Cinque Terre

The most beautiful place!!! Sunny days, cool and quiet nights, lots of hiking and our first real gelato. Needless to say, we ended up staying an extra night here making 3 total in the fourth town, Vernazza. It is definitely the off season because very few tourists and at least 1/2 of the town was closed up, but so much nicer that way!
We got there from Lucca Saturday night and just walking down the main road (the only real road although no cars are allowed) that leads from train station at the top to the water harbor at the bottom we found a place to stay. There are no major hotels in the cities but people rent out individual rooms. Because it is in such an inlet on the coast, sunset was at 5pm making for an early night. Most of the town closes down so we settled on a pesto pizza- Pesto originated here!- and a bottle of wine, sitting outside. This became the standard for every other night and we have successfully eaten pizza at least once a day for a week or so straight :)
Early nights helps to get up early, with the church bells ringing VERY loudly every hour. This was Sunday and the day we were going to hike between all five of the towns, about 9km total. Starting out at about 10:30 finally (sun still isn't up until almost 8 too...) We got to Corniglia little over an hour later, warm and tired. Realizing later that the hike between Monterosso (town 5) and Vernazza (4) is hardest, but Vernazza to Cornigilia (3) is a close second. The views around every corner though are mind blowing and take away the tiredness of hundreds of worn down rocky steps.
We have to wrap it up tonight, we leave Rome tomorrow for Bari and then an overnight ferry to Patras, Greece. We put up some photos on facebook and will finish Cinque Terre/ all the rest soon... I hope.