Travel With Me Tuesday

Todays Location:
CINQUE TERRE

Cinque Terre is made up of five small villages: Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore. It is the most breathtaking area I have seen yet. Everything is so green; the water is turquoise. The following pictures do not even begin to show the beauty, but I tried! :)
I went to Cinque Terre with a friend of mine and Princess shortly after James left for deployment. I am so glad that we went and spent a couple of days in this gorgeous area, but I went about it in the worst possible way!! At the time Princess was a couple of months away from turning two and I figured we could take a bus trip (tour guide included) and it would be just fine; ummm not so much. We had to be there at five in the morning, which is not a time that we had ever had gotten up to greet the day. In those days we were ten o'clock at the earliest girls. So that was the first mistake. Then I proceeded to try and get her in a car seat on a completely packed bus and tried to convince myself that she would fall asleep. That never happened. So we spent the day trying to calm down an extremely cranky toddler and enjoy all the sites at the same time. It was worth it though!! We spent two days walking through the villages and getting a guided tour. According to the tour guide this is a place of choice for the stars, and I can see why! Hopefully we can make it back before we leave, (on our own) and take our time going through the villages again, those tour guides are time nazis!

Fun Facts
* The five villages take up a 10 mile stretch of land
* Main jobs are fishing and working in the vineyards

*The villages are connected by hiking trails

*The area was once very poor, until the tourists began to take notice and now it is thriving!