Back in April, we were supposed to go on a weekend trip to Cinque Terre, a National Park that consists of 5 towns along the coast of the Mediterranean. Then the US got involved in Libya's troubles and we had to cancel our trip because Javier couldn't take leave. I was really bummed out at the time as we had been planning the trip for a few months, but now I'm glad we had to put off. We ended up extending the trip by a day and finding a different place to stay, which was definitely a good call. Our original plans were to stay at Camp Darby to save some money, but their facilities aren't great (that's an understatement) and it really wasn't all that close to where we were going to spend most of our time. So, here's a glimps at our mini vacation!
Friday morning we headed out of town after dropping the dogs off at a friends house ...we were told they hardly even noticed they had 2 extra dogs in the house, except for when Casey stole and ate an entire box of biscuits! We drove east for about 3 hours, to a town called Maranello, which is the home to the Ferrari Museum. We were surprised at how small the town itself was. I guess we just assumed that the cars would be manufactured and showcased in a bigger city. At least it was easy to find and the traffic wasn't horrendous.
After Javier was asked several times if he was interested in driving a ferrari (only 60 euro for 10 minutes!) we headed into the museum, where the gift shop is at the beginning AND the end of the tour. We paid for our tickets and spent about 30-45 minutes looking at the cars. Let me rephrase that....Hannah, Megan and I looked at the cars....Javier and Nick drooled over them. It was a nice visit and it even inspired Nick to make his own Ferrari Museum at home, even though he doesn't own any (a matchbox size Ferrari in the gift shop was 32 Euro).
We were all hungry after the tour, so we headed to the park across the street from the museum and had a picnic before heading out of town, continuing west to Castelnuovo Magra, the town we were going to be staying in for the weekend. When we started re-planning this trip, we decided to look into staying at an agriturismo, which is basically a farm that usually has lodging and sometimes a restaurant. In our search, we came across a place called La Casa Nel Sole, Home in the Sun. I was sold just based on the name, but after reading about it, we decided it would be the perfect place for us and it was. It was a house up in the hills that had 2 apartments added on to it, so it ended up being more like a bed and breakfast. The house itself was beautiful as was the view from the driveway. The couple who owned and ran it were very friendly and helpful, despite the language barrier. And to the kids' delight, they had 3 dogs running around for entertainment.
We brought all of our stuff in from the car and spent some time lounging in the yard, watching the kids play with one of the dogs, a very playful golden retriever. The kids were getting thirsty from all their playtime and I wanted to get the camera out of the car to take some pictures, so we sent the kids to the jeep to grab the camera and water bottles. They were out of sight as they went to the driveway and after a few minutes of complete silence, we heard screaming, so Javier and I walked around the house to see what was going on. Megan stopped screaming but was still fussing, Nick was crying and his clothes were dirty, and there was that playful dog, running around with a water bottle in his mouth. Since Hannah was the only one not upset, she told us what happened. They had gotten the stuff out of the jeep and as they were walking back, the dog decided that the water bottle Nick was carrying (which belonged to Megan) would be fun to play with. Nick tried to run away from him, only to get tackled by the dog, who very happily took off with the water bottle, which made Megan scream since it belonged to her. Aside from the fact that 2 out of 3 of the kids were upset, it was actually kind of funny. Nick got a bandaid for a cut on his side and all 3 of them were given a piece of candy. And just like that, 3 happy kids again!
The rest of the evening was uneventful....dinner at a local pizzeria, a game of Monopoly Deal and then time for bed.
Saturday morning we were up and ready to have breakfast in the sun room of the main house. They had a nice spread of pastries, yogurt, eggs, coffee, juice and milk. The kids took one sip of the milk and decided they wouldn't drink it again, but everything else was gobbled down. After we had our fill, the owners gave us some info on getting to Cinque Terre, mainly taking the train from a nearby town into a bigger city, changing trains and then going directly to Cinque Terre. but that didn't work out for us since the next train out wasn't until almost noon and we were ready to head out at 9. We decided to drive to the bigger city, La Spezia, to try to catch the train from there, but that didn't work either. We couldn't find any parking in the vicinity of the train station and the roads were small and crowded, so we got out of there as fast as we could. We did, however, get to see a a drawbridge in the upright position while a sailboat made its through, so that was pretty exciting.
Finally, we drove towards Riomaggiore, the southernmost town of Cinque Terre. The parking garage outside of town was full, but we were fortunate to get a spot on the road not too far from a bus stop where we could hop on a bus (for a small fee of course) and go down the road into town. The view from the bus stop was incredible!
So, first stop, Riomaggiore. What a beautiful town! We walked around, took lots of pictures, and then made our way to the path that would take us to the 2nd town.
