Our Trip to Europe

Day 30 – Rome to Cinque Terre

Left Rome fairly early this morning for our bus trip to the Cinque Terre which is a group of 5 Italian coastal towns. It will take us about 6 hours driving so we have planned to stop in another hill town for lunch.

We stopped in Montipulciano, Italy for lunch and hiked up through the main street of town. Karen took us to a winery that she knew about that has Estrucian tunnels all underneath the store and that is where they store their wine casks for aging. We were able to wander all through the tunnels and see the wine casks and the cheese storage area also. When they excavated the tunnels, they found all sorts of torture devices that they have displayed in cases in the tunnels. After we finished going through the tunnels, we were treated to a wine and cheese tasting and just about everyone in the group purchased wine. After the winery tour, we were free to wander the town, get some lunch and then meet back at the bus to continue our trip.

We had a lady in a shop make us a sandwich from proscuitto and porcini cheese which is a goat cheese that is very good. They don’t put mayo or mustard on their sandwiches. If they put anything at all on them, they will spread and bread with butter. We took the sandwiches and drinks to eat on the bus.

We arrived in Levanto, Italy where we had to take a train to Monterosso, Italy. Our hotel is in Monterosso which is the first of the five towns that are linked by trails and trains. We all walked over into the older part of town where Karen and Jennifer, our next tour guide, met us with wine, limoncello and pizza as a snack. We were then free to walk around town and get some dinner.

Because Paul is having trouble with his back we decided to go off on our own to get some dinner. We went to a restaurant that was just around the corner from our hotel. We were able to get a table on the patio area where we could people watch. The beaches here are extremely popular so it is pretty crowded with locals and vacationers. We had seafood and vegetable pasta and it was unusual in that they cooked the shrimp in it whole, head, shell and all. It was delicious but very different.

We went on back to our room for the night and hopefully Paul will be feeling better tomorrow.