Road Trip: Day 3 - Exploring the Cinque Terra

We woke up and had breakfast at the cafe next to our room. We had Sicilian pastries and berry Italian ice drinks (and coffee for those who drink coffee). The twins that own the shop were charming. One of the brothers made our dinner reservations at his favorite restaurant for Saturday night (today is Friday).

The Cinque Terra is 5 small villages along the western coast of Italy which are part of a national park. Our goal for this day is to see the first 3 cities. The one to the left is Riomaggiore. We took the train to get here. It was possible to hike the trail in between the cities, but we are living in the 4th city, so traveling back to the 1st city would have taken us all day and we really only have two full days here, so public transportation it is.

The picture on the right is Manarola. We ate lunch here and walked around a bit. The 3rd city, Corniglia is on a hill. I don't have any good pictures of it, by the time we got there we were tired.
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We got back to tour rooms and rested a bit. When a celebration started happening outside our windows. The catholic church was celebrating a holiday that had been rained out in July. All the village children were dressed in white. A local marching band was playing. The priest was blessing the children. We watched from our windows (no screens, remember we are in Europe). We headed downtown for dinner and realized we should have made reservations. Everyone from every village was coming to our town for the fireworks and band concert. We finally found a restaurant owner who liked Kenn's face. He let us eat if we promised to be done by 9 pm so his guests with reservations could eat and watch the fireworks. It was only 7 pm so that seemed completely OK. We had our best meal in Italy, really, really good food. Then we sat down by the sea to watch the fireworks.

They exploded loudly over our heads, like gunshots. It was a really good show. It felt like a gift from God. I had been sad to miss the fireworks in America at the 4th of July and here was a holiday that got changed from July to August, just for me. It was a wonderful show with the band concert in the background.