While very different from Rome, we are still in a somewhat "urban" setting in that it's narrow streets and tall buildings with apartments all clumped together. What we hear from our room here: birds chirping, women having long conversations in Italian probably from a terrace above us, periodic cheers from the people in the town center gathered to watch the World Cup on big TV's in the street, quiet church bells, and then loud church bells. It was the latter that woke us up Friday morning. It was the mind of waking up where you feel like it could possibly be 7am...or maybe much later. It was noon! The church bells rang for about a minute straight as if to insist we get out and explore their town.
We hesitated wondering if we needed to make new plans for the day and then decided to just go for it. The Italian days are long. We had plenty of time to enjoy all that we wanted to do. We bought an all day train pass and visited each town. Riomaggiore (where we're staying) is the farthest south. We stopped first in Monterosso al Mare, the farthest north. It has more of a resort-feel, bigger town and a long stretch of private beach with umbrellas and boats/paddle boards for rent. We stopped in each town in order on our way back to Rio. Vernazza was charming...we had a heavenly moment with gelato near the harbor while kids from the town were inside the church practicing a song accompanied by organ. There's a "castle" (though not really) we climbed up with stunning views all around from the top. The next town is Corniglia, the only one of the 5 without a harbor as it's set more up in the hills. This one was smaller and less crowded with tourists. The final stop before home was Manarola. The streets were winding and more confusing to us and we ended up at a beautiful piazza at the church overlooking the town and with views of a little old woman tending her grape vines terraced on the hill in the distance. We dined like queens just off the water, sipping house wine and limoncello. The sun was setting when we finished dinner (almost 9:00!). We were going to take the 20min Via del Amore walk back to our town but it was closed so we waited for a train instead.
What a beautiful day.