Cinque Terre |

After a LONG day of train travel we finally made it to our hotel in Monterosso around 11 pm on Friday. The town is so cute, and we were so excited to learn that they were having a Lemon Festival on Saturday. Sign us up!

Everyone was out in full force decorating and selling anything and everything lemon: soap, bread, pasta, drinks, and desserts. There are lemon trees everywhere here and the lemons are huge! We had the best time strolling around and checking out everything. There seems to be a lot of town pride that goes into putting on the festival, and you can tell it is a community effort.

We checked out a few old churches and an old cemetery. Michelle read that due to space constraints, they keep the bodies in the cemetery for 100 years and then they have to move them to allow room for others. We didn’t see any graves older than 100 years so that may be true.

It rained in the afternoon, but we had a reservation at a local winery at 4 pm which turned out to be perfect timing. We spent the rest of the afternoon under a huge porch looking out at the vineyards and tasting local wine. This family has owned this winery for the last 10 years and three generations are involved in the process. The 14 year old daughter/granddaughter was the one who served us, and she was fantastic! A couple from Vancouver sat at our table, and we had the best time visiting with them. It was the perfect spot to spend the afternoon and avoid the rain.

We had a fantastic meal and tried the local anchovies. That’s the specialty here (along with lemons, pesto, and focaccia) and we both really liked them. They are so different than what we have at home – they are fresh and prepared a million different ways. After dinner we walked back to the hotel and found that the town square had turned into a dance party! Everyone was dancing in the streets to the Beach Boys and they had lights and a smoke machine. They really go all out for the lemon festival! We looked across the square and saw our Vancouver friends from the winery waving at us – so fun to see them again! It was a great, celebratory end to a really, really fun day!

This morning we are going to hike to Vernazza, the next village over. It should take us about 1.5 hrs and the views are supposed to be spectacular. Should be fun!