~Cirque De Terre~

May 11

On the fifth day of our trip Jeff gave to me...

Five (give or take a few) fishing boats!

Cirque de Terre is a collection of five small villages bumped right into the coast. They were at one time all fishing villages, but now they've begun to rely almost entirely on tourism for their economy. Each little town has it's own personality. The attraction here is the beautiful beaches, the coast, the atmosphere and the amazingly beautiful hike that follows the along the cliffs from town to town. Sadly, we didn't do the hike, I just caught glimpses of it as we walked around. We did take the train from town to town to see what they had to offer.

Every little town has some sort of beautiful churches to visit. They're very old, and very beautiful inside. We spent the most time in Monterosso, walking up and down tiny stairwells, watching a sea gull catch and eat an unsuspecting pigeon (it was horrible, I'll never trust a seagull again), listening to the waves crash on the rocks and having a sardine pizza. Try to keep the vomit in for this picture, you cynics!! I know you're really just jealous! The Mediterranean sea was chilly at first, but once you got used to the waves it actually felt good against the heat of the sun. If we would have known how often we could have gone swimming we would've brought our snorkel sets.

Our first real Italian gelato. I can't even remember what flavors I got.. they all eventually blended into "good." I was half tempted to try the jalapeno chocolate, but I think I can live with Kelly's description of it.

I tried to talk one of the fisherman into taking us out for a ride, but he just gave me a disgusted "stupid tourist" look, said "No..." and zoomed away.

There were quite a few little hiding places all over when you started scampering around the many stairwells. Some restaurants were on the top of the cliffs, some random little park benches were on the sides, the place was a blast to explore. I would have loved to spend longer there. The best part was having Jeff there to explore with me and to have his hand to hold while we got lost and out of breath wandering around.

This is starting to seem like a ton of pictures already-even to me... but I swear I edited out so many photos! You can see that little statue on a ton of the brochures and post cards that they send out from this place. Sorry we didn't send out post cards-Jeff thought bringing back chocolate would be better. Til we ate it. Sorry!

I am totally and completely in love with the Italian style. Random flowers hanging all over the place, laundry out the windows, dogs having free range on the town and intricately designed gates. I think I might start planting flowers and see if I can't find some Italian in me.

I couldn't get enough of the hallways and stairways. There is tiny door at the end of this walkway on the right hand side that as we were walking through, a waiter came running out of. When we got closer it actually took us a minute to find the door! It really was that small. That kind of stuff is everywhere!