the beautiful C I N Q U E terre

I think Cinque Terre  (chink-a-tear-a) is perhaps one of the most beautiful places anywhere. The pastel colors, the DOORS, the water, the cliffs, the vineyards. All of it.

Cinque Terre is the rugged portion of northern coast of Italy on the Italian Riviera. The five villages, hillside and coastline makes up the Cinque Terre National Park.

Trails, trains and ferries connect the villages.

Only about an hour from our house, we decided it would be a perfect day trip. We figured we would drive to LaSpezia, then take the train up through the villages.

Sounds easy enough, don't you think?

It's not a region that you drive through, but instead buy a daily train pass to hop on and off at each village.

Even when you think you have thoroughly researched an area, things don't always go exactly as planned.

Finding the train station in LaSpezia turned out to be one of our greatest challenges as crazy as that sounds. I not only had the address, but also had the GPS and we still went in circles.

Luckily, we found a few Italians along the way to point us in the right direction. It was an adventure before we even got started. Believe me, the boys were thrilled.

Once we found the train station, we lucked out and caught the last train of the day only because it was running 10 minutes late. Whew.

The mood changed as soon as we were on the train and on our way. It was hot and crowded, but absolutely beautiful.

Food, gelatto and toes in the water helps everything.

I had read {again proving that things still don't always go as planned...} that you can walk along the trails between villages.

Friends had even recommended we do this in order to get the most beautiful views and see the most amazing countryside.

Things quickly went from tired and hot to more tired and hot. This was not a happy little guy below.

Looking back, I think we picked the most difficult trail to hike.

 After about 45 minutes {in flip flops, of course} of straight up hiking, we asked a group of young girls passing us in the other direction if we were close to the next village.

The laughed and basically said- not even close. Plus, it continued to be straight up and down. Ugh.

Jim made the good call for us to turn back with the little guys. Once again, the boys were thrilled.

Caden had blisters starting at this point and while Coleman didn't complain, he hit a point in the trail  and said, "I'm not going any farther."

Scott, Jazz and Ty decided to go ahead and finish the hike.

The rest of us turned around and caught the train to meet them at the next village.

We met up at the beach and spent some relaxing time playing in the water. There's nothing like a little beach time to turn things around and make happy kids.

All in all, we saw the area and had a fabulous day.
I'm pretty sure we all slept well that night.