Ready?
Here's the train as we disembarked in Manarola. Bye, Train! Thanks for the ride!
And here is a pretty cool shot of what it looks like sort of from the back, I guess. (This part of the day was a bit of a blur. I must have needed a nap!)
And, then, suddenly, here we are at the train again, waiting to go to Riomaggiore. But here's the sign to prove we were actually at Manarola. I guess. Huh?
OK, so we obviously went on to Riomaggiore. No picture of that sign! When you get off the train there, you have to walk through a really cool tunnel that has built in places for you to graffiti! I thought that was cool. Like right on the walls of the tunnel, there were these cool little graffiti boards. All you needed was a pen!! Alice and I did some quick damage on those bad boys. I forgot to photograph, though, so you will have to take my word for it.
Finally, the light at the end of the tunnel. Don't you love how the tunnel is lime green?
Here's the view to the left of the tunnel. If you walk out and look up to the left, there is a terrace. We walked up on the terrace later, so you'll get some shots from up there in a minute.
First, let's walk tot he right, because that's the direction the gelato is in. Oh, and I guess there's a church at the top of the hill, too.
Praying station-- say hi to Mary!
OK, now you can stop for gelto. I had soemthing delicous here that contained Nutella, the food of the gods.
After we ate our treat and rested a bit, we continued on up the hill a ways. I thought this was a very cute Hobbity door.
The town seems to dead end into this hill. This looks just like the hill behind the church at Vernazza. You can kind of see the tiny paths running along it, though I'm not sure I'd be thrilled about walking on those unless I were a goat. Which, I am not. I also liked the cool water wheel in this shot. As I stood here, I could hear water rushing underneath me, so that water wheel more than likely had more of a purpose in the past than it appears to have now.
Now, let's walk back down the hill, past the entrance to the tunnel, and up onto the terrace, shall we? This is a cool marker that I liked.
So, this is looking out toward the sea from the top of the terrace. You can see a view of the main street where the shops are located.
And this is the view as I looked up from the terrace. There's some beautiful colors here, too.
I loved these terra cotta tiles on the stairs up to the terrace. Every other tile depicted an animal or a fruit or vegetable, or some kind of scene. It made me want to make tiles.
Another cool marker thing telling you that this is the Commune di Riomaggiore. Neat-o-neat!
Oh, and I took this picture for all you cats out there who wonder what you would look like as a terra cotta tile.
It was getting pretty late in the day by this point, so we were ready to head back to the Villa. We walked back throught the long tunnel and sat to wait for the train. While we waited, I threw a euro penny (Does it have another name? Probably.) into this wishing well.
No, I won't tell you what I wished for!!
As we waited, the sky over the Sea got more and more beautiful.
And, just before we hopped on the train to go back to La Spezia, I looked back and saw what looked like a giant's profile in the rock. I imagined that he was looking out over the Sea and thinking about what a cool place he lives in. Isn't that what you would think?
