The five towns that aren't in Long Island

We arrived in Riomaggiore, which is the first of the Cinque Terre (5 towns) on the northwestern coast of Italy. The train station at Riomaggiore is ridiculous. One side is the vast and VERY blue ocean, and the other is a scattering of colourful houses lodged into the valley of a huge green mountain covered with fields of grape vines. It was really beautiful and quite shocking at the same time.

There are a couple of cafes, some fruit stands a couple delis and a bunch of focaccia stores (the specialty of the region) and beautiful views of the water. That's pretty much it.

First night we got there, we were exhausted from a day of riding the train (which is when we saw amazing melon fields and acres of dead sunflowers still standing up). Our apartment had a nice little balcony that looked out onto the town's main square. As our eyes were shutting at 10 pm (lame, we know), a hilariously terrible Italian cover band started booming a two-hour set of American favourites to a remarkably large audience right outside our window. After a short period of our windows banging together from the bass, we finally gave in, went downstairs and watched young and old Italian groupies dancing, and clapping ... to quality American hits like "The Final Countdown," "Conga Beat," and others. By the way... many silly bands were present.

Next day, we hiked a trail through all five towns which took pretty much the whole day. Lili drank espresso (still no soy), Natan drank cappucino, and we ate tomatos, gelato and tofurky jerky. This walk was incredibly hard, and incredibly beautiful. Lots of steps, lots of Australians, lots of tiny narrow paths sandwiched between olive trees and grape vines.

We also took a day in Pisa. There we took the typical photos of the leaning tower, and got Natan a much needed haircut.

The end. On to Venice! Stay tuned!