Ode to: Cinque Terre (Part Deux)

And we continue on with Wanderlust Week with the continuation of my Ode to: Cinque Terre!

My friend Ang and I went on a girls trip there this past summer (along with stops in Pisa and Florence), and we couldn't have been luckier with the weather...

I had the best frutti del mare risotto I've ever had in my life at Gambero Rosso in Vernazza...

Via Roma, (otherwise known as the main street), in Vernazza by sunset. This was late June, and though it was very crowded during the day, once the sun started to go down the day trippers hopped back on their trains and the city became beautifully quiet...

Sunset over the Mediterranean in Vernazza...

The highlight of this trip for me was our final night in Vernazza. Unbeknownest to us the city was having a soccer tournament on the beach for the guys in the town, though it didn't start until almost 10 PM so that everyone who worked in the restaurants could either play or watch. What happens if the ball goes out into the water you ask? Well there was a guy in a row boat (who we later found out was playing in the next game) who would row out to where the ball ended up in the water and throw it back. His services were used quite a bit during the first game. 

It was a Tuesday night, and despite the fact that neither of us spoke Italian, or knew anyone, we totally felt like a bunch of locals...

...these are more happy place moments for me. (Can you tell?) Having a Birra Moretti, on the beach in Vernazza, with one of my best friends,  on a comfortably warm Italian summer night.

Thank you people of Vernazza and all of the Cinque Terre for making our girls trip such a blast and making us feel so at home.  

And again, if you want to help out in rebuilding this beautiful place after the horrendous flash flooding and landslides that happened this October, here's a site specific to helping save vernazza. And here's a site you can go to as well that is specific to Monterosso. If I find out more donation sites for the Cinque Terre I will be sure to post for any of you interested in that sort of thing.

Stay tuned for current pictures of the rebuliding of the Cinque Terre, 3 months post flash flooding and landslides...

A la prochaine friends... 

 

Honey