Hotel Palme Monterosso

As the traffic had been horrendous yesterday we decided to hit the autostrada and pay the tolls to save our sanity and hightail it to our next destination. 130kms and 10 Euro later we arrived in Santa Margherita Ligure, which is just up the road from Portofino. <br><br>This place is a bit larger than we are used to and Italian towns all have small car parks and narrow ...

... ticket said La Spezia on it but didn't specify which one since there are apparently two stations in the tiny town; one on the outskirts and one in the center. The girls and I along with probably another dozen American tourists got off on the wrong one and had to search for help. The only person at the station other than us was the train engineer. He helped some but we had to wait in the rain for around half an hour for the next train to take us to either the central station or ...

... Eisenhower tunnel with more curves less light and cars going less than half your speed next to you for 11 minutes solid. It gets a little weird having inches to spare on your left and traffic on your right. And inevitably, once you emerge from the tunnel, you are immediately on a bridge that spans the space between the next tunnels. So there is no more room for error on the bridge, just better light, and then into the next tunnel&#8230; Over ...

... we zoom zoomed through this dark tunnel there were splashes of light, and I saw the...OCEAN!<br>It gave my spirit such a lift it was incredible!<br><br>I got off the train, and made like a crazy person to the railing, and just soaked it into my brain, I didn't realize that I had missed the openness of space, I had been cooped up in these busy busy cites, and then in a valley where everything is bascially closing in ...

<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;

... and just hanging on until a breeze takes it away, and a gelato in their other hand. Who are these people?!?!? And then, my favorite, was when one of the topless gals put on a swim cap to do a few laps. Yes, good idea to cover up and protect the hair. Again, WHAT?!?!? lol, i love it.<br><br>And the little girls follow their lead. I snapped one photo, which I hope will not send me to some sort of kiddie porn prison, but it was so adorable I couldn't ...

... on some nice clothes for the first time this trip and headed for a good seafood dinner. Cinque Terre is well known for their pesto and freshly caught sea food. We found a small restaurant one a cliff overlooking the beach and the harbor. We got a bottle wine and had some amazing dishes. Mitch and I shared a large bowl of Seafood Rissoto and Justin had freshly made Tuffie pasta and pesto. The pesto was out of this world. The risotto was filled with prawns, clams, mussels, some sort of ...

... By the time we followed him like puppy dogs to the correct platform, I had learned that his name was Evan, he was half Australian and half Italian, and his grandmother died last week at the age of 94 (I'm not really sure how that became part of the conversation, but he seemed to want to share....). We boarded the train and Jim sat next to Evan while I tried not to fall asleep. During the 1½ hour trip we went through numerous tunnels, and the steady ...

... The weather was really nice the whole day but when we were hiking, it started to drizzle a little bit, which was nice and cooled us off a bit.  The views were once again great and it was nice to smell greenery and ocean rather than dog **** on the sidewalk or cigarette smoke in Florence.  When we finished the hike our legs were jell-o but we walked into Monterosse to meet the rest of the group for our group meal.

So we decide to sleep in Thurday morning because we both felt we needed it. Well our bodies decided otherwise and we were both awake at 9am. But don't worry that didn't stop us from staying in bed untill after 10!!! We slowly got our stuff together and headed to Monteroso of Cinque terre. Cinque Terre is 5 little fishing villages with beautiful walking\trekking paths that connect all 5 ...