Cinque Terre

I am jealous of my June self for being in the coolest place to ever exist. And I mean ever. We visited the Cinque Terre (cheen-qway tehray) in Italy and I have to say I liked it even more than Venice. This is saying a lot, since I've wanted to see Venice since I was 2. The Cinque Terre is a string of 5 towns right along the coast line of the Italian Riviera. It has everything you could ever want in a place: beaches, hiking, beauty, charm, the best gelatto ever tasted (our favorite was berries and cream), and just plain uniqueness. Above and below this paragraph shows the same town--Vernazza--from different sides. You can see how the houses are right on top of eachother and almost carved into the rocky cliffs.

The Italians who originally moved here had to maximize their space as well as provide a living for themselves so you can see in some of the pictures the layers of vineyards they made almost in the form of stairs. The picture above is taken from a path that goes in between one such vineyard.
Below is a street in Vernazza that I thought was pretty classic of Italy, although many of their streets are what we might call alleys because they're so narrow two people can barely walk side by side.

I felt like I should add a picture in that just had Matthias in it to be fair...it's just that he wasn't in very many of the cool ones. I think I was being a camera hog because everywhere we went here I was saying, "Oooh--Matthias will you take my picture here, too? It's so pretty!"
The next four pictures show different shots of our favorite town: Manarola. This just so happens to also be the home of the best gelatto to ever be made. From the pictures you wouldn't think this would top the others but when you're there, it offers the best views and just grew on us.

I wrote earlier that the Cinque Terre offers hiking...this picture shows just one of many views you might have during the hike. The town closest to us in the photo below (Corniglia) is the only one that doesn't have access to the water from the town.
We chose a very hot day to hike, as shown by the sweaty husband:

This is the northern most town called Monterosso and is the most touristy of the five because of its sandy beach. Doesn't that big rock behind me in the picture remind you of the Little Mermaid? Anyone? I think I was trying to hide my pudgy stomach with that back pack but I want to take that decision back. Focus on the view.
Just outside Monterosso there were a couple of "pill boxes" that were used during WWII by the Nazis. Yep, they're the originals. Matthias tried to go into this one but the floor was covered in broken beer bottles and all sorts of yuck so we settled for an outside pose. You can kind of see the ocean on the right of the pill box, showing how close it is to the shore. It kind of makes me worry about big waves...what if someone were inside there during a storm? There's no way to keep the water out. It's kind of stressing me out.

Overall, this place was tied with seeing Wimbledon as far as pure enjoyment goes. It's one of the few places that I would actually spend the money to go back to because once was just not enough. You absolutely HAVE to put this place in your plans if you're ever making plans to see Italy...or even any surrounding countries. Or any place in Europe. If you're not convinced, here's one more picture:Does this one look familiar? It was taken with our very own camera but if you google Cinque Terre you'll find that many of ours might look familiar with the professional ones. You have to go see it for yourself!