Thompson Travelers

We docked in Livorno today…hard to decide which way to go…Florence to see some of the world’s most famous art, Pisa, to see the leaning tower, or visit 5 tiny towns nestled in steep cliffs along the Italian coastline known as Cinque Terre. We close the latter. We got to these little villages by boat, each similar but each with its own little unique setting. They are all sherbet colors, stacked on top of each other, on tiny, twisting roads accessable only by walking. They all have incredible beachfronts. The last one had rainbow striped beach umbrellas and chairs lined up, stretching as far as the eye could see which was breathtakingly beautiful.

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These residents are farmers for the most part, and have terraced these incredibly steep cliffs to harvest olives and grapes for olive oil and wine, but all must be done by hand because no machines can go on these cliffs.

The food here was fabulous, antipasti, spaghetti with mussels and clams, and pesto with a nice glass of chianti. We have been told that Italians make 256 shapes of pasta, each designed specifically to hold the perfect amount of sauce. When you break your spaghetti, you’re creating another size…like 256 sizes isn’t good enough for you? You gotta go create another size? If they thought spaghetti should be shorter, they would have made it shorter!!!

Since hitting Italy, we have discovered Italian gelato and wow, is it fabulous!!!