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Cinque Terre has a lot of cat residents, and the shops have a lot of cat-themed souvenirs. The cats aren’t everywhere so it isn’t some kind of creepy horror-movie thing. One will just be walking though a store or hanging out by a restaurant. A lot of them have collars and are clearly pets, and others seem to have been adopted by the local establishments.
Being a cat-lover, I wanted to pet them, but settled with just watching them for fear of taking home some unwanted pet fleas. On our hike we saw two just chilling on picnic tables, with a sign (in Italian and English) asking the tourists to feed the homeless cats.
At dinner on Saturday night, Brian spotted one on the rocky cliff that dropped into the ocean. It was a brown tabby and camouflaged perfectly with its surroundings. The restaurant is inside the cliff wall, but has an outside dining area on the plateau above. We watched the cat during our appetizers, and during our main course it made its way over to the dinner tables. It wasn’t afraid of people, just came right up and started talking to me (I didn’t have any of our “interesting” assorted seafood hors d’oeuvres left, and it seemed disappointed with the cheese I snuck it).
This cat was smart. It went and laid on the bench by the path that ran along side the restaurant. As people walked by, it would meow or roll over and inevitably the people would stop and pet it. Brian and I entertained ourselves by narrating the cat’s thoughts: “Ok, here comes one, gotta look cute so maybe he’ll feed me.” I think I made a friend, because when we finished our meal, the cat came over to me and led us down the tunnel back to the village then disappeared into a hole in the tunnel leading back out to the cliff.
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