Adventures of Niffer and Mincent: Days 8 and 9

The night train to Italy... well let's just say that
it was a character building experience and move on to
the better stuff...

We did meet a beautiful person from Masadonia
(afterwards, Jennifer did have to ask Michael where
that was... lol). She was traveling alone and was a
little scared. She could speak English amazingly
well, especially considering she's never visited an
English-speaking country yet. On top of that, she had
a great accent. Of course. We got her address, so
maybe we will keep in touch, and maybe, just maybe...
we have a friend to visit in Masadonia the next time
we're in the neighborhood.

In our travel book, Rick Steves says that Cinque Terre
kills your traveling momentum. Coming in from a night
train where neither of us slept well, sitting in a
cafe and sipping a beer, nibbling on a pesto pizza we
could feel the knots in our backs loosening up
emensely. There are a ton of tame cats living around
here. That must be because cats love to lay in the
sun, and that is thr forte of the Cinque Terre. This
is our vacation from our vacation, and there is
delightfully little to do. Sorta the equivalent of
going to the beach, only with beautiful towns nestled
in amongst cliffs.

This is the birthplace of foccacia and pesto. They
have a pasta called "trofie" specifically designed to
compliment pesto sause. The local trade has been wine
and fishing (anchovies specifically) for generations.
Jennifer actually tried both! weird. The anchovies
are much different than the canned over-salty ones we
have in the states. Jennifer does not like wine or
fish, but the tratorria owner made her finish both,
saying "They are good for you!"

This morning we hiked from Vernazza to Manarola, which
took us around three hours. The hike was beautiful,
it followed the coast from town to town, through
vineyards and olive groves. And about 6,437 steps up
and down the cliffs. When you see the native old
ladies (if there are any other natives, we haven't
seen them), you may think they would be a bit out of
shape, or in poor health. Let me tell ya, I bet they
would be able to run circles around any of us. These
towns are built in such steep valleys that their
streets are actually alleys of staircase upon
staircase. The old folks happily putter past you,
leaving you in the dust kicked up by their canes.
Jennifer is trying to start a "boycott the stairs up,
support the downs only" campaign...not working so far.

Our batteries now recharged, we are heading out to
Siena and the hill-towns of Tuscany. Hopefully they
don't believe in steps.

Ciao!