Hotel La Pineta Monterosso

... best friends by the time we left... 7 Euro well spent!!<br><br>Fri 13 Nov<br>Drizzle greeted us this morning so we got on our wet weather gear and headed off for a walk along the coast to Portofino which was 5km away. The wind blew away any cobwebs we may have had but it blew the rain away so we were happy. The walk followed the coast where we looked into the deep blues ...

... a bit tipsy. The walk up to our hostel didn't seem so daunting that night. It was a great ending to our day in Cinque Terre. We visited four out of five cities in one day! A quick repack and postcard writing and I was off to bed. An early morning tomorrow to make the train to Venice. From the Italian coast on the Mediterranean to the Adriatic, spanning the width of the country from west to east in one day. Hoping my planning will pay off but I know better by now to expect the unexpected.

... a great big braking effort. <br><br>But moreover than those issues is the immediate concentration required to play in the fast lane. It is &#8220;game on&#8221; from the minute you enter the highway, until you stop for a break. It is a new game for me to drive for 2-3 hours straight at a minimum speed of 100. Curves, tunnels (light-dark-light), bridges, trucks, construction, cars behind&#8230;. etc. It all comes and goes at 100. You can ...

It's Saturday morning and I'm hitting up this internet cafe on my way through the begining of my day long hike through Cinque Terre.<br><br>I left San Fillippo yesterday with happy memories and sad steps. I really did enjoy so much about my stay there that I truly didn't want to leave, but alas my faithful readers needed something more excited to read so I have graciously decided to continue on this path of a new ...

<br> Tuscan Riviera Portovenere<br> Had seen it on Getaway and looked very pretty.. Found a hotel with sea views and have spent 2 nights here resting , climbing around local castles&#8230; eating sleeping and watching the boats go in and out&#8230; not much English here but we are not hungry or thirsty so all going well&#8230;.<br> Tomorrow we are off to the South of France.. 3 nights planned in Nice.. Really looking forward to it but have loved Italy&#8230;

... I was in the water and b) just how shocked I was about it. But I think this is the difference, the water here is crystal clear. As in no gunk in the water, no seaweed, no random bits of randomness. Just clear perfection. And really, it kind of makes you question why water would be any hue other than clear. Now, granted, I haven't spent much time actually in the waters of the Atlantic or Pacific, but perhaps that was precisely the reason. I couldn't see what ...

... then wondered around town to see the sights, this didn&#8217;t take very long since it&#8217;s a pretty small town in which one could walk from one side to the other in about 15 to 20 minutes. Small throughways met up with quaint courtyards until they finally meet the beach. We grabbed some beers and headed for some food and the beach side. Our first taste of Cinquee Terre was a small pizzeria where we got Margeriata and Pesto Pizza from local named Amy. Amy was a very nice guy who ...

... the captain announced that there was an electrical problem that couldn't be fixed so, he was very sorry, but we would have to disembark and change planes. By the time all was said and done, we had spent two hours on the tarmac....but we were finally in the air by noon. It was a 2-hour flight, and another 1-hour time change, to Genoa. Once there, we took a shuttle to the train station where we tried to figure out the train schedule. This is the moment ...

... that you could climb through, but we didn't have time to do that.  We sat on the dock right on the water and watched a bunch of the tourists make fools of themselves, which was just as fun. The last of the trails was one the steepest and longest so lauren wasn't able to do it with her arthritis, so Zach and I hiked it on our own.  The hike started with a bunch of stairs right away and kept them coming, yay ...

... to tell you that it was breathtakingly gorgeous. It was also quite strenuous. We were glistening from rivers of sweat, and we smelled like true Europeans by the end. Haha.We now sit exhausted, ready for bed and excited for the next two days in the Cinque Terre. This is our "vacation from vacation" and we plan to spend the next couple days doing nothing but sitting in the sun and eating gelato. More soon as we continue our descent into Italy. Ciao.