After the less-than-relaxing day in Lucca, we decided that the following day would be our day to Montalcino. This was a good plan because it was near by (about an hour from Siena), and is a small and relaxing Tuscany village. Before we drove to Montalcino though, we headed to Siena to shop at the market. Wednesday mornings are market day in Siena and it’s basically like a big flea market with leather, shoes, clothes … everything you can imagine. Despite the hoards of people, I think we all really enjoyed the market. With new leather bags in tow, we headed to Montalcino. After visiting a couple of wine shops, we simply took a short walk around the town and went to a restaurant where we sat outside, had a little too much wine and ate more chocolate, flirted only slightly with the waiter and then went on our merry way.
On the way home, we took a slight detour…took a turn down a dirt road and stopped where there was a fork in the road with about 6 signs pointing different directions. Our goal: simply to frolic in a green Tuscany meadow just like in the movies….but…once I pulled the car over looked at the lush green field I thought, “What about ticks…snakes…?” We imagined the headlines: “American women die after being bitten by a snake while they were frolicking (and trespassing) in a Tuscany meadow.” After having a short discussion about “what lurks in the fields of Tuscany”…Julia and I still decided to play silly in the field while Nicole took photos ... and yes ... we laughed for a long time about that too. As you can imagine, by this time in their trip, we are all very comfortable with one another and are having a hell of a time in more ways than one.
The following day we were to head North to the famous Cinque Terre. We were all looking forward to this, but…I was also anxious about it because of the drive and parking…and other details surrounding this trip. Here’s the first hiccup when going to Cinque Terre…you can not really drive directly to Cinque Terre; you need to go to La Spezia, the near by town, find parking and then take a train to Cinque Terre. We would have taken the train all the way from Siena, but weren’t sure how long we wanted to stay etc. There are too many details to tell you up to the point of us getting to Cinque Terre, so I will just say, after speaking with a few people in choppy Italian, we found parking, got on a train and made it to Cinque Terre.
The 5 villages that make up this area are amazing and beautiful along the coast. Cinque Terre is known for hiking and one could spend a whole day starting at the top village and hiking all the way down (or up) and stopping at each village along the way. We visited only two villages and started at the top – Monterosso. We walked around the adorable little village for a bit, enjoyed the sea view and then started our hike….and this is where it gets interesting…
So the hiking trail is pretty long, but very doable. The path is quite narrow in many spots and is very high with steep drops…basically not a good scenario for someone who is afraid of heights…that would be Ms. Julia. Here’s the challenge…we did not realize the trail had “tight” spots until we were already too far to turn back. I’m thinking, “It’s do or die”, but of course wouldn’t use the word “die” out loud in this current situation. So there we stand in the middle of the trail debating about what to do. I knew Julia could do it and Nicole and I were carefully encouraging her to trek on…and that is exactly what we did…slowly and carefully…Julia overcame her slight fear and hesitation and hiked Monterosso to the next village. It was great! The views were spectacular – sea, beach, men, and vineyards on the cliffs.
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