Some of you may or may not have picked up on the fact that I was a little MIA last week….I can now brag that while you were reading about my love for Italian Dining Scenes here and my guest post about Italian Style over at Natural History last week, I was sitting and enjoying the real deal. Floating in the Ligurian Sea, soaking up the Tuscan sun, sipping Chianti in the evenings, eating the best damn pesto ever and gawking at the amazing architecture. This was one of the reasons I am taking a blogcation (read more about that there).
Monterosso, Cinque Terre, Italy.
The trip was everything I could of ever hoped for and more. We adored Tuscany and Cinque Terre. We went with little or no expectations and found that the holiday just lent to organizing itself day to day. For the manic schedulers out there, this will kill you, we only booked our 1st night. Anyways, I definitely want to share some of our favourite places, things and moments from our trip but for the sake of my sanity, am going to split it into 2 posts….
Highlights part 1:
A sea of terracotta tiles
Renting bicycles in Lucca and biking around the medieval fortress walls (I must have really have liked it to share a from the behind picture!)
Paninis on the go
Riomaggiore, the 1st village in the Cinque Terre region where we laid our heads for 4 relaxing nights
Entwined lovers on the walk from Riomaggiore to Manarola (the flattest, simplest portion of the hiking trails)
Yes it was cloudy one day so we hiked the 2 most difficult Cinque Terre trails – Monterosso to Vernazza and Vernazza to Corniglia… In my Havaiana flip flops. But before that death defying feat, we explored Monterosso more…..
And then we ventured up into the mountain like little mountain goats
It was grueling…and mostly uphill…But amazing and beautiful. Well worth the pain!
Vernazza was gorgeous.
Next we ventured to Corniglia but by then we were exhausted so we didn’t snap many pictures
Here are some other random pictures from our awesome 4 days in Cinque Terre
Take a boat cruise of the villages – you get to see them from a totally different perspective just ignore the 100 other people on the boat with you
Monterosso beach – where we set up shop for a day! Was amazing to soak up the sun after being in Ireland for so long.
So that is part 1…. Part 2 – Florence, Sienna, and San Gimignano!
