Cinque Terra, Italy

we dropped into the Cinque Terra area without a reservation or much info about where to stay. As we were on the train from Venice to this area we read that the town we were planning on staying in books up really quickly so we were prepared to have to go to another town if needed. That was the case, the first town we would have stayed in was called Monteroso, the town we ended up staying in was Riomaggiore. It ended up being the fifth and last of the towns in the Cinque Terra. The pictures are from the day we went on a hike through the mountains from the first town till the last. It is a fairly strenuous hike up and down hand made paths through absolutly georgeous picturistic mountains and valleys and the towns are all build on the sides of mountains.They almost seem to hang over the water at times. The mountains have been terraced in many places to make it possible to grow grapes, orchards and gardens. We stopped in each town for an icecream break and to fill up our water bottles. We had a back pack with 4 water bottles and we needed to fill up as often as we could. We were very proud of Miranda for being able to do the hike and not once did she complain about it being to hard. She is in amazing shape this year and has always been able to keep up and even run ahead.