Welcome to the beautiful Cinque Terre. This area was by far the highlight of our trip. If you have never been we highly recommend you visit. The word Cinque Terre translates into English to mean "5 towns". These 5 towns are located about 70 miles south of Genova on the Italian Riviera. This area is a vacation spot for many Italians and other Europeans and has recently been "discovered" by Americans.

We stayed in the largest of the 5 towns, Monterosso al Mare, at the Albergo Marina which was located about 100 meters from the beach. The hotel was very adequate, although a little noisy in the morning with the store owners preparing for the day. The train takes you right into town and after a short walk we arrived at our hotel. The weather was absolutely perfect so we headed for the beach. While we were in Florence John stepped on a wasp and had an allergic reaction so we figured relaxing on the beach and soaking John's foot was a great choice. Quaint little shops, wine bars, and patisseries line the streets so it's easy to have a glass of wine, or some gelato and relax on the beach.

We found a great little place for lunch and decided to try some of the local specialties, pesto, seafood and wine. We found everything to be plentiful and very reasonably priced (i.e.. a large bowl of homemade pasta and pesto was 10.000lire which is approximately $4.50). We spent the rest of the day walking through the charming streets of Monterosso and watching the local fisherman. We finished off our evening with dinner at a wonderful restaurant called Ciak.

Early in the morning you can hear all the shop owners preparing fresh baked goods and setting up shop for the day. We decided to enjoy the Cinque Terre first by boat. We took a boat trip from Monterosso to Riomaggiore. We spent some time walking around Riomaggiore just watching the locals and enjoying the awesome weather (about 70 and sunny). After our brief trip in Riomaggiore we took the boat to the next town, Manarola. We enjoyed lunch there and decided to spend some time hiking. The hiking trails join the 5 towns together and is a great way to really see the Cinque Terre. We hiked first from Manarola to Corniglia and then to Vernazza. The total hike took about 2 hours. The hike can be very challenging at times when the elevation gets steeper. However the views more than make up for the effort. The hike takes you between the towns and all the vineyards and olive trees and breaks in between to let you see a great view of the ocean or one of the towns. Once we made it to Vernazza we enjoyed some of the local wine and waited for the boat to arrive to take us back to Monterosso. We walked up the hill to the Hotel Porto Roca to have a drink before dinner and watch the sunset from the top the the cliff. Afterwards we had a great dinner at a little cafe in the "heart of town".

The Cinque Terre by far makes the best pesto we have ever had and they produce wonderful olive oil and very refreshing wine. If you are looking for a great place to vacation, look no further.