After Tuscany, it was on to the relaxing part of our vacation, or at least the partially relaxing part. We stayed a week in the small beach town of Levanto, Italy near the cinque terre. Levanto has a great beach, which made it a perfect home base for exploring the area. The cinque terre is a series of five towns that are right on the Mediterranean close together, and the next town up the beach is Levanto, so everything was accessible by train. Here is one of the towns (Manorola) so you have an idea of what they look like.
The first day we did a long hike up in the hills outside Levanto. We were headed for a point by the sea, but it ended up being too far. We probably hiked about 5 miles of hilly terrain, and that was around 2/3 of the way to the first cinque terre town of Montorosso. The next day we trained to Manorola, walked "lovers lane" to Riomaggiore, and then swan and cliff jumped in the water. It was really fun, and 7 and I even got Trillion and Lauren to jump in. We also got a snorkel, and there were tons of fish to see in the clear blue water.
We weren't quite done with our sightseeing in major italian cities, since you can't go to italy without seeing Florence. We actually conquered it in two separate days, one on our way to Levanto and one in the middle of our stay. We were probably crazy to train into Florence from Levanto (supposedly 3 hours) and spend the day, but it worked out in the end. The late and delayed Italian trains made it take four hours each way and added a considerable amount of stress. It was worth it though because we got to go to the Uffizi gallery, one of the great art collections in the world. Florence is also famous for Michelangelo's David, one of the greatest marble sculptures in the world, and the Duomo, the first domed cathedral built in renaissance times.
I almost forgot, Florence is also soon to be famous for putting up with the people from Jersey shore for 6 weeks. At least we know they didn't completely trash the place. We accidentally ate at the pizzeria where they worked during their stay. They signed the wall, and various articles of clothing were hanging from the ceiling. I guess Snookie liked the bathroom...
Most of the rest of our time was spent hanging out at the beach, walking around Levanto, and of course eating. The best restaurant was da Rino in Levanto. It was really fancy, but not too expensive. I got Trofie pasta (a local favorite, it is homemade thin spirals about an inch long) with pesto and everyone else got herb filled ravioli with a walnut cream sauce. They brought it in small clear plates that looked more like they were for salads, but they packed them full and there was tons of food. The local specialties are foccacia and pesto, and I tried to get them as much as possible. We got gelato from a man named Pippo about 10 times. I think Lauren developed a small crush.
The week went way too fast, but it's not so bad when you are leaving for Barcelona... We drove through Monaco and Nice, France on our two day drive. There was really awesome scenery along the way. Monaco is rich beyond belief. It's too bad we missed the wedding last week. I did gamble at one of the casinos. I started with 5 euro, got down to about 0.50, and then got it back up to 4.50, not bad overall. The beach in Nice was beautiful and really long, but we only had an hour. Chalk that up as a place I would like to come back to see. More about Barcelona soon.
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