LOCATION:
Riomaggiore and Monterosso, Italy
While it's true there are two nights remaining on the grand European adventure, this stop felt like the last real time we would get to be tourists. We decided to finish the trip in a perfectly relaxing style, in the Italian riviera region known as Cinque Terre - named for the five small villages that dot the Mediterranean coast. They are stunningly beautiful, but there are no museums, cathedrals, or historical monuments to check out so relaxing and enjoying the views was thankfully the only thing on the agenda. Our trip from Pompeii to Riomaggiore - where we stayed for the night - was another long travel day and tiredness is making my emotions go a little crazy so I may or may not have cried a little when we finally got off the train and saw this... at the train station...
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| Not kidding, this is where the train stopped. |
We walked up the steep hill to our hotel, and then found a wonderful place to grab dinner - ravioli for me, fish for Erin, wine for us both.
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| Views from our hilltop hotel. |
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| Pretty at dusk. |
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| Our hotel had a "jumper." So fun! |
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| These villages are so small - this is the harbor! |
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| The only jelly fish I am not afraid of! |
The next day was equally relaxing, and the sole mission was to check out at least one more of the villages, and then make our way back to Milan for our flight the next morning. We decided on Monterosso, because it seemed larger, and was a good connecting point for Milan-bound trains.
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| Again, stunning sea-meets-cliff views. |
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| Monterosso had larger stretches of beaches. |
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| The villages are tiny - and this is one of the larger ones! |
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| The region was full of beautiful lemons - which make limoncello! |
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| My final Italian lunch - caprese salad. |
We head back to Barcelona tomorrow, and have one final afternoon and evening to say goodbye to Europe before returning to Austin. I can't really process right now how great of a trip it has been - at dinner tonight Erin and I were both in awe reminiscing over the amazing things we have been able to do in the last four weeks together, and ten weeks for me total. I suspect the coming days, weeks and months even will be full of reflection - so stay tuned for final insights, lessons learned, favorite moments, and overall thoughts on Euro-trip 2013!
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