Rick Steves recommends that you start your tour with a couple days in Europe to recover from jet-lag. Instead of going directly to Rome, we decided to start in Cinque Terre. We flew from Seattle to Amsterdam. And from Amsterdam to Pisa. From Pisa we caught the PisaMover to Pisa Centrale Train Station and on to La Spezia where we changed trains and continued to Monterosso al Mare. By the time we reached Monterosso and found our guest house, most of us had been awake for approximately 24 hours. We lost one Kindle e-reader in Amsterdam, but all four of us, and all our carry-ons and daypacks made it to Italy. After arrival in Monterosso, we found our guest house office, which was locked. The owner saw us looking around and came to let us in.
We found some dinner; pizza and focaccia and settled into our room overlooking the Ligurian Sea and slept until morning. I used Rick Steve's Best of Europe Guide to plan our stay at Vivani Raffaella Affittacamere, our hike to Vernazza, and the sights to see in Cinque Terre. Tip: Try the local specialties. Cinque Terre is known for fresh sardines and for pesto. We chose Cantina di Miky for these specialties on our second evening. |
"I would like to travel the world with you twice. Once to see the world. Twice, to see the way you see the world." Anonymous
"It's a magical world, Hobbes, ol'buddy... Let's go exploring!" - Bill Watterson, It's a Magical World