The lovely towns of Cinque Terre

Off to the opposite coast - the lovely 5 towns of Cinque Terre. The quaint little towns had been separated by mountains but in recent years joined together with coastal walks and hikes. We stayed in Manarola, the 2nd most southern of the 5. Right out of the station, you look up into a colorful array of homes, with moutain-side vineyards... And a wonderfully steep hill that allows you to get acclimated. 160 steps from our room to the station and town center... every day.   Lucky for us this is also the birth place of pesto and foccacia bread. They literally put pesto on everything. Spaghetti e pesto, pizza e pesto, gnocchi pesto... Needless to say we did not eat pesto for the rest of the trip. :) We did eat twice at a yummy Trattoria alla Billy... Once because it was so good and 2 because I couldn't walk up and down the hill again for a meal. On a side note, and perhaps a premonition, we passed an elderly local couple as I made my first of many trips up a hill and the eldery woman chuckled at my under breath muttering and said, "fatigua." Day 1 of hiking (obviously a Parimal excursion choice). Wuue started from Manarola to Riomaggiore. Not bad... Paved coastal walk with an occasion hike down to the water (later described by the lady at the hiking store as a "stroll" in comparison to other trails but more on that later). At the end of it, I thought "totally do-able." So with this optimistic attitude, we hiked in the opposite direction to Corniglia. This was really a hike - 3.7 KM of uphill rockiness and the view was absolutely worth it. To see glimpes of the next colorful town over the mountains and through the vineyards was amazing. You really get a feel on how the locals lived with their pulley system to cart their grapes down the mountains not to mention the locals going out to sea for their daily catches (at Billy's they bring out your fish options and ask you which one you'd like to eat).   So survived Day 1 of 3. Parimal is loving the hiking, I'll consider not falling down the side of the narrow paths a win. Day two, we took the train to most northern and largest of the 5 towns, Monterosso. Being the largest, it is also the busiest and most "modern." We hiked from here to the next town, Vernazza. Here's when our first mishap happened. I dropped the point and shoot... Yes, my awesome burnt orange camera took a leap into rumble and got jammed. Fortunately for me, I married MacGyver and he managed to fix the camera back to 97% with a swiss army knife and bobby pin. Yay Parimal!   After hiking a total 15 km, it was time to leave... One last bite of pesto, one last swig of the local Chianti and a really fun race rolling our suitcases down the hill.   Off to Firenze!