Day 16 - Rome to Cinque Terre

Breakfast in the hotel at 7:00 and left for the Cinque Terre on the bus at 8:00 AM. It was Sunday so the streets of Rome were quiet and uncrowded. We headed out and I must say I was looking forward to getting back out into the countryside. We rode up the west coast of Italy, seeing lots of beautiful scenery along the way. We stopped for lunch at a scenic ancient town up on top of a hill, called Massa Marittima. It was a really beautiful little town with a lot of sidewalk cafes and little shops, all located in buildings dating back to the 1200’s. We had pizza for lunch again, but this time, Jamie’s pizza and my pizza were made into the shape of hearts! We hadn’t seen that before. I may have to show that picture to the DiLorenzo people and see if they can start doing that! Of course, I had to get a small gelato, also!

After lunch, we headed toward the Cinque Terre. On the way, we stopped at a rest stop, from which we could see (across a field) the Leaning Tower of Pisa. We could see it with the naked eye, but the bus driver had some huge binoculars, so we could all see the tower clearly. Now, we don’t have to go there because we saw it from the rest stop through binoculars. Knocked that out!

The Cinque Terre is a region on the coast of Italy made up of five little towns. Cinque Terre means “five lands.” They are considered to be a remote chunk of the Italian Riviera. The town where we stayed is called Monterosso al Mare. Took the bus to Levanto, the last mile or two consisted of hairpin turns before each of which the bus had to beep the horn to alert oncoming traffic. A couple of times, cars actually had to stop and back up so we could get through. At Levanto, we took a train for about 4 minutes to Monterosso al Mare. We checked into the Hotel Punta Mesco, about two blocks off the beach. The actual body of water is the Ligurian Sea, which eventually becomes the Mediterranean Sea.

We all ate dinner together that night at the Ristorante Belvedere, which overlooked the water and we sat outside. It wasn’t one of the included dinners, but we all decided to eat there together anyway. Jennifer had eaten there and was telling everyone about this big seafood thing they have there where they somehow cook all this stuff in a crock - mussels, shrimp, squid, and octopus. Maybe some other items, too. Not sure. Anyway, this thing serves four people, so eight of the people got two of these. Gary and I did not join in that! People claim the octopus was really good, but not the squid. I couldn’t tell you because I was not brave enough to taste any of that stuff. I had some kind of fish with potatoes and it was ok, not very fabulous. Gary had some pasta and french fries. I know, doesn’t really seem to go, but they were really good fries. After dinner, we headed back to the hotel. It was very pretty walking back with the moon shining on the water inside the pedestrian tunnel that you walk through to get back, was a girl playing a flute. Really neat. We don’t get that kind of thing much in Conowingo.

No gelato after dinner.