Author: marionvermazen

When we were planning our trip Allison highly recommended that we visit Cinque Terre. So that’s where our travels took us today. It is stunningly beautiful. Cinque Terre is a string of five villages on the cliffs of the Mediterranean. You can hike between them or take a train that connects the town via tunnels through the cliffs. Here you can see our train leaving the station. We are staying in Manarola. 

We are staying here three nights. The hotel Duke booked for us is awesome. This is the view from our room out onto our terrace. 

The lady at the tourist information office explains that the hike from Manarola to the town south of here is only about a kilometer but it is all steps up and then steps down. We hiked and she was right. We went up up up sometimes climbing on the rocks. The views were stupendous. 

For dinner we ate at a little ten table seafood restaurant that we had to climb up to and then walk along a pedestrian path to get to. We shared home made pasta, and crab. 

This morning we took the train to Ventimiglia on the Italian border. There we bought a ticket to Genoa farther down the coast. 

Once we got to Genoa we walked to the city center and saw the recreation of the house where Columbus was born. 

Since we are in Italy we had Pizza for dinner. It was great!

Monte Carlo is the second smallest country in the world after The Vatican. Although it’s size is only about two square kilometers there is a lot to do here. We took the hop on hop off bus tour. 

We saw the palace. 

And then went to the car museum. There were so many beautiful cars. 

Finally we went to the aquarium. There many many strange and beautiful fish. 

I had post cards to mail but they had French straps on them so we walked in to France so I could mail them before we head into Italy tomorrow. 

We took the train today along the Mediterranean to Monte Carlo. It is in a beautiful setting. 

Monte Carlo is clearly a high income locale. We walked around a bit and checked out one of the casinos. The card gods were on our side and we won €150. 

The main Montre Carlo Casino charges €10 to get in and then the minimum bet is €25 so we just checked out the lobby. 

There are lots of high end shops here and lots of fancy cars. 

For dinner we started with octopus salad. 

Then for the main course fish and pasta. 

On the walk back to the hotel we saw two Maseratis. I suspect we were on the Grand Prix route because they seemed to be enjoying shifting down into the turn. We had desert and a nightcap in the hotel bar before heading back to our room. 

It was a beautiful day in Cannes today. La Croisette is the walk along the water front.  Duke said that now that he is 65 he can sit and watch the world go by. We are talking about Duke so I don’t think so!!!

We walked along the promenade watching the people, the fancy shops and the big yachts. 

 We had a fantastic dinner at a restaurant called Mome. The service was great, the atmosphere nice and the food delicious. 

Afterwards we checked out the film festival hall and the casino.