We arrived by train into Monterosso mid-afternoon on a fabulous hot Monday. Found the hotel easily and then went straight out for a swim, which was wonderful and cold. The beach at Monterosso is mainly stones - there are a few sandy patches of private beach where you have to pay for deckchairs, which seems a bit mean because if you have a deckchair, what do you care if it's stony underfoot? So we lay on the stones and came away with interesting pink indentations.
The next day we caught the train to Riomaggiore, the furthest away of the five villages and walked back through Manarola to Corniglia for lunch. At Manorola there was a fantastic-looking deep patch of sea that you could climb down a ladder from the rocks into, and we thought about it, but there was nowhere to change and we thought we'd get uncomfortable walking the rest of the way in wet togs. A bit foolish, as all the way from Manorola to Corniglia you could hear the thunder and see the storm coming. It struck just as we got to Corniglia for a nice pasta lunch, so that was good timing.
After lunch we walked on to Vernazza, getting progressively wetter. It was probably the most interesting stretch of track, with old olive groves to look at on both sides, but very slippery in the wet. At Vernazza we discovered there was a train in 5 minutes and leapt on it, as the rain was only getting heavier.
Walking back to the hotel, Jules got waylaid by the sight of someone else's roadside tiramisu so we stopped for a bit then went back for hot showers. Bliss. No swimming that day.
Today we have got a couple of different trains to Parma, and we will be having a look at Modena and Bologna over the next few days.
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