Cinque Terr

An hour drive from Lucca to catch the ferry to Cinque Terre for a magical, albeit crowded, ride on royal blue water past pink, yellow, red, and blue painted hillside villages to the fourth village where we disembarked.  Names escape me at the moment, but we stopped in the V village and took the hike to the M village, maybe Bill got the names on fb.

Oh, worth mentioning, on the bus ride we passed the quarry where Michael Angelo would select his marble.  They have been mining this mountain for marble for over 600 years.  We keep hearing about the "greenies" stalling the economy.

The first village we poked around in was charming, but crawling with people.  We passed stalls with gorgeous linen, lovely paintings, and the usual kitschy tacky touristy crap.  We each had a bruschetta -- mine with fig and some other gorgeousness, and then we had a cone of squid and prawns -- yum!  Next was a 90 minute hike to the next village (think Grouse Grind in 30 degrees).  Tough, but vistas to die for, completely worth the sweat!  Bill will post pics.  At about the 3/4 mark, we heard Whitney Houston belting out How Will I Know as we headed down steep steps, passing tired and weary tourists scrambling up.  The source of the music was a tiny stall with an enthusiastic farmer serving homemade Limoncello and lemonade, water, and natural grapes from his vineyard for 2E each.  I am sure he is getting rich one twoonie at a time.  He was charming and brilliant, and made a mean lemonade!

A little further down the trail was an old guy playing the accordion with his little dog sleeping on his back in the case... Could not tell if the dog was real or stuffed... was a little ...

Finally, we reached the end and passed a hotel with a horizon pool with the most spectacular view.  There was no one around the pool, so I imagine it must cost a pretty penny.  We didn't have our bathing suits with us and did a quick little look in a couple of shops to see if we could pick one up for cheap, but of course, nothing is cheap in Italy (except wine), so we settled for dipping our tired legs up to our knees in the gorgeous waters.  Then a mediocre lunch of local fare (stuffed anchovies, unusual, but delicious) and stuffed muscles (meh, bready and bland).

A short train ride, showing off pictures of our dogs with one of our travel companions, and then a nap on the bus ride home.  More napping back at the hotel and then a lovely opera performance.  Lucca is the birthplace of Puccini.

Oops, gotta run catch the bus.  Off to Pisa.