Cinque Terre

This place rocks. It's got the natural beauty you would expect from any national park except that's on a cliff side dominated by vineyards. Fresh grapes, amazing wine, and swimming in the perfect water every 30 minutes during our hiking has made this a destination worth returning to. We have been staying in Levanto for the past two nights, and we will head for Roma manana. Our first day in Levanto was only a half day after our drive down from Monaco. (I am still riding high after the thrill of playing 25 euro a hand Black Jack and winning 135). We got settled and hopped the train to Pisa which ended up being a little further away than we had expected. It took an hour and 45 minutes each way and we only got about 2 and half hours in town before we had to catch the last train. The good news is that we definitly only needed two hours for Pisa. Ya it's a miracle that the tower is still standing, but the rest of the city was pretty sedate. Our first day in Cinque Terre we started in Riomaggiore and ended at Corniglia. We swam at several points along the way, on sand, on unmarked boulder strewn streches, and off small cliffs. The one thing they all had in common was that the water was really salty and warm as bath water. Manarola was by far my favorite because August 10th happened to be the day they honor their patron saint. I still havn't figured out which saint this is but I want to get to know him because they honor him by having a city wide water war. At each edge of town there were tiny signs in Italian warning that there was a water war in progress and that everyone should put away cell phones, cameras, etc. and we would have strolled in oblivious if another couple had not warned us. No one made it through dry. The town consists of a small lane big enough for one car and the buildings rise 4 or 5 stories on each side. The towns people showed no mercy. Clothed or in swim wear, camera out or not they threw buckets of water and water ballons at anyone and everyone trying to get from one side to the other. I must say water wars are a lot more fun when you have ammunition. We were sitting ducks. Philly found a balcony to hide under a shot a hilarious video until someone above noticed her and let fly a bucket that soaked her and just missed the camera. We ran head long for the end of town and the harbor and jumped in the water. I love this place.