Our next leg of the trip was to Cinque Terre, Volterra, and Florence. The very first experience we had with Cinque Terre was the lover's walk from the first city, Riomaggiore, to the second, Manarola. What tourists have done here is expressed love by writing theirs and their lovers name on a padlock and then lock it to anything that would hold it and throw the key away. This is regarded as important as marriage vows and obviously super romantic.
The view of the lover's walk.
Lovers :)
In the second city, which had lots and lots of wooden boats on the streets, we had lunch...
Lots of boats...
This is the hike to the third city, Corniglia. Man was it a bit of a hike and once you were done with the stairs, the whole city is set on cliffs and so there was more hiking around the town. Here, we had gelato!
This is in the fourth city, Vernazza. This place had lots of restaurants and people. No matter if you are a little boy or little girl, they don't wear tops to go swimming. I thought these kids were so cute! Their parents were at a restaurant across the way and here these kids were, just enjoying some ice cream. So cute! We had to get some focaccia pizza in this town to continue on the tradition of eating something in every city.
Mom and I bought a water color painting of this exact building. We had to get our picture in front of it to show that it really was a place in Cinque Terre that this artist painted.
In the last city, Monterosso al Mare, we laid out on the beach! Oh it was the perfect ending to the perfect day. We had fruit from a tiny little market in this town. It was so fresh and yummy!
Then, we went back to the fourth city to eat some grub. And when you are Italy on a coastal town, you eat seafood!
The next day, we went to Pisa. Landon was a little off in this picture :)
I think the square surrounding the tower of Pisa is just as cool as the tower itself. It is so colorful and pretty.
Our next stop was per request of Breanna. Volterra! This is the city in book two of the Twlight series, "New Moon" where Edward and then Bella come in Italy. It is a real place. I didn't see any vapires lurking in the shadows though.
Just as described in the book, this place is in the middle of the Tuscan countryside of Italy set up on a tall, tall hill. The drive up to this place made me think that it was impossible to have a whole town on the top of it! We made it up there and the girls had to get a picture for proof.
This was one of the many spectacular views of the Tuscan countryside from Volterra.
Lots of hills to walk up.
Landon loved this place, too. It really was one of the coolest places I've been to in Europe. i would go there again for a relaxing weekend in Tuscany. They had great places to stay along to way, too.
From Volterra back to Milan, we stopped in Firenze (Florence).