There are paths that connect each town, so it's possible to hike the entire distance, but there are also train stations in each town, so you can hop from one town to another without all the walking. We had originally set out to hike the whole thing (we have tough kids who don't whine too much about walking plus we've got a backpack for Megan) but when we got to the actual entrance to the park, we saw a sign that said the path between the 2nd and 3rd towns was closed, so we'd be forced to take the train. The path between Riomaggiore and Manarola (the 2nd town) was pretty much like walking on a sidewalk on the edge of a cliff. Sounds nerve racking, but it wasn't at all. You can see part of the path in the picture above. The path is called Via dell'Amore, Pathway of Love, and has couples names and initials along the side, even engraved into cacti! There are also a ton of padlocks with initials on them connected to some of the fencing along the cliff.
After we made it to Manarola, we were all hungry, so we stopped in a cafe for some lunch....pizza as usual for the kids and some delicious pesto lasagne for the grown-ups. When we were finished, we spent some time walking around the town. Megan especially seemed to like it here....
I just love the way Megan is gazing up at Javier in this picture!! Priceless!
When we were finished enjoying Manarola, we headed to the train station....next stop, Corniglia. After a very short ride (maybe 3 minutes) we got off the train and followed the crowd toward the town. Luckily our kids seem to like climbing stairs because in order to actually get to the town, we had to climb a few.....382 to be exact! Nick and Hannah, competitive as they are, pretty much raced each other up, with a few small breaks, and even Megan climbed all the stairs without asking to be held....impressive! The town was beautiful and the gelato we had in celebration of climbing the stairs was delicious!
As we left Corniglia, we saw quite a few people heading north on a road that led out of town, so we decided to follow, assuming this was the way to the 4th town. Boy were we wrong! We hiked uphill on this road for 45 minutes to an hour and then the road curved inland, so we knew we weren't headed in the right direction. We turned around from our 'hike to nowhere' (some of us feeling a little frustrated!) and headed back down to Corniglia with new plans to catch the train to the 4th town. This meant we had to go back down those 382 steps! We may not have gotten anywhere on that hike, but we did at least get some good pictures!
I think we all would have liked our train ride to Vernazza to last a little longer than just a few minutes after all the walking we did, but it didn't and we were off again. This town actually had a very tiny, sandy beach, which would have been great to sit and relax on for a while if it wasn't nearing the end of the afternoon and getting cooler outside. Instead, we walked around for a bit, grabbed some dinner and headed back to the train station so we could take the train to the 5th and final town (no more hiking adventures for us!).
Our last stop was Monterosso, a town I will always remember as the spot where Megan used a squatty potty for the first time and was successful! You never know when you'll come across one in Italy, so it's one less thing for us to worry about now. Anyway.....Monterosso definitely had a different feel to it than the other towns. It was still nice, just not as quaint or old-fashioned feeling as the other 4. It did have a fairly large beach, although the shoreline was covered with pebbles. We didn't spend too much time walking around....the sun was going down, we were getting cold and we had a to catch a train back to the first town so we could hopefully get to our jeep before it was completely dark (the bus that took us down stopped running at 7:30 and it was already 8, so we knew we'd have to walk back to the jeep).
The night ended with us speedwalking our way through Riomaggiore and then back uphill (Javier guessed for about a mile) to the jeep. I'm not sure how we all walked so fast, I guess the chill in the air and the darkening sky were motivation for us, but we made it up without anyone complaining.....no, wait, Megan, who was carried by Javier the whole way up, started complaining that her legs hurt.....she had no sympathy from any of us. The day was exhausting, but definitely worth all the walking. What a beautiful place!
And finally, day 3, Mother's Day! After opening a couple of gifts from Javier and the kids, we had breakfast, let the kids play outside for a while, then packed up and headed out of town to our final destination, Acquario de Genova, Europe's largest aquarium. It was a short 1 1/2 hour drive north.
The aquarium was a little pricey, but well worth the visit. The kids enjoyed every minute of it and even when we thought we had seen it all (we had been through a gift shop we thought was at the end) there was actually more.....followed by yet another gift shop. We got to see the dolphins do a few tricks and the penguins were fun as always to watch. We didn't get to see too much of Genova since we had a 5 hour drive home after the aquarium, but the parts we did see were beautiful.
We were ready to head home around 4. We had told the kids that they'd probably get to stay home from school on Monday since we'd be getting home late, but Nick just didn't seem to believe us. He must have asked at least 3 times on the drive home if he was going to have to go to school. We were all pretty worn out by the time we picked up the dogs and got home and fortunately everyone slept in Monday morning. We had a great weekend and really feel fortunate for the opportunities we've had traveling around Europe. Only 18 months left here....hopefully we'll have several more adventures before heading back home.
