Day 10 Santa Margherita Ligure to San Gimignano

After a day of driving and a half bottle of wine this post will be interesting.  First, Paula I could have used your help tonight with the wine.  Today we were in the car on our way to our final destination with a stop in Cinque Terra.  Cinque Terre is a series of five small towns along the north west coast of Italy that are connected by a foot path that winds along the coast.  There is a train that we took that also allows riders the chance to get to the towns with a minimum of walking.  It is a beautiful and rugged shore line that encapsulates these small little hamlets.  Once we finished our visit to these towns it was back into the car on our way to Lucca.  We found Lucca just in time to realize we did not have time to even get out of the car due to our required arrival time in San Gimignano.  So off we went to our final destination for the night.  We are staying at Il Borghetto, which is a small family run hotel in the hills of Tuscany.  We were met by one of the two sisters in law that run this hotel and shown to our room.  At 7:30 we consumed a glorious four course dinner where we were served by the other half of the husband and wife team that operates this hotel.  I want to make special mention of the cook who is mother of two of the folks.  Wow!  She can cook.  Additionally, her son in law does an excellent job of helping select a bottle of wine.  More on the hotel in the future.

A few driving issues today.  One was backing up from a prepaid pass toll booth to find one that took cash and you know it has been interesting when you are accustomed to hear the voice from the GPS say many times throughout the day " at the next opportunity to make a legal U turn please do so".  Thanks for Chris' help.  More to follow as we progress.

Chris - We got lucky with the weather again today as it poured rain as we were driving north of Cinque Terra this morning. We drove east of the five villages to leave our car and then caught the train back to Cinque Terra. By the time we did that the skies had cleared and we actually saw the sun. It did rain later in the day a couple times but were we finished by then. We hadn't planned on going to Cinque Terra until a week before the trip, so we squeezed it into an already full schedule. I'm really glad we did as they are intriguing and stunning towns. The villages are literally cut into the mountainside and are full of charm. Because of our time limitations we only did Tres Terra, as we only saw Vernazza, Manarola and Riomaggiore. Vernazza was ravaged by a flood in October of last year and is still digging out, yet it's hard to escape its beauty through the mud and along the cliffside. We had lunch at a little restaurant above the Manarola harbor and just had to sample the "best gelato in Cinque Terra." I would loved to have had the time to walk between some more of the towns along the ocean, but at least we were able to walk the 20 minutes between Manarola and Riomaggiore. I highly recommend the stop if you ever get to this side of the world.

Tomorrow - a little smaller chance of rain :) and we might actually hit 55 degrees. We're off through the wine country to Cortona.

OK, the pictures got messed up again and printed the wrong one....twice. Sorry, I'll try and and put the ones I wanted up tomorrow. Our Internet isn't great tonight, but at least we have it!!