Il Convento Rapallo

We will be staying Riomaggiore (one of the five villages) and have booked our accomodation already at Casa Lorenza  We will be staying in apartment Nettuno.

What shouldn't we miss while we are here?

... randonne de 4.5 heures avec des vues incoryables sur la mer et les falaises.

avec le retard du train, nous somme revenue a Pise en debut de soiree. Apres un autre excellent repas accompagne d'un chianti local, je me lance a la recherche d'une auberge pour notre destination de demain : florence

... best friends by the time we left... 7 Euro well spent!!

Fri 13 Nov
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 ...

... our seats there was a couple who was seated in them and it was funny because there was barely anyone on the train but we did not want to take the chance of sitting somewhere else and taking someone else's seat. Well this lady gave us an earful of how she thought it was ridiculous that they had to move considering there were about 50 other open seats in our cabin, but she's like if these are your seats you better take them. She went on for about 2 minutes while ...

This morning we woke up to get ready to go on the Historic Center walking tour of Genoa. We had a nice breakfast at the buffet and I even found a decaf cappa for breakfast too. We met in the lounge at 8:45 and got on a little boat in the harbor and had a tour of the harbor and then got off at the aquarium and started our tour. Genoa is very nice and the historic section dates back ...

... the sun went away behind the clouds before we could actually watch it set. Instead we shared a bottle of wine at a restaurant near the marina and listened to the waves crash.

In my travel book we had ran across a restaurant that was in Manarola and had pretty good prices. Dinner was delicious as I have come to expect in Italy. Ravioli for me, (favorite) and a really weird fried seafood platter for Laura equipped with 'little fishes', calamari, and prawn (shrimp). It was a ...

... like lane ways and a wee little harbor at its base. Totally picturesque. Reason for being here was for a long over due family catch up with my cousins Kelly & Shannon, Shan's husband Andrew and their adorable 4 month old baby girl Gemma. Shan, Andrew & Gemma flying from Sydney to visit Kel in Edinburgh then all flying to the Cinque Terra. And we thought a 13 hr train trip was tough!! After checking into our accommodation ...

... get ready for a little exercise, buy some water, maybe a couple of baguettes to go, and then make the hike to the next town, Vernazza. This is the "big hike" but the views are so rewarding...pick a purty spot to eat your snacks. Once you reach Vernazza, head towards the water and there's a pizza place (last restaurant on the left) that has the world's best pizza (especially if you like crust). Grab a couple slices and eat them overlooking the Mediterranean. If you need to cool down again ...

... promenade. After getting lost a little, we found the restaurant, but we were too early for dinner -- we were still on East Coast USA time and weren't ready for the Italian later hours! But, that delay in dinner lead us to one of our favorite memories of Rapallo -- our appertivo time at a quaint wine bar on a small back street. Jim and I enjoyed a seafood salad and everyone else had their first taste of cheese bread ...

... order our drinks and brought them back to the table where we were invited into conversation with the Bostonian guys when one of them says in the strongest Boston accent that I've ever heard "bartanders don lik'it when you go b'hind thur bar." And so then we got into rather pleasant conversation until one of them asked us about our politics. I asked him to drop the subject since as civilized Americans there are two things we should never talk ...