Little feet, an insane amount of steps

Venice to Cinque Terre: Midday departure found us on a train through the Italian countryside. We arrived in Riomaggiore (first of five cities) late Monday evening with the rain coming down and a huge hill to roll our suitcases up. At the top, we found Stefani waiting for us @ our locanda (small hotel). Stairs and some more stairs and a steep stair case brought us to our quaint room. Exhausted from the day's travels and suitcase carrying we walked to the mercato for some meats, cheese, bread and a bottle of the local vino rosso to bring up to the room. Eat & buono notte!

Tuesday was super rainy (yes, still) in Cinque Terre so the hiking trails were closed. We hopped on the local train to Monterosso. We took our teeny piedini about the wet streets and soaked (literally) in the town. Warmth was what we needed and the Enoteca was our answer! Chianti and green olive focaccia. Holy amazing!

After defrosting, we headed back to Riomaggiore for warm showers and the local cuisine - seafood. We felt more walking was necessary before dinner so instead, we took a left out of our hotel. Up, up, up we go to the most lovely view of the Ligurian Sea. And lucky for us it led right to Bar Vini. How did it know?? Our taste buds craved something new... so a glass of vermentino it was! Delightful.

Continuing on, it was time to indulge in Cinque Terre's stuffed mussels, swordfish linguine and seafood risotto...We had heard there was a reputation for this food: rightfully so!

After dinner fun brought us to Bar Centrale for a sipper schiaccetra - dessert wine (another local delight, thanks to Emily for the introduction). All the while, watching an Italian soccer game with the over the top friendly locals. Sleepy time.

Travel Day provided some fun. That means see as much as we can in a short time. Since we couldn't hike CT (due to rain, cuz our movin' feet would do it if allowed), we were determined to see as many of the 5 terre as possible. The morning train brought us to Vernazza. There we explored, enjoyed the view, bought a couple of souvenirs and ate some gelato - ricotta e fichi (fig) for Mack and bacio (chocolate hazelnut) for Belle. We hopped back on the train for Corniglia.

Hop, hop, hopped off that train. Literally a huge jump - hiked up about 400 stairs - enjoyed the view - chugged a limoncino like an Italian and ran down the stairs back to the train we needed to catch to Riomaggiore. Now a bit sweaty, checked out of our hotel and conveniently slipped back onto the train (without tickets, oopsy) to La Spezia where we had about 10 minutes to buy a ticket to Florence. Even the train transfer of 12 minutes in Pisa turned out to be maybe 3 minutes.

Broken backs, broken suitcases and some serious racing to the trains lead to a looooong moment of relaxation once we reached our Florence hotel (followed by a pizza and italian beer). Happy & excited to settle our piedini for 5 whole days, we've already begun to immerse ourselves in Florentine culture & food.

Ciao for now!

Belle & Mack