ahh I see you’re back, where were we…

After Zurich we missioned down to the Cinque Terre, the five fishing villages in La Spetzia we stayed at a Camping Village called Acquadolce and aside from, ultra rock hard ground, the noisy Italians next door smashing plates over their heads, and the early bird Dutch vacuming their tent at 5am it was perfect. Now seriously what type of person vacumes at 5am, what kind of person vacumes a tent full stop. Even if they are Dutch!!

We spent a few days here exploring the little fishing villages and the main town Levento. The Pizza was good…. the beaches in Levento were mostly private, the public beaches were busy and the water seemed dirty but bearable. Of course when we told our friend Sylvia (our friend from Mantova) that we went there she asked about the jellyfish – of course both Amber and I had been stung and we had no idea previously that the area is notorious for the little buggers. Luckily they are small and not very vicious – just more uncomfortable then ultra painful. Much to our pleasure (at least mine and Dylan’s) Amber invented a new Italain word after dinner when asking for her change, “Changio”… ahh Amber…. so Italian.

One night we were walking down a little street and looked up into somebodies house and through the windows we looked up at an old Frescoed cealing… in somebodies house!! This place had soul.

The five villages were of course visually stunning, the villages are, from west to east (i.e., from Genoa towards La Spezia) Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, Riomaggiore. The most notable memory for me is the peers in Vernazza that simply drop off into the sea where the crazy local teenagers hung around and jumped into the deep blue, many of them had big gashing wounds and scars – but that didn’t seem to phase them at all. The other next vivid memory was the steps up to Corniglia, and that because of our terrible timing and sun damaged minds we walked up twice!!! even after promising ourselves that we’d never ever to anything like that in the blistering sun ever again.

Of course most spectacular of all was the buildings perched into the cliffs, stunning – one earthquake (or volcano which is more likely in their case) though and its all over of course. One day there will be no more jumping into the sea and no more buildings hanging vicariously on for dear life above the hostile Mediterranean sea.

We woke up on the third morning and prepared for our drive to Venice, we quickly packed our tents and hit the road.