Italy, Slovenia, Croatia 2025

On Friday, September 12, we started slow trying to catch up on news (some terrible news today), Facebook posts, and Findpenguins. Then it was off hiking. Down to Vernazza with a climb to the watchtower through narrow walkways, then on the trail from Vernazza to Monterosso a distance of about 2.3 miles with an elevation gain of about 570 ft before descending steeply to Monterosso. We explored a bit, found a restaurant for tiramisu, aperol spritzer, and a lemon spritzer before reversing course to return to Vernazza where we bought a focaccia sandwich and a bottle of red wine for dinner at our airbnb, L'Eremo, which, of course, required a climb past the La Torre restaurant. While at L'Eremo we met Holly from Pullman, her daughter, Brin, from Enumclaw, Frank and Maryann from Dublin, and a couple from San Jose, and a couple from Perth, Australia. The owner is Marco, a retired defense lawyer, whose family has owned the property for 80 years. The maid is Ina from Ukraine, a very tall refugee who speaks very little besides Ukrainian. Our total hiking today was about 6.3 miles with about 1200 ft of elevation gain.Weiterlesen

On Saturday, September 13, we hiked from our airbnb to Corniglia. Then to the train to Riomaggiore and explored this delightful town. We had fruit smoothies and brushetta on the edge of a cliff overlooking a tiny harbor then explored the crazy cliff edge trails that connected parts of the town on the coastline. We intended to take the ferry back to Vernazza, but no ferry service there due to the sea swell still being too high. So we returned to Vernazza on the train, waded in the sea just a bit then hiked back up to our airbnb and had a late dinner, which included an excellent mixed salad we picked up in town. Partly cloudy skies turned to heavy rains showers in the late evening. We have been weather blessedWeiterlesen