Crazy Coastline!

We got up and knew we wanted to hit up a few of the 5 gorgeous towns in Cinque Terra (pronounced Chink-qweh Tare-ah) and so we set off down the craziest roads ever. The sights and towns and back roads were legitimately some of the most gorgeous sites I have ever seen. Seriously.

We skipped over the fast highway in favor of crazy windy coastline highways that were really scenic. Worth it. The we entered the town of Levanto and saw the gorgeous beach there and knew we had to stop but we had to find some cheap/free parking first. So we kept on the narrow hilly roads until trouble struck. (Duh) We were driving  up this super narrow steep cobblestone street when we got stuck by these dogs walking out in front of us therefore killing our uphill momentum and essentially preventing us from going further up the hill. Or down. Because it was too tight to try and back down with the parked cars on the side of the road not to mention the car behind us on the road. Oh ya. Also our tires were starting to slip on the wet cobblestone due to the rain. Ah! It’s like something out of a movie. We didn’t think we were gonna make it out of there without some huge scratches on that minivan. But with imminent death upon us, Patrick J Kramer folded in our side view mirror (and the other car's mirrors too) and slowly made it back down the road and going back to the beach parking lot. Phew. SO STRESSFUL!

With parking paid for, we walked around in the wonderful little town until it started down pouring again and we rain back to the car after going through this little itty bitty super market. What happens next is purely T-boxer’s fault but I give the kid 1000 props for it.

The rainy beach!

The short story is that all 4 of us stripped down to our briefs and ran into the ocean while it was down pouring like mad. Seriously cold and kinda painful with the heavy rain but seriously worth every second. The waves were almost as awesome as the ridiculous looks we got. HA.

After drying off and deciding never to drive on stupid narrow roads with an under powered minivan again, we drove to La Spezia, which is the biggest town in the Cinque Terra area.

The first order of business in La Spezia was obviously the “Gelato Challenge” where we all had to eat from 500-600 grams of gelato in one sitting. With only our hands. Which is way harder and more painful than it seems. But I won of course. Then needing to have a sugar coma like crazy, we bought a huge brick of bread for next to nothing and some tomato sauce and sat down by the docks of the town and ate it. And Patrick talked about boats.

 

Good day. We drove out to this lookout place and slept. (And I awoke to this sight. Perfect view of the coast)

It’s like a postcard!

Oh and I almost forgot to mention that on the way to La Spezia, Patrick was teaching me how to drive a stick. That needs to happen soon… Seriously. ASAP.