Deiva Marina- Apartment 1 - 08/22-08/27

Ok so our time in Deiva Marina was mostly spent relaxing, laying on the beach, and going on adventures related to meals. We were in this cute little apartment about a mile from the beach from Sunday to Saturday morning. Sunday we went to the beach for the whole day and I got half way through Angela's Ashes (someone had left that behind and obviously I had read my beach book on the rainy stays in the hotel). We rented chairs and an umbrella and the ocean was delightfully cool after the very hot sun.

Monday I decided to explore and find out the hikes they are advertising and how far the beach goes and where all the stores are. I got some good photos. and the church was visible from almost everywhere which was good because its literally right around the corner. Also...there are cats everywhere so obviously I like this place.



Tuesday, Gramma and I decided to head to Cinque Terra. You can take the train and about 3 stops from us is Monterosso and 5 stops from us is Riomaggiore (the first and last towns of Cinque Terra). We decided to go to Riomaggiore and work our way back and we decided to leave at 11:45...Of course the train doesn't get to the station until 12:30 and then it stops and forces everyone off in the middle town Corneglia which is one of the higher towns. In order to get to ANYTHING you need to walk 300 something steps up, take the bus, or follow the road the bus takes up. The crowd for the bus was too intimidating and we weren't even sure that was an option so we decided to walk up the bus route which is windy and what not. It would NOT have been the bad if we knew where we were going. We had a bad experience 5 years ago when we accidently decided to walk from Monterosso to Vernazza which is about a 3 hour hike but we didn't know that when we started. So any hike like thing where we can't see the end makes everything about 5 times worse that it is. But we got there and found a restaurant immediately so gramma's short term memory kicked in and everything was A OK.



Once we got recharged we explored the town a little and everything was really pretty and all the little shops were very tempting. But since I was coming back then I held out. I ended up walking the steps down to the station while gramma took the bus and we headed back to Deiva Marina to eat some more.

Wednesday morning I went back to the beach (the free beach this time) and got a place right in front. Sadly the morning mist never really cleared up so I went back to the apt. to eat and take a nice delightful nap.

Thursday we went back to Cinque Terra and made it to Riomaggiore which is a very steep and narrow city but we managed. Found another pizza place so I was happy and we explored the town. Riomaggiore is famous for their Via Del Amore but they CHARGE you to walk it so we said screw that and went up to Monterosso where we couldn't figure out how to get into the town proper but we sat at a gelato place by the beach. And then we went back to Deiva Marina



Friday we spent at the apartment. packing up and getting ready for moving up to the next apartment in the area where we would be joined by a friend of Gramma's and our American-born Italian friend who helped us arrange everything.

I know you want details about the food we made but I need to regroup and arrange pictures so maybe when I get back (to be real, I care more about eating foods then sharing details about preparation so we'll see)