Italy, Day 7

The breakfast at the hotel was delicious and plentiful!

After breakfast at the hotel, we walked a short distance to the train station.

It was about an hour train ride with our first stop being Riomaggiore.  This is one of five small villages that make up Cinque Terre.  You can see that again there are lots of stairs and it was quite hilly.

The view was spectacular from above.  The village is built right on the edge, as are all the five villages.

Another beautiful cathedral inside.

Time for a cup of coffee!

After a bit of time in Riomaggiore, we took a ferry to Vernazza.

 

 We had an interesting lunch in Vernazza at an outside café.

Two of my friends had this seafood salad which was not what they expected!

I also ordered some type of seafood salad which had muscles, shrimp, calamari and octopus in it.  I just couldn't eat the baby octopus!  Couldn't find a picture of it!

Clothes hanging on the lines in all of these little villages.

How nice it would be to have a little place like this to buy croissants!

We then took the train to Monterossa.

Lovely cathedral.  The stripe was interesting I thought!

The beaches were pretty here but the sand is nothing compared to Orange Beach or Gulf Shores!

I stopped for gelato once again!

It's easy to find gelato stands!

We took the train back to Santa Margherita Liguria, then a short walk to our hotel.

We were on our own for dinner that evening so five of us walked a short distance to a nice restaurant and all of us had spaghetti!

It was one of my favorite days of my trip!

*****
We had a wonderful weekend, including my birthday celebration, and I'll recap that later.

Italy, Day 6

We boarded the bus and said goodbye to Casafrassi!

It sure was nice to be at the same hotel for four nights but it was time to move on!

We headed to Pisa.  The first thing we saw when we got off the bus was a bunch of tacky souvenir tents.  I was surprised to see them.  It was junk.  We were warned to watch our purses as sometimes one of the people selling things will distract you while another robs you.

It was great to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa as it's something I've always heard about and wanted to see.

The Cathedral is in front of the Leaning Tower.

It's so beautiful inside.

 

We also went into the baptistery.

We stopped for a little lunch at this cute outside restaurant.

We couldn't really make out the menu so we ordered bruschetta.  We figured we were pretty safe with that and it was delicious.

Gelato for dessert, of course.

Another cool door.

We boarded the bus and headed to Santa Margherita Liguria.  Our bus driver, who had been with us since he picked us up at the airport, dropped us off at the hotel and we said goodbye to him too.

We passed through Carrara where Carrara marble comes from.

We arrived at our hotel, Hotel Lido Palace, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.  This was the view from the balcony of our room.

Jane and I took a walk down a few little streets and stopped in some shops.

I bought Heather a leather purse in this tiny little shop.  It was mostly hats and just a few purses but I found one that was exactly what she wanted.

Our group dinner was at this restaurant which was just a short walk down the street from our hotel.  It was also overlooking the Mediterranean Sea and had a beautiful view.

We had a choice of fish or beef.  I chose beef.  The first course was melon and prosciutto.  It was delicious.

The pasta with pesto.  It was okay.

I didn't get a picture of the beef but it was very good.  We had a choice of desserts and I chose the chocolate one like the one below.  This guy is Matt and he is our TV weatherman.  He and his wife, who is the news anchor, were our tour hosts.  They were a delightful couple.

We walked back to the hotel.

Our hotel was very nice.  We spent two nights there.