Cinque Terre

Hello!  We are home from an amazing 12 days in Switzerland and Italy.  It really was a dream at least most of the time.  My kids are terrible in the car (just keeping it real).  Our first stop was Zurich where we visited a good friend that we hadn't seen in years. I will share that day at a future date. Then from there, we headed to Lake Como, Italy. We have been there multiple times and love it!  Didn't see George Clooney though I heard he was in town. Then on to Cinque Terra which I am going to share today and final stop Elba, Italy. When talking about places it is really hard to say one place is better than another because all places usually have something unique about them, but I seriously think God smiled down and worked a little harder on Italy. I never get tired of visiting and each time I go I always add a few more places we need to visit. Five years ago when we were living in Heidelberg, we traveled to Sicily and on our way down after my husband had worked a week in Milan I planned for us to stop in Cinque Terra; however, our visit just wasn't in the cards. Our rental car was acting up and so we had to stop at a car repair shop to see what was going on, then we hit traffic, and by the time we rolled into the small village, we were staying it was dark. The next morning we woke up and it was foggy and raining.  The visibility was horrible, so we moved on to Naples where we would catch our ferry to Sicily. I was so bummed.  My husband promised me we would go back another day and so here we are five years later. Cinque Terra was everything I hoped it would be.  Cinque Terra is actually five villages along the coast of Italy and we visited Manarola. We will go back and visit the others another day when we don't have children in tow.  You can actually hike a trail along the coast that connects the villages, but being that it was July and hot we thought that would only result in hot whiny children. My husband would like to add that the drive is not for the faint of heart and while it is beautiful it is probably best to take the train.  As he was driving he said to make sure you write this because otherwise, some poor husband is going to be a victim of your blog post. Another factor in taking the train is that the parking is limited. You can't drive into the villages themselves. You have to park at the top of them and walk down and is hard on the knees. The train leaves from Genoa or from La Spezia which is where I would recommend parking.  It only takes 11 minutes and cost just a couple of euros.  The children and I took the train to La Spezia on the way home because the kids were tired.  I will let the pictures speak for themselves but seriously it was so dreamy.  My heart was bursting in happiness.