Unsupervised in Italy

Hopped on the train Saturday morning bound for Cinque Terre. A couple of hours and transfers later, we jumped off at Monterossa, northernmost of the "five lands". Wandered around the city for a while, grabbed a focaccia sandwich and granita at one of the little shops and enjoyed the view of the sea over lunch. Headed down to the main part of town and peeled off my shoes and pants legs and waded in the Mediterranean for a bit. Some window shopping for a little bit, and eventually made our way back to the train and went on to the middle little town by the sea, Corniglia.

Corniglia is at the top of a long flight of nearly 400 steps, so it's a bit of a challenge to get to. We made the climb successfully, and had a nice fresh lemonade made of the local fresh squeezed fruit, found some more phenomenal views, and after a short time, made our way down the hill to the train once more, and took another hop south.

Next stop was Riomaggore, the southernmost village. Wandered all over the place here, and discovered what I like to call "Hard Beach", where people sunned themselves on a shore of rather large round rocks, watched cliff divers splash into the sea, found a cute little hidden piazza, and sampled the local delicacy, anchovies - wrapped around olives on a skewer, and deep-fried in a paper cup with a squeeze of lemon - eaten whole - crunchy!

The whole area was a bit of a tourist zoo, and the trains grew steadily more crowded so eventually we exercised our discretion and got out of town a bit earlier than we'd originally planned, not wanting to miss our conections back to Lucca. Made it back to the city around half past eight, had some crostini and lasagna al ragu, delicate and delicious, at a table on the street at Osteria Dos Nenos, followed by a custard-like cheesecake. Then we strolled out to the front gates and met Joe and Mindy for a ride back to our hotel. They had just finished dinner with some of their old friends from Pisa, so the timing was perfect.

Packed out bags in preparation for the journey to Rome, and went to bed fairly early.