Little Town, It's a Quiet Village...

We arrived in Vernazza in the early afternoon on Thursday and made our way to the small pensione that we had booked. Finding Daria (who runs the pensione) was a little confusing, as it involved going up a small set of stone stairs into a very small passageway(....er...street?) with just enough room to walk through. We found number 11, but we were scared that it was simply someone's home. I'm pretty sure it WAS Daria's home -- we found her and she showed us through a complex array of twists, turns and a stone tunnel (all uphill of course) and finally we got to our room (which is lovely). After winding down a bit, Kelly went to do work, and Sharon and I walked around town (basically a five minute walk). We found some cute boutique stores, and purchased giant, delicious lattes at Burgus - a wine bar (bars in italy have both coffee/pastries and alcohol). We noticed that they sold different slices of foccaccia bread (like you would sell muffins in a cafe). Cinque Terre invented foccaccia and pesto....heaven. Also, the entire region is surrounded by vineyards. As we munched, we looked at all the different Cinque Terre wines. After our latte break, we walked along the harbor (the only natural harbor of the Cinque Terre) and watched the tourists and locals sunbathing on rocks and swimming. Then we headed up to grab Kelly from the internet cafe, and listened as the girl who worked there (who was from texas, but now lives in this tiny little 600-person town?) tell a couple of tourists about the flood and mudslide that happened in November. It devastated the village and they are still rebuilding (the atm is still being built, a ton of restaurants are not open, and even the street lacks many of the characteristic stones). The townspeople were trapped inside their homes for days. Vernazza was hit the hardest, and Monterosso a little - but not nearly as bad. I already love this little town, so I am glad we're visiting and supporting the rebuild. However, in light of those events, our rick steves' guide failed us, as many of the places he so colorfully described were closed. We ended up walking around - wandering the town and hanging out up by the elementary school (25 kids go there and then they go to La Spezia - the closest city- for highschool) looking over the rest of the town for a while. We had made friends with a springer spaniel named Jake earlier, and we watched him run up and down the paths across from us. Vernazza is overseen by two watchtowers -- ruins from a castle and used to look out for pirate in the early days -- and its buildings are all pastel reds, oranges and yellows and a few stories high. After we had our fill of the view, we headed down for a late dinner (fresh pasta and pesto), got drinks (tried an espresso martini...still don't like alcohol) and went to bed. Friday, we went to Burgus for breakfast, and took our lattes and pastries to eat on a bench in front of the harbor. They let you take everything out, and you pay when you bring it back! My pastry had an apricot marmalade in it and I'm thinking it's a regional thing, as my croissant this morning had marmalade in it too. Anyways, we took the train to Monterosso and rented kayaks. We kayaked a little more than half way to Vernazza. None of us had really sea kayaked -- I've kayaked in harbors quite a bot, but never in open ocean. It was hard work, but so much fun! We also found the small waterfall between Monterosso and Vernazza (only reachable by water) and parked our kayaks there to explore. I immediately discovered that the rocks here are covered in a very slippery orange moss of some sort and even when you think you have traction -- you don't. I sustained a few minor cuts, but still explored the waterfall. It reminded me of the mermaid's lagoon in peter pan. We paddled back and grabbed sandwhiches for lunch. Then, we found a lovely place to sit on the rocks in the Vernazza harbor and Kelly and I went swimming, while Sharon played with crabs and read. Kelly and I found a cave and some large rocks and hung out a while. Then the rocks bit me again as I tried to gracefully get back into the water (rocks: 2 jen: 0). We relaxed around the tidepools a bit and the. Went back to our room to change. We decided to do Rick Steve's walking tour of Vernazza (it was very short, the town is very small) and then gathered salami, foccaccia, and pesto for a picnic dinner. We climbed up near the castle, and had a delightful picnic with a gorgeous view of Vernazza and the water. Naturally, we topped off the evenin with gelato (well, Sharon and I did, Kelly got Cinque Terre's special dessert wine) and I tried gelato con brioche (which is basically a brioche cut in half with gelato inside....it was SO WEIRD, but good, because when is gelato not good?). We pleasantly passed time at the harbor, as the sun doesn't even start going down until 9:30, and then headed home toget some sleep before our five-village hike in the morning. It was a lovely (and much needed) easy-going day after running around Florence.