Vernazza, Italy

Why is Vernazza my favorite village of the Cinque Terre?  It is close to the sea, has great rocks to lie on, is still a small, colorful, Italian village, and has every type of typical Italian food you could ever want.  We discovered a place that sells these little gems, that remind me of something from my childhood that I can't place a finger on.  The pastry was crunchy, buttery, and crumbled to bite and the chocolate on the inside was creamy and rich.  

 Oh yea, and the view isn't so bad.  

We entered Vernazza at the very end of our first day rather tired ready to rock through the last two villages.  Well, no!  We took so many photos here and decided to walk along the edge of the rocks and have a quick nap.  It was fabulous.  It was warm but not hot, and the water felt just right to sunbathing toes.  The water was so clear and blue you could see straight to the bottom, not to mention a great little swimming hole.  We decided that if we had any time left the next day we would most definitely be back here.  

We took the train back to Levanto for yet another beautiful sunset and a little exploring of the town.   While exploring I found a small shop that sold various Italian aperitif type items so I bought some olives and fresh mozzarella.  I had stashed some limoncello and plastic cups in my bag so we popped it open on the beach.  HELLO. YUM.  Best olives I've ever had in my life.  AND the freshest mozzarella.  I could have seriously just had this for dinner...but, Ashleigh doesn't like olives too much and can't have too many soft cheeses, sooooo.......

We stopped to eat dinner at a small café where we could go in with our shorts and t-shirts.  I ordered a pizza, and wasn't sure what the "a" word was on the menu, Ashleigh either, and instead of asking I just went with it.  Turns out, anchovies it was.  I don't hate anchovies, but I can't say I've ever given them a chance.  So, I decided to give them a go.  It's not that they were terrible, they were just SO salty.  Capers AND anchovies?  It was like a salt lick on my plate.  

The next morning we woke up early for our breakfast of fresh fruit, focaccia, salami, and soft boiled eggs.  We headed out to Monterosso al Mare, the last of the 5 villages.  There is new town Monterosso....

And old town Monterosso...

Besides the focacceria in the new town, we preferred the old town.  Monterosso seemed very "resort" like and more for those who want to come and enjoy the beach.  There were very nice hotels and restaurants and the entire span of the city was on the sandy beaches.  We climbed to the point between the two "towns" and decided to explore the old town a bit more.  There was a market going on and I saw these amazing creatures.  Dried fish, as well as several kinds of salted fish.  

We wound ourselves through the tiny pathways they called streets and found ourselves on the other side to the trail back to Vernazza.  The trail was closed unfortunately, but we walked as much of it as we could before hitting the train to Vernazza for the rest of the day.  Since we had explored Vernazza the previous day, we went straight to the sea to claim a good rock to lie on.  We settled on one a little far from the water, but I like to be just close to the water so we moved once a good one became free.  I got bored, and even though the water was absolutely FREEZING I creeped in up to my waist.  Ashleigh was not so keen on the idea and rested on our rock.  I keep thinking to myself, okay, here I am in the Mediterranean Sea and I am NOT going to swim??? Pleasseeee.... I swim any chance I get and this will be no different!  So after a delicious lunch of rosemary focaccia, olives, and mozzarella....

I decided to just go for it.  No one else was in the water and I looked like a complete freak but I just didn't care.  I wandered out to a huge rock in the middle, but could still touch the bottom most of the way.  (Ashleigh photo documented the entire process for your enjoyment.)

On the way back I just decided to go for it.  I swam out a little further into the clear blue water being careful not to step on any sea urchins and just did it.  

Turns out, it wasn't so bad once you were swimming around and I suppose your whole body is numb.  And 3 others jumped in about the same time I did so I didn't look like the only crazy swimmer!

After a wonderful two hours lying in the sun and being Italian, we unfortunately had to pack it up and get on the train.  I am so glad we had that time just to sit and enjoy the beauty of everything but we were ready to see Kerry for the weekend!  I grabbed a Nutella gelato on the way out of Vernazza and it was the best yet!  Most of the Nutella gelato I have had was just vanilla or something mixed with Nutella.  This one was seriously as if they just scooped out Nutella and put it on a cone....just look at it!  Its glistening!  

Our hotel let us change clothes downstairs and we grabbed our suitcases and were off to yet another great Italian city, Genoa/Genova/Gênes depending on which country you come from (which by the way, is 100% confusing).  We didn't get there until 6 or so and we stepped out into quite a big city.  I don't know if we just weren't expecting a huge bustling city, or that we had just come from this quiet, quaint village but it was a shocker!  We checked into our B&B and the hostess was so disappointed we were only staying one night.  I hated to admit that the only reason we were staying at her B&B was because it was the closest to the train station for under 100 euros. ha!  She showed us a great map and so we set off to just sort of explore on our own.  We wandered down the main streets seeing just about everything that was on the points of interest map without even realizing it!  

It was a very pretty, Italian metropolis but nothing I would hate to miss on my next trip to Italy.  The Easter pastries on the other hand, were absolutely the cutest things I've ever seen! 

The last photo we found quite interesting.  It is apparently Easter bread, and you make these pastries/bread with the raw eggs and the eggs cook at the same time the bread cooks!  How cool is that?  This may be very common back home but I have never seen it before!  We were amazed.  It was getting dark and we had a early train to Cannes the next morning so we just had dinner, my last glass of Italian wine, and went to bed.  The next morning breakfast was waiting for us right on time.  We were the only ones up so early, but it was nice to eat just the two of us.  We were presented with this hilarious buffet that she had put together, full of salami, cheeses, some sort of chocolate bread, berry tart, toast, and biscotti.  It definitely wasn't our breakfast in the Cinque Terre, but it had to do!  What I loved most about our breakfast?  The table.  

It was very lovely, and each place had a chocolate egg for Easter.  It did however look like it came out of Fran Drescher's mom's house in the sitcom "The Nanny."  And yes, it was covered in plastic.  

I am so behind on blogging but I feel as if too much information in one post is just overwhelming, so I will keep being behind it my posts until I get everything caught up!!! I have had a great past couple of days with Marie-Césare to tell you about!