We found a quaint breakfast spot and through a little language confusion ended up with some of what we ordered and some of what we didn’t! Beautiful little place off the main road.
We took the train (hot tip, buy your tickets online, the queue in Riomaggoire was crazy with only one ticket machine) to Monterosso which is the first town of the five that make up Cinque Terre.
We wandered around and decided to take out a kayak for an hour. Best thing we did! The township looks stunning from out on the water and with the sun shining down on us and the water (with zero waves) lapping around it was incredibly relaxing. So relaxing that we lost track of time and was out there an extra 40mins! Luckily the man at the hire place was absolutely lovely and didn’t even charge us the late fees (which run in ten min increments.) He did tell us however, there was a big party on that night in Monterosso (Maggoire is thumbs down) and we could stay at his place and we could sleep in a triangle…..
I had a chat with the man, he has lived in Monterosso his whole life. He doesn’t seem to leave… He couldn’t even recommend a restaurant in the next township. Maybe he was just playing with a gullible tourist.
We walked into the township from the beach and settled on a restaurant after walking by and seeing some delicious looking pasta. We over ordered, again. Sheldon chose a pizza and I ordered a pasta with calamari, a swordfish skewer (which was the stand out), an apperol spritz (definitely not to my palate) and of course fresh breads with balsamic and oil. We were incredibly full.
We tried to walk it off and hoped on the train to Vernazza. While Vernazza is still stunning and looks incredible from the train, it wasn’t as great as the other two townships we had visited. We wandered the shops and Sheldon bought 12yr old balsamic vinegar and I bought some truffle oil. Delicious.
There were people jumping from cliff faces so we stopped and watched them for quite some time.
Exhausted, we trained home and I promptly fell asleep for nearly 2 hours. I guess that’s the jet lag keeping up.
Awake again, we found a restaurant with wifi, ordered wine and I did some consulting work for Queensland Olympic Committee I had booked in. Perfect. And yes, I’m finish it hard to shut off from work. I love my job and what I do and the people I do it with, that goes for Wiley and my consulting gigs!
Food was average (Giammi’d Caffe), we paid the bill and walked up the hill
To another pasta restaurant. We shared the calamari and ‘green salad’ (read rocket with zilch) and a trio of pastas.
Home to bed, surprisingly it was midnight!
