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James loving the race
James was in heaven watching the Porsches race around! May 25 - May 27
Monaco - Genova, Italy - Cinque Terra
It was the great big race weekend in Monaco, so of course we had to go check it out! We thought the Friday morning would be good because the crowds wouldn’t have formed yet. So we took the train from Menton into Monte Carlo, Monaco which didn’t take all that long. As soon as we got out of the train station we could hear the engines of race cars. There were some grand stands so we sat for a while and watched some of the time trials. The cars ended up being Porsches, so James was in heaven! Everything else was Ferrari and there were tons of Ferraris on display. Then we walked up to the Monaco palace and just wandered around. Food and drinks were quite a bit more expensive too, I’m not sure if it’s like that all the time or just because of the Grand Prix weekend.
We took the train back to Menton and ended up waiting for like 45min for it to arrive. We got a bunk train, because it ended up breaking down and we had to jump onto
Monaco, Race Weekend
Small, but huge city. The crowds hadn't taken over the city yet, but I can't imagine all the being there with all the people! another train in the middle of the tracks. It was so muggy and hot on the train; I thought I was going to pass out. A short train ride ended up taking us 2.5hrs to get back to Menton!
We eventually left Menton, and within 15min we were in Italy. We kinda jokingly wondered if Italy would look like France being so close together and all. But surprisingly, they do look quite different. The landscape was quite a bit different, with lots of agriculture going on all over the hills in Italy. We drove into Genova, and again had a difficult time getting to our campsite because of Ernie’s size. We found that we had to get under some low underpasses to get to the campsite, and because of what happened the other day, we didn’t want to risk it. Just by dumb luck we ended up finding a road without an underpass and eventually got up to the campsite by some tiny windy roads.
Our first dining experience in Italy was fantastic. We wandered down the hill, and found an outside restaurant, where the chef greeted us. There was no menu, the chef was the menu, and
Beautiful Flowers
I love these flowers! There are also purple and red ones after some recommendation we got a starter of proshutto, a dish of fresh pasta and roasted squid. The squid was a little charred for our taste, but the pasta was amazing! Only drizzled with some spicy infused olive oil, but it was all it needed. He also brought us the dessert of the day, and to end it all, home made lemoncello (lemon liquor) in a chocolate shot glass. SOOOO GOOD! We also had a bottle of wine between the two of us, so let’s just say our walk back to the campsite was pretty funny. We had to hop the fence to get to into the campsite because we got back so late and the gate had been long closed!
In the middle of the night I wake rain dripping on me. We hadn’t bothered to get glue to fix the other vent, because we both really weren’t expecting rain after being in the sun and nice weather for the last week or so, but apparently it rains in Italy. So James had to get up and go outside at about 6am to stick the vent back on. Well it sorta worked, but we definitely had to fix
Gothic Cathedral
A Gothic Church in Genova, Italy. it. The campsite was very nice….so far Italy had campsites with toilet seats and hot showers that you don’t have to keep turning on.
We visited Genova for a good hour and saw our first Gothic style cathedral, which is very different than the French ones, but also beautiful. We found our glue for Ernie, and were on our way to Deilva Marina were we would stay to discover the Cinque Terre National Park.
We stayed at the ValDeiva campsite, which was very well equipped with a restaurant, pool and free internet (very hard to find!). From there we caught the train that runs into the National Park. The campsite ladies told us to work backwards through the villages, so we got off at the last village. The walks were all along the coast, some walks on a straight path and others were straight up. The hikes got progressively longer and harder, but we definitely took the best way of going from the easiest to the hardest!
Every village was a little different, but all had colourful buildings and are sitting right on the edge of the rocks overlooking the med sea. We did the whole hike in
James enjoying the coast
On the beautiful coast walking the first part of the trail between Cinque Terre villages. 4 hours and stopped for a half hour lunch break, which we were pretty happy about that since the guide books say it, takes 5 hours! Coming into the last village was pretty exciting when there was a beautiful beach with that blue water I love. It was hot, so we rewarded ourselves with a fresh lemon granita, a swim and a nice pass out on the beach. I highly recommend visiting this area if you are planning on coming to Italy.
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Oanh
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One of the best places!
Cinque Terre was one of my favorite places in Europe! It is so beautiful there. Hope you are having fun!