From hiking to villas

I'm squishing my days together now. It's a real sacrifice to take a break from eating and drinking in order to blog about our adventures. A real hardship.

Today was our last full day in Cinque Terra, and we stuck to some very typical pursuits:
Breakfast: cappucci (that's my new cool way of saying cappuccino, picked up from our breakfast server), and a pastry that was sent right from heaven: it involved flaky pastry, marscapone, a healthy dollop of Nutella, and little heavenly flakes of chocolate sprinkled on top. Our server was our new best friend, regaling us with tales of his restaurant, his twin brother with whom he operated his restaurant, and bestowing us with gifts of free fruit slushies. (once I figured out what he was saying, I sample a fruit slushie, and it was exquisite and cold and refreshing - easy on the food references, it's only breakfast, Marn!)

Hiking: we did the last of the 5 treks, from Vernazza to Monterosso. Pappy didn't let Granny accompany us on this hike today, because her knees and hips are breaking down - and because this trail was loaded with stairs. So the three of us took on the trail alone. Yep. It was breathtaking. Yep, there were Italians doing it in flip flops. (I pity you suckers on the hard bits) And yep, the town of Monterosso was lovely. This is the one of the five towns with the lovliest beaches, so we had lunch (I envied Paul his bruschetta with olives and tomatoes and anchovies) and then went off to the beach. We chose to save our 20 Euros and go on the public beach, although I was slightly envious of the private beach with lovely chairs and umbrellas. Three topless women, many speedos, no suncreen.

Siesta and food: Returned "home" by ferry, had a little siesta (what a civilized custom), then celebrated our last night in Vernazza with a very animated dinner at Il Pirate with the Sicilian twin brothers. Lots of food and very tasty. Our man Mossimo claimed that he had to serve amazing food becase a) his restaurant had no view and b) he didn't look like George Clooney. He was right. And the food was memorable.

And it is now two days later, we are settled in our Villa in Allebio and have met up with the whole gang. I'm going to like it here.