Cinque Terre

Next stop, Cinque Terre. Getting there was no easy task in the Eurovan. Imagine if you will Rob trying to maneuver a big white fatty van, in the dark, up a steep mountain with a million switchbacks and tiny guardrails keeping you from falling off an enormous cliff to certain death. Not to mention the fact that the road was extremely narrow...Rob missed hitting cars and the side of the cliff by mere inches. Then once we started going downhill the brakes started smoking..."Is that steam? Ugh! Not with that smell!" It was all worth it once we made it to dinner. The restaurant was at the highest point on the bluff and we savor the fresh seafood until we were stuffed. Next we walked out onto the pier that you can see below and watched the ocean on the rocks. In the morning we woke to the clock tower bell and started our day with pastries and then a hike. This is the view from our hike we took that looked out over Vernazza, where we stayed. We didn't sleep so well so I was in a really random mood. I had fun being an obnoxious American and saying "Giorno! Giorno!" to all the passing hikers. Shawn also enjoyed being the annoying American tourist and kept saying "This hike ROCKS!" Rob was especially irritable and was fun to tease. Shawn thoroughly enjoyed me bugging Rob and said he would remember it whenever he needed to go to his "Happy Place."

As you can see Rob was able to blow us both off and go to his own Happy Place. And really it was hard not to be happy in a boat cruising along the picturesque Cinque Terre "Five Lands".

Me, Rob, Shawn, Chari, Linda, David, Jeff and Shannon.

This Vernazza trip saved me like a life preserver...Cheese!