Italy

The Cinque Terre National Park:

This is where we have been the past few days. On our first day we purchased a Cinque Terre pass which got us unlimited train travel between Levanto & La Spezia and access to the park and all the trails. In the morning we said goodbye to our little bed and breakfast in Levanto...

 ... and headed straight for the last town which is Riomaggiore. Since we had no where to stay, we hiked with our backpacks from Riomaggiore to Corniglia. It started out cloudy and mild but by the end of it we were soaked in sweat. Here we are, only mildly sweaty, in front of the picturesque Riomaggiore:

We ended up finding a room above this restaurant in Cornigllia to spend our 3 nights in:

Also, a tasty tidbit, to get to this particular town you have to walk up 382 stairs from the train station. Our host was a nice guy who gave us a cheap room, free limoncello and home cooking compliments of his mom. The town itself was very quiet and it seemed like everything shut down at 8pm. It was a real taste of what it's like living in small town Italy. Here's what Jason would drive if we did live in small town Italy:

 The second day we hiked from Cornigllia to Vernazza which took about an hour and a half. The sun was out in full force and Jason got his classic "red neck" sunburn.

 We stopped for 16 euro sunscreen, gelato and foccacia pizza which is a specialty of the region.

Due to intense sweat saturation of our clothing, we took a train to Monterosso and sat on the beach. Jason was on his 6th scoop of gelato for the day at this point I think. He worked it off by climbing this rock:

The next day we spent wandering around in La Spezia. Nothing major to report here but it was a nice break from hiking mountainous trails.

We are in Pisa now and listening to a band playing in the Piazza right outside our hostel. Heading off to Rome in the morning on our very last train ride!

Ciao