Day Three...one of my favorites, and Day Four

Ahhhhh! Day Three brings back beautiful memories! It was Scott's 50th birthday and he couldn't have picked a more picturesque place to celebrate it. Rob was able to take the day off from most of his responsibilities as well, and the 5 of us had a great time! We started the day in La Spezia (on the Italian Mediterranean). Papa, Scott and I headed out by a ferrie type boat and Rob and Becky took the train. From La Spezia we headed past one of the most colorful and beautiful sights I have ever seen--the village of Porto Venere, built some time around 1160 AD. I took so many pictures...I just couldn't seem to get enough of it. The weather was perfect for the journey--a nice mix of sunshine and perfect temperatures. Not too cold, not too hot. Truly a perfect day for our outing. As we passed by Porto Venere we headed along the coast to the place known as Cinque Terre (or Five Lands). What beauty. I found this brief description of the area on-line:

WHAT IS THE CINQUE TERRE?

Eighteen kilometers of sheer rocky coastline in northern Italy, terraced hills and vineyards sloping steeply down to the sea. Five little villages are built into the rocks between the beach and the hills. You can hike, swim, drink red wine (which we didn't do, by the way, and watch blazing Mediterranean sunsets away from the tourist throngs in the Italian cities and the French Riviera. Centuries old footpaths and mule tracks wind about 500 to 1,000 feet above the sea, leading through olive groves and vineyards, orchards and chestnut woods.
Each village has its own character, they are a few minutes apart by train.
There are almost no cars as the villages are not easily accessible by road, but the main railway between Rome and Paris runs along the coast, mainly in tunnels.

Once off the boat we met up with Rob and Becky and strolled around one of the villages and had a little lunch and then got on the train and traveled to a few of the other villages. Each had its own unique personality. It was a very relaxing and low-key sort of afternoon, so different than the other days we had experienced so far. What a treat! I loved the varied colors of stucco they used in their construction. I wish that more of them would be used in the stucco construction here in New Mexico. We enjoyed a little gelato in the last town--boy do the Italians know how to make ice cream! :) We eventually headed back to the train and made our way back to La Spezia and then drove back to the hotel we were staying at outside of Florence.

The next morning Rob, Becky and Papa headed back to Rome after leaving us in Florence. We found a hotel and deposited our stuff and took off to enjoy one more day in Firenze...our goal was to get into the famous Uffizi art gallery. A lot of others had the same goal and we ended up waiting in line for 4 1/2 hours to get in. It was a beautiful collection of art work. We were disappointed to find that three of their collections were not available that day. But, we thoroughly enjoyed what we did get to see. But, it did not leave us with enough time to get over to the museum that housed Michaelangelo's David statue--our main disappointment of the trip. We rested for a bit that evening before heading off to a delightful and yummy dinner. A good night's sleep and we were up and ready to head off on our train adventure to Switzerland. But, we'll cover that in the next installment. In the meantime, enjoy the photos. The first three are of Porte Venere (from the boat) and the last three are of various scenes from Cinque Terre. Tune in later for scenes from Switzerland.