Italian Coast, picturesque towns

Our last couple of days in Italy were spent on the Italian Coast just north of Sestri Levante and the five famous picturesque towns of Cinque Terre. Famous for among other things their colorfully painted houses, hung on cliffside next to the sea, their wine, their cuteness and their marketing skill I suppose.

This first stop however is Sestri Levante where we visited with friends of Charles and Linda. Had a delightful visit and walk along the shore. It is that pretty even though it was somewhat coolish weather.

Left to right Marcos, Josephine, Linda, Patt, me and Charles, and operating the camera is Gordon.  Marcos, Josephine and Gordon and friends of C & L from Lima and other local days.  Had a great time visiting and enjoying Italian dining.  They also provided guidance on visiting Cinque Terre towns and accessing the train for the short ride there.  

And that is one of the towns, name of which I never got. Patt knows them all. I do not think we got to that one.

We did get to one that required steps, lots of steps up from the train that we took to get to these towns.  Access by sea is when you get to "see" the towns in all their glory, but is difficult to arrange on short uncertain notice so we opted for the train as did about all of our friends.

And that is another - fill that baby up with vacationers and you got yourself some fun.

And a little kid knows how to get around. He had a good idea. Run when you see an opening. An incredibly large number of tourists did not and thought it would be a good idea to bring the family pet along for the day. A lot of our friends do indeed have large pets so the place was full of dogs, not all of whom were glad to see one another.

Here were are at the train station getting ready to funnel into a stairwell. This is just one of the many points during the day in which we got to share space with others.

Here is one of the more popular destinations, Corniglia, the second of the five towns going north to south as we were. We missed two of them (once you have seen 3 of 5 on a crowded day - you've seem 'em all).  

See all those seals on the beach head in the photo below, no actually they are people and for a brief moment we were there too. The place was crowded! Pretty but crowded. Liberation Day comes but once a year and a five day weekend is a good one. Glad we were a part.  Liberations Day as I understand it combines liberations from the Nazi's after WWII with other liberations of Italy from France, (Napoleon?)  Popes, and more).  A sort of collection of days like 6 Flags over Georgia but this is Italy.

Photo repeated on purpose. Just because it was an impressive crowd and this is my best crowd picture.

Our hotel was full but away from the most crowded part of the scene. All the restaurants and such were full and the nightclub nearby was going loud and late.

My Dad would NOT have approved of the pruning job on this Sycamore tree. There were whole groves of sycamores pruned like this one all over Italy, and well as I recall, France too.

And the view from our hotel room deck.

Walking down "West Beach Drive" towards the restaurant we had chosen for dinner.

Our beach was rocky with black sand on a windy cold day.

Charles not stumbling on the breakwater constructed of large chunks of waste marble, yes marble, like what was used to make all those statutes and stuff.