping on board our last train, heading to Milano.