Slippery Slope

Sunday, June 28th, 2014 

Corneglia and Manerola, Cinque Terre, IL

Quote of the day- 

"Let go of your fear. Walk into every situation knowing that the one conquers all is holding your hand."

Through the small green shutters of the third floor window in 74 Via Colombo the morning began as follows....

Snooze was pressed three times and we still remained fast asleep in bed. Ten came our second wake up call, the Riomaggiore church bells that sound more like bongos outside the window. They ring about fifteen times every hour on the hour. It is pretty much the local alarm clock, and well it definitely works! We managed to finally wake up, but what a beautiful sight it was! The windows are always left open to a quaint terrace across the street that has beautiful violet flowers and plants of many other colors. 

So now we were up and finally determined to explore! Our first stop of the day was church. There are three very old traditional Catholic Churches in Riomaggiore. They are all beautiful, but no services were anywhere to be found! We tried our best, that's all you can do, right!? However, as typical explorers, we chose a dark alley way and we were on our way for further adventures. 

Next stop, after wandering around the city, A Pie de Ma (The Foot of the Sea) cafe. Words cannot even describe how amazing this little discovery was. We sat outside on the side of a cliff drinking coffee and tea. Straight down on both sides of us was the water and the waves far below. Behind us is a hammock. Lisa and I sat at the cafe for a few hours, had some devotion time and talked about how thankful we were to be in that place at that time. When doors and opportunities open up , always take them! There are so many wonderful new challenges and adventures when you do jump on those chances. 

It was finally time to leave when we noticed the most fantastic prosciutto and cheese sandwich ever! It was heavenly. It was a somewhat successful start of our day in Cinque .... For now. 

As the afternoon rolled in, so did the clouds. But that would not stop us! No way! No how! We have cities to explore. So Cinque Terre stands for '5 lands.' It is a place along the west coast of Italy with 5 small towns that you can hike between. From north to south they are called Monterosso, Vernazza, Corneglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore. So today was hike number one. We began taking the mountain hike between Corniglia and Manarola. It was to take a total of three hours. Twenty minutes up the trail and we were hit with a slippery slope. It was down pouring. The clouds had made their way up the mountain and brought a storm with it. We were joyfully making our way in our raincoats and determination after passing four people who told us to turn around and go back. We almost listened to them..... A few more minutes up we could barely see because of the rain. A couple coming down the path told us we should definitely not go any further because it was slippery and getting dangerous. So we did finally listen and went back down to the town to explore that instead. Similar to Riomaggiore it was colorful and quaint. We ended up taking cover out of the rain in a pizzeria that was fantastic! There we meet a nice couple from Greenland. We knew it was going to be a long lunch once we started telling stories. We asked how that couple meet and the man began by saying, "well the longest stories are the best right." We didnt respond so he dived into his story...needless to say we know his entire life since he was 12 in 1957. The day continued to be a slippery slope :)   They were kind and we were happy to hear more stories while enjoying some delicious pizza. 

Ciao!!

-Heather