Moretto 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 ...

... weird seeing her plate come out but I tried a little fish and it wasn't so bad. I decided to test out the after dinner drink Limonceno (lemoncello) for desert. Whoa! It was much stronger than I have ever had in the US. It was good but one was plenty as my throat was burning from all the alcohol. Then the waiter brought drinks that were on the house... oh lordy. It was a glass of a desert wine, very sweet, but after splitting a bottle of wine, my limonceno, and the wine I was ...

... not many cars come screaming up behind you. And if they do, you will get a flash in plenty of time. But this cruise speed offers two new and unique challenges that I noticed. The first most obvious, is that the speed differential between fast lane and slow, is much greater than we see in the states. This means that stepping out from slow to fast requires a greater mirror calculation. And in the case of a car or truck stepping out on you, may ...

... again realize how incredibley lucky I am to be here right here and now and experiencing this amazing view.<br><br>Anyways...enough of my fodder.<br>I arrived, sat down in my hostel appartment and thought about my plan. Cinque Terra means The 5 Lands, as there are 5 small villages built into the cliff face and it is beautiful, with 14 walking trails linking them as there are no cars allowed into 4 of these towns. I ...

<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;

... villages perched above the sea, tiny coves at the foot of dramatic cliffs. The downside is what feels like a stream of ants, all following each other. Chris and I are much faster than virtually everyone else so we power past folks.<br><br>The next town is an extremely picturesque one, jutting out on a spit of land. We descend for a swim in the pristine blue water. The temperature has been very warm and the climb fairly intense (at least by non-Colorado ...

... our fair skin from the hot sun.... don't want to pay every day at the beach! After our purchase we headed to the train station and waited 2hours for the train to take us home.... and man did we have to pee... you should have seen us run home! After taking a nice hot shower we got dressed and headed to dinner... We were late we got kicked out of the place before we could finish our wine so ...

... minutes to get there, and as we rounded the corner into the bay the first thing we saw was a huge fortified wall and an ancient castle. We got off the boat and wandered past the colourful buildings (my first thought when I saw them was "I bet Kris would love to paint this!"), myriad outdoor cafes, and buskers playing the most beautiful music, to the castle itself. Entrance was free so we wandered up to the top, taking in the views of the ...

... guides told us that the men were going to have a beer and to meet them later! It was really cute so the boys went off and my dad bought our friendly Italian tour guide a beer. This guide later explained to us that he grew up going to his Grandpa's Chianti vineyard everywhere weekend and that he picked the grapes as a small child. He said that had two baptisms, a regular one and one of grapes. He then did three crosses on his ...

... to the Asian place that serves excellent ramen, and I bought a book about the history of the mafia called Cose Nostra (translated, by the way, means "Our Thing"). That kept me entertained for the whole trip. We got there and it was freaking England outside. We had all pretty much dressed for a sunny day, so we were not the happiest people. A little drizzle, wind and clouds can really damper a groups morale. We had some food at around 11:30, which was tasty and only a little bit ...