ITALY......thru the eyes and the lens of a country girl...: Rio Maggiore and Manarola

September 14,2012

Early morning breakfast in sweet hotel dining room and then off to rooftop for a short meeting of the "minds and souls"!

This was a great time to learn all about our new friendships. Lots was shared with the opportunity to reach way into your guts to "think". Very therapeutic although Lisa and I were antsy to get moving most of the time. We pretty much bare our souls to each other all the time.....!
Meeting adjourned!!!! Off to the train station.....we boarded the train to Rio Maggiore, which only took minutes to reach from Monterossa. It is the southernmost town of the Cinque Terre.

Village of Riomaggiore (courtesy of Cinque Terre Online © Campodonico & Co Snc 2002 - 2012)

Riomaggiore, which is the most eastern and the nearest village to La Spezia (connected by a scenic road), is named after the stream crossing it. It’s interesting to see the seashore and the upper side of San Giovanni Battista, with its two wonderful twin doors made of marble, which are placed in its southern side and which date before the church itself. Above the village, the Sanctuary of "Madonna di Montenero" stands out, built on the homonymous promontory and which is the last of the gulf the Cinque Terre. Tramonti areas, which goes from Portovenere to Riomaggiore, has been made into National Park of Five Lands and into a park for marina life together with the flora and fauna.

We immediately began to explore. This was a quaint lil village and quite hilly. This would be my introduction into the next 6 weeks of lots and lots of walking! Lots of cute shops and coffee shops and cool tunnel to go thru.

Some of the girls walked into town and up to the top...others chose to shop and walk DOWN to the water side!

once you walk to one side of the cliffs by the water, you turn to see what's across on the other side..

you can even see the tunnel where the train runs right thru the town

my obsession with Italian doors!

never know when you may need some info on apartment renting in Riomaggiore....heheh!

After walking thru town to everyone's contentment, it was time to make the hike to the next town by way of the romantic walk of....

I made an earlier post about the Via Dell Amore back before I even left for Italy. I was so excited about seeing this just from the research I'd done, so I'm putting the link here back to that post. Read it and then I'll continue on...

Friday, August 24, 2012

A Path of Love!

The following is an email I sent to all my children:

One of the hikes I'm going to do in Italy is between two towns in Cinque Terre. And along one of the trails is a place to hang locks.....as in locks like we have on all of our gates. After yu read the story I'm attaching, you'll understand better. So....I asked c (my boyfriend and their father/father-in-law) to bring me a lock to hang on the wall while I'm there. Days went by and I'd actually forgotten about it.

Well, today he brought me the lock he wanted me to take to the wall..........and it is the lock from the house that has been hanging on the gate since the day we installed it.......at least 20 yrs ago! How sweet is that?? that he brought it to me to "lock our love in" and that he actually thought and thought where to get a lock from........and got it from somewhere that is so special to me!!!! He's a pretty neat guy!!!

Now, read the article below to better understand this story:

http://jmac12.blogspot.com/2012_08_01_archive.html (if this link doesn't work, just go to sidebar and go back to the August 24 post!)

Pretty cool, eh? and my actual experience lived up to all of that AND even more! You cannot imagine how excited I was to make this walk. History man......it's all about the history....and the love!