Mediterranean — 2010

Vernazza

Our group split today--Jim, LaRue, David, Terry, Lee and June went to Florence, while Jim, Lynn, Ward, Marylee, Jerry, Gayle, Jay and Barbara went to the Cinque Terre, or “five lands.” Our group of eight went on our own and spent quite a bit of time on trains.  We took a taxi from the ship to the train station in Livorno, where we went by train (about 1 hour 10 minutes) to La Spezia.  There we bought a day pass for the Cinque Terre and got on the smaller trains that tunnel through the rocks to access these small villages.  We went to the farthest town, Monterosso first and spent about a half hour in this pretty place.  We got back on the train and went to the next town, Vernazza, where we had spent three nights in 2008.  We went to Il Pirata where we had so much fun the last time we were here, but they weren’t serving lunch until 2:00 and we didn’t have time to wait.  We had lunch at Trattoria da Sandro, where we had also eaten when we were here with our family.  Jim, Jay and Jerry hiked up the hill to get some great shots of Vernazza and we all had gelato before we continued on our way.  We thought we would get off the train in Manarola and walk the Pathway of Love (Via del’Amore) to Riomaggiore, but the train didn’t stop and we had to backtrack to see this beautiful walking path between the two towns.  We didn’t see much of Riomaggiore, as we had to board the train for La Spezia to catch the Eurostar back to Livorno.  We wish we had had more time to spend in this beautiful part of Italy, but it’s hard to do in a day.  We left the ship around 7:45 am and got back around 5:30 pm, so we had a very full day.  The ship didn’t leave Livorno until around 8:00, and ten of us had dinner in the dining room.  David, Terry, Jim and LaRue were not in the dining room tonight.

© Jay 2020