Day 5 - Cinque Terre

Today we were up bright and early to catch two trains to the town of Monterosso in Cinque Terre. Even though she would swimming outdoors in just a couple of hours, Ellis insisted on wearing her gloves to the train station.

The kids did lots of activities with their grandparents and took naps on the train rides.

The train station in Monterosso was right on the beach and the morning sun was blaring down when we arrived.

The very popular beach was nearly empty, and the kids started off by wading into the sea, contemplating whether to swim...

...but that didn't last long. The three kids were splashing in the waves and swimming in the water within minutes.

I also went in the water. The sea temperature was about as warm as Lake Huron ever gets, and the air temp was about 22 C, so perfect temperature for Canadian kids to go swimming. The locals probably thought we were crazy.

Penny stayed on dry land, preferring to fill her brace with little tiny shells and stones.

After a beach snack, we walked along a promenade and through a tunnel over into the old town of Monterosso.

We had a quick play at the park in the town square, before heading back to catch a 4 minute train to the next town, Vernazza.

Vernazza is another very picturesque old town centre with a natural harbour at sea level.

We hiked for about 10 minutes along the seaside trail to reach our lunch restaurant.

The kids did really well on the walk, but we realized that we were not going to be able to walk the whole way to the next town with the kids. 

They could probably have done the walk (about 3km), but were already tired from the travel and swimming and other walking.

We ate lunch at ristorante la Torre, which is build right into the side of the cliff, with amazing views of the sea and neighbouring towns.

Oscar loved his spaghetti with meat sauce.

Penny also loved slurping up the noodles.

We attempted to take a family photo on the way back from the 

Then walked all the way back down to sea level in Vernazza.

We wound our way through alleys and stairways to make it down to the harbour.

The kids found some jellyfish and saw a man catch an octopus with a giant fishing rod.

There were some rocks at the end of the point, to Jasper and Ellis of course had to climb them.

The town looked just like a postcard.

Of course, we had to get some gelato for energy for the long train ride home.

After three more train rides, we finally made it home to our apartment in Lucca. We grabbed some takeaway panini and everyone went to bed.