We woke up to a beautiful sunny day. After breakfast we caught a train to Monterosso del Mar. Monterosso means red mountain or red hill, but we didn't see anything that looked like that. It is mainly a beach town, the only of the five towns built mostly on level ground. We walked along the beach promenade for awhile. Nice beach, nice hotels, nice restaurants, but a totally different feel from the other towns. 


 

 
 

























 
 














 















 

 
 
At the end of the beach was this huge building that sort of looked like a castle. We discovered it is the headquarters of the Monterosso Sailing Club. We think we might talk to them about trading our Marengo castle for this one. It's more interesting and it's on the beach. We're sure the sailing club won't mind moving inland a few kilometers. There is a huge statue holding up one end of the club. It isn't old, it's reinforced concrete and used to support a dance terrace that washed away in a storm. Apparently the Sailing Club restored him and built their club around him. Perfect for our castle.
















 
Then we walked up a bit of a hill to the remains of a fort that was used to fight off pirates and a Nazi pillbox left over from WWII.  
 

















 









And then turned the corner and there was the old town. A totally different town. It also has a beach, but is filled with twisty little streets and alleys full of restaurants and shops. We stopped in the church - they were in the middle of mass - so we stayed until the end. 
 

 
 

 


























































Then we went down to a restaurant and had a pizza for lunch.
 







 
Then we caught the train for Vernazza. I was kind of disappointed in this town. I always thought it was the best, most photogenic, most wonderful of all the towns, but other than the waterfront it wasn't nearly as nice as Manarola where we are staying or Riomaggiore where we went last night. And I think our harbor is much prettier. Vernazza was jammed with people - this is just a Sunday in spring. I would never want to be anywhere near here in summer.  
 
 
 
 































 



















 


 






 

I mentioned the trains go from place to place through tunnels in the hills. Some trains stop at every station, and some like our Rome to Genoa train, are intercity and don't stop. From our hotel, or anywhere around town, when one of those intercity trains blasts through it sounds like a jet taking off and rattles the windows. 












We returned and went down to our harbor to watch the people swimming, sunning and fishing, since today was a really nice day and the water was calm.  
 
 
 
 













Then watched the sun set on our time in Cinque Terre.  
















 
 
I think I figured out something about Armando's little tumble yesterday. We had tried to walk from our town north and south and both trails were closed. Those are the easiest trails. I think he was afraid I was going to make him hike one of the longer steeper harder trails, and figured if he skinned his knee and had a bruise here and there I'd relent. It worked!
 
Tomorrow Lucca. First thing we will do there is find out if we can still rent the car, since Armando's drivers license was in his lost wallet. He has an international DL but not sure if he can rent with just that. If we can't rent a car, we'll just figure out a Plan B. Maybe we'll go to Venice. Maybe we'll go to the mountains. Or the Lake region. Or go to some hill towns by bus. Or something else we haven't thought of yet. The only place we HAVE to be is at the Rome airport on the 25th. That is the beauty of having no plans, nothing can spoil them!!!