From Tuscany to Cinque Terre...

The day began before the sun, and as we drove away from our week in Tuscany, the sun put on quite a show.

Sun, sun, sun, here it comes!

The drive to Florence took about 2.5 hours.  We left Tuscany with plenty of time, but we didn't plan for our mapped freeway exit to be closed (or possibly not even built yet...haven't decided which one).  We exited the next exit, which, by American driving standards would have been fine.  Italy...not so much.  There's no back-tracking....we weren't mapped out for that.  We wound our way through Florence, going down streets we certainly should NOT have been driving on, ditching the map, instead licking a finger and going the way of the wind.

As you can see in the above photo, we made it to the Florence train station, with enough time to spare to take a picture and run.

On the train...looking forward to seeing the ocean!

We made it!  Here's a look at Manarola from Via Belvedere.

We got into town and knew we needed to find Via Belvedere, so we asked the locals.

"Where can we find Via BelveDEAR?" We said with a distinct American twang.

"Via BelveDEAR? BelveDEAR...."...thinking, thinking..."OH!  Via Belve'dehdeh'!  Turn around...right behind you!"

Hahaha...oops

Terraced gardens

Thanks to my good friend Zheila, we found this rental...right on the water, with clean, modern furnishings.

We were STOKED!  This was our room.

View of the other side of the room

Nick and the view!

El bano

The front door...cool, right?

Nick, opening our door

The shared lounge

The shared lanai!  We only shared it once...I guess the other guests had other things to do!  We were perfectly happy RIGHT THERE

Right-hand view from the lanai

Tired-out, man

A monkey and a boat.  This is when we knew this place was seriously awesome.

Via Belvedere from our front door

Me at the front door.  The picture was overexposed, so you can't see that the ocean is right behind me!

Exploring Via Belvedere

The Manarola train station

Nona was everywhere...hanging clothes, yelling at the people below, sitting on her lanai...oh, Nona!

The main drag in Manarola....restaurants, oh my!  

We had AMAZING food here!

At the boat dock...when did I get eye wrinkles?  Oh well, it means I've been smiling alot.

Manarola at night.  Seriously enchanting.

Next up?  More Cinque Terre!!!