Coming Home Soon....

I am sorry about those last pics…hopefully I fixed them today. We have to go to the café…pay for a half hour and then it logs us off…so we are rushing, and something weird happened…not sure what.
Today was another fun filled day. We went to this great little café at about 10:30am…the owner was a riot, we LOVED him. He said…as we walked in, not knowing us from anyone…”Today I have 400 pastries made, but you a sleep inA…so now all I have is croissant and ricotta, I make for you OKA???….” I said yes, I’ll take a capacchino too…then he said, “Ok…and I have oranges, I makeA fresh juice for you with da oranges, I offer…. you decide…up to you a”….It was only more fun from there. We told him we were going to make the walk to Montessoria and he said to your dad “ you know, you can notA goA… in those shoeAs, you well get hurt…I do not careA, except then you cannot come back and have a dinner with me, so you go changeA your shoeAs!!!!!!” So he did.
Then we made the freakin 3 hour walk …up hill…over a mountain to Montessoria…I thought we would die. The pics included today should be of the view looking down on our little town of Vernazza as we walk…please notice that we get higher and higher. IT was unbelievable. We learned afterwards, that we did it in the hardest direction and the one most people skip and take a boat to. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any harder, one side against the mountain, only a path as wide as my shoes to walk on, cliff dropping into the Mediterranean sea….then a little stream started running thru the path. So…thousands of uphill and downhill steps, cliff hanging views, slippery steps and an aerobic workout like neither of us have seen. Finally, we make it to the end and what do you think is the first thing we see????…ICE COLD BEER sign…even I was glad to see that. All we took was a bottle of water and a banana with us…so we sat down and had beer and frociaccia sandwiches. We were so happy to make it without suffering a coronary!!!Matt…no amount of exercise could have prepared us for THAT!!!!!!!!!! You would have been proud of us, we kept up with people a lot younger and more fit then us. Then we walked all over this cute little town with beautiful beaches. We decided to treat ourselves to the boat ride back as neither of us wanted to walk ANYWHERE…not even to the train station. The boat ride was wonderful, and now we plan to take it to the other 3 towns tomorrow. We hung out at the beach for the rest of the day and then made reservations for one of the 6 view tables that hangs over the sea. It is a castle from hundreds of years ago, that used to be a look out for the town. Hopefully, we will have pics tomorrow as the camera ran out of power so we have to go back and take pics. The sun set, the waves crashed all around us…it was very romantic. Jim ordered shrimp that were more like lobster, you could crack the claws….and I had a wonderful pesto pasta…I swear someone’s mamma made that pasta in the back room…so fresh. We sat next to a young couple from Sweden. Italy is only 3 hrs away so they vacation here all the time. It was amazing how much she looked like me…same nose and freakly face…I really am Swedish!!!!!!
We cannot believe we have one more day here and then off to Milan. We have to leave for Milan at 6 am in order to make our LAST SUPPER reservations. It is so sad…our wonderful vacation is coming to an end. ….but Jim still has at least 10 more gelato flavors to try, so he will have to do some serious eatin.