Thursday morning we wake up around 4 am and decide to just go and see where the day takes us. Dave wanted to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa so we headed in that direction. The ride there was beautiful through many more rolling hills and more trees. We get to Pisa and find the Field of Miracles which is where the tower, church and museum are. The Leaning Tower was smaller than I thought but much more beautiful! It is definitely leaning and we had to take the obligatory pictures to pretend we were holding it up.
So off we went and with the GPS light on battery we stopped by the store to get a car charger. After getting some fruit and a car charger, we were sitting in the car looking at the map and deciding where to go next. It was at this moment that I fell in love with my husband all over again. He says to me, where was it that you wanted to go that we didn't have time before? And I said, The Cinque Terre!!! So we mapped it out and discovered that it was only an hour north. So off we went to the Cinque Terre and Cherie was one very happy girl!!
The Cinque Terre is five coastal towns, Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso, all connected by roads, trains, buses and hiking trails. Of course I wanted to go from town to town on the hiking trails. We arrived in Riomaggiore and found a hotel at the top of the town with parking and checked in. We then put our tennis shoes on and set off on the adventure of a lifetime. We had lunch in Riomaggiore and then headed out. The views on the trail were amazing and different from each town. The walk was grueling but incredible. We only made 3 of the five routes. The very last one was over two hours long and we were exhausted as it was 95 degrees outside and muggy but we saw everything we wanted to see and as I exclaimed probably 100 times... I'm so glad we came here!! This made our trip to Italy complete!!
We are headed back to Roma this morning and get to spend another evening with our friends Gavy, Chris and Deccan. I am sooooo looking forward to this!!
Italy has given me some truly amazing memories and pictures in my head that will last a lifetime. Tomorrow morning we head off to Greece, for another adventure of a lifetime.
