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Did you know that there are no penguins in the North Pole?
I hope this random fact helps draw attention away from the fact I am running out of ideas to start the comedy gold that is our blog.
Five Villages doesn't have much of a ring to it does it? How about Cinque Terre? That sounds pretty exotic and exciting. Let me tell you right now, it was!
It is very hard to pick a single favourite place in Europe, but in my opinion Cinque Terre is as good as any. It consists of five "terre's" (villages), all set right on the Mediteranean. Every terre is a little different from the last, but they all have one thing in common-amazingness (it's a word, look it up). Oh and stunning Italian girls in bikinis with their skin glistening in the sun, eyes that speak a thousand stories, legs that go on forever and long brown hair that shines from the hot sun. Not that we even noticed them.
We stayed in Hotel Astoria in La Spezia, a town just out of Cinque Terre. It was quite an expensive hotel, but in a great location. Our room had a tv and fridge which was a nice change, as was a stainless toilet bowl. Overall it was a good place to stay and we thoroughly enjoyed it.
The most popular activity in Cinque Terre is doing the costal walk between the villages. From the first Terre to the last, the walk is 16 km including several thousand stairs. Most people just do several segments but we decided to bite the bullet and do the whole shebang. We left our hotel at 9.45am and did not return until 9pm, but we had numerous swimming stops. One of these swimming spots has an entertaining story.
On the walking path on top of the cliffs there was a small handwritten sign saying "free beach" with an arrow to a tiny path down the cliff. Most people would just take the safe option and keep walking. But it sounded fun so we took the track down the cliff. Some parts were so steep there were ropes to get down. Overall it took us over half an hour to get down, and we were very hot and bothered. Then, the moment that changed our lives. We finally saw another person, an Italian man on his way back from the beach. The catch, he seemed to have forgotten his clothes. It all clicked for us, "free beach" was a bad translation and our half an hour detour had led us to a nudist beach. When we got to the actual beach, approximately 100 naked guys were having the time of their lives. Special mention to the two guys playing beach tennis, with not only rackets swinging. One old guy took a particular liking to us and actually starting touching his little fella while I was tying up my shoe laces. The nudist beach was definitely an experience, but overall we both agreed it was a "long" and "hard" walk for nothing.
We arrived at Monterosso, the last Terre at about 7.30, and bought some goggles so we could go for a snorkel. Dinner at Monterosso was a bit of a let down, as we both had seafood which was overpriced and not up to our expectations. Imagine going to a Katy Perry concert and instead of Katy performing you get Paris Hilton. That is the disappointment we felt.
For the rest of our stay we spent the majority of our time at the beach, mainly at Vernazza (4th Terre). On our first visit to Vernazza we actually found some fishing line with a hook so we decided to try our luck. We bought some bread to use as bait and over tge next two days we ended up catching six fish. Some of the time we would snorkel around to see where the fidh are and swim down with the baited hook. Not bad for a little bit of line is it?
Another comical moment occurred on our third day. We were both sitting on some rock with our feet dangling in the water. I felt something on my foot and after inspection I came to the unusual realisation I had quite a large octopus attacking my foot. He didn't want to let go with his tentacles, which is why I likened him to several girls I know. He did let go but my foot went numb for a while later on.
Now you may have noticed that we do fancy our bargaining skills when it comes to market stalls. Well I must now retract this as one of our skills. We were walking along the waterfront in La Spezia and saw an Indian guy selling bracelets. After he said they were €2 we knew we could get them cheaper. I asked how many we could get for €5 and he guestured four. However Whitey missed this part of the transaction and proclaimed that we would take 3 for €5, and the guy obviously agreed.
Today we are going back into France to spend 3 nights in Nice.
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