Sigh. A down day, everyone slept in, woken up by the church bells. It was drizzly but warm, we lazed about much of the morning. Sparky and I went out for coffee at a cafe with free wifi and met a British artist, living here in Vernazza for the last ten years. She took us to her studio and showed us her works in progress.
What I should have said yesterday, about today, was, "hike and explore and get wet." 'Cause that is what we did. It is a very good thing that there is so much coolness here, because the weather really stunk today. Did I say rain? Torrential, my friends.
It isn't cold, though. And it did not deter even the youngest of us.
We took the train to the next town of the Cinque Terre this morning. It was about a five minute train ride along stunning, stormy coast line. We explored Monterosso in the teeming rain. We found an awesome restaurant on the waterfront, where we ate, drank wine, dried off and watched the storm and the massive waves hit the breakwater.
After lunch, we headed up the long, long trail to the Chiesa Capuccini, which, by the way, is not the church of the coffee with steamed milk, but the tiny church of the Capuchin Friary. Tiny, with a beautiful painting of the crucifixion in it, attributed to the work of Dutch Flemish artist, Antoon Van Dyck in the early 1600's. Here we took time to pray, see the lovely and tiny collection of art work and dry out. But not much. The view from the top was worth every drenched article of clothing.
Fortunately, we had taken several complimentary disposable rain ponchos from our bus tour in London (which are quite useless in the snow) and had stuffed them in our day packs.
Oh, man. says Rosebud. Ponchos all the way from London to the Cinque Terre.
At the end of a long and wet afternoon, we dine from the finds in our cupboard and the teensy, weensy market with an epic deli "fromaggio e salame" at the bottom of our alley, about a two minute walk from our front door. Which opens whenever the proprietor feel like it. Maybe in twenty minutes. Forty-five maybe. Maybe not tonight, uh?
This is the pace we're loving in Vernazza.
Quotes of the day.
After three hours of pouring rain, exploring the hills of the Cinque Terre, "I don't know why you guys like the Cinque Terre so much!" (Rosebud)
Sidestepping three inch deep rivulets coming down the side of the mountain stairs, "This is not awesome." (Professor)
10 00 am, 12 00 noon, 2 00 pm, 4 00 pm, 6 00 pm, "I'm hungry." (Huckleberry)
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