So we woke up this morning and I immediately went outside to get the wine glasses and there they were, as promised, along with a note recommending the restaurant that the group went to the evening before (which also happens to be owned by Giuliano's family - I think they have a little empire here and the popularity has gone to his head). Our train was delayed by 25 minutes and so we went down to the Focaccaria and bought a Brioche and then at a caffe "por due cappuccini" (two cappuccinos), then to the train station to catch the train. We were originally going to eat breakfast in Monterosso, but the delay necessitated a change.
Monterosso was not as picturesque as Vernazza, and I was thankful we chose to not stay there. We asked about where to buy tickets for the Ferry and were told in the old part of town, by the port. Hello! The whole f@&$in place was built in the 1200's...old part of town...thanks! We got lost. Thankfully a nice Italian lady who spoke not a word of English and who spoke Italian to us the whole while walked us back down to the Ferry. It's amazing how much you can communicate without a knowledge of the language. She told us she was from Milan and visiting her mother, that she didn't like the too many tourists in their campers (which we only saw in Monterosso), that it should be nicer weather this afternoon, that usually there are little cabins on the beach, but that the season is over and they have taken them down, that we needed to go through the tunnel and then will see a smaller tunnel and go down the stairs to the ticket office.
That was all we saw of Monterosso.
We took the 1 hour ferry past Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggere to beyond the last of the 5 Terre to Portevenere a very quaint little town where we, and every other person off the ferry, immediately bought rain jackets for 5€. From there our day got much better. The guests at our room yesterday had said to go here, it was their favourite of the towns.
We wandered around for a few minutes up the main street, Mom bought me an awesome bracelet that she had told me "it's not worth 38€" and then tried to sneaky buy it for me (but the shops are teeny teeny teeny here and so it was impossible, so now I wear my beautiful bracelet!). I just read this to Mom and she said "yeah, now Carrie-Lyn will learn that she should come on vacations!". You really should!
After wandering some back streets we went back to the main area, but not the touristy area, and tried to find a restaurant with "old italian guys" eating in it...we did and went to the back terrace and sat, once again, with an American couple and an Australian couple...so funny though, because they did the same thing we did. I joked and said "the Italians are sitting inside and wondering what we crazy tourists are doing sitting out on the terrace in the rain". The pesto bruschetta was amazing.
We also bought a jar of pesto after trying a sample on bread at a local shop. And enjoyed some on the terrace as a snack later.
After lunch we hopped back on the ferry and were going to stop at Manorola but decided just to come back to Vernazza and spend the afternoon. So we got gelato and some more wine and had a snack and wine on the terrace. And here we sit, two hours and a bottle of wine later not at all ready to go to dinner...maybe we're on Italian time...or maybe we've eaten too much already...I say Italian time, we've only been up and down the stairs twice today, we need our exercise - let's go eat!
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