Riomaggiore

ENTRY: Waking up this morning & opening the shutters to look down over the village in Riomaggiore was magic. I went down to the local market & bought some fresh blueberries to have with my breakfast :) Off to a good start already… ;) Esther, Jess, & I went for a wander in the morning to get ourselves acquainted with the area. We put a load of washing on at the Laundromat, found a place with wifi connection, & bought our tickets to walk along the Cinque Terre trail. Because it's actually a national park & is heritage listed, you need to pay a fee for every day that you walk along the track in order for the area to be maintained because so many people come through here every year. We picked up our washing & hung it along the washing line around our balcony in true Italian nonna kinda style! Hehe

We decided to take it easy for the first day & save the full trek for the second day so we just walked the first part of the trail from Riomaggiore to Monterosso. It's called via dell'amore - Lover's Lane :) At the start of the path there's two entwined hearts, which are covered in locks, just like the ones I saw on the bridge in Paris. Turns out that's a thing that happens all over Europe in a number of special spots…all the way along this part of the path there are love locks with couples' names on them & declarations of love written across the rocks. It's also a very flat & easygoing pathway so it's a nice, gentle way to ease into the walk! And it is so SO beautiful! I know nothing I say is really going to do it justice, & I don't think the photos will either so just do yourself a favour & go there!

We spent a few hours having a look around Monterosso, drinking coffee down by the waterfront & eating pizza for lunch - not just any pizza, amazing, freshly cooked, fluffy white dough pizza with fresh pesto! More om nom nom :) Poking through shops looking at beautiful ceramics & various knickknacks. You can pretty much get a feel for the whole town just by walking around it for a couple of hours - as I mentioned in yesterday's blog, they're pretty teeny tiny!

In the afternoon we walked back along Lover's Lane to Riomaggiore & took our books and laptops down to a little café by the water where people launch their fishing boats out of to bask in the sun - well, Esther & jess basked in the sun, I basked in the shade of the umbrella with occasional toe sun basking :P I had some lemon sorbet & had a chat to Mum, Dad, & Nigel on skype (it's one of the only places in the town where you can get free wifi so we figured why pay for it at the visitor's centre when you can pay for lemon sorbet & get the wifi for free!!). While we were the a poor older man took a tumble down the stairs right next to where we were standing & injured his hand. They called the paramedics, who arrived about 20 minutes later…I guess that's the tricky thing about living in a village like that where nothing's very accessible & you can't get an ambulance through anywhere except the main street! He seemed to be OK although we all took particular care on the very steep stairs after that, sticking close to the handrail…

We ate some gelato further up the cliffs, watching guys jumping off the rocks from across the way. Don't worry Mum, I wasn't even tempted to try it :P Then we went shopping for the evening's home made Italian feast. We picked up fresh mozzarella, parmesan, pesto, & prosciutto from the little local supermarket, along with marinated olives, artichokes, capsicum + some fresh veges for a salad. We made ourselves up a pizza…which then became a calzone after we discovered the oven didn't actually work & we had to cook it on a stove top a little like an omlette/pancake! We also made some simple pesto pasta & a fresh salad, & we ate outside on the balcony with a glass of Cinque Terre wine & some candles - bellisimo! :) Fresh strawberries & grapes for desert as we watched the dusk roll over the village & then an early night to bed, ready to get up & give our legs & butts a serious work out tomorrow!!