On probably the most could-be-beautiful-post, my camera is acting up again. If I can get it to open tomorrow morning, I'll post pictures. I'm just too sleepy (midnight right now) to mess with it!!! Let me tell you, though, in words about our last group trip that ended with a safe arrival back at Avanti.
On Wednesday morning early, we caught a train to Pisa. We walked 30 or so minutes to the Leaning Tower, took our cheesy holding-up-the-tower pictures, and had a little free time to eat our sack lunches gazing at the Field of Miracles (contains the tower, the cathedral, and the baptistry-gorgeous).
After we caught another train, we made our way up to the Italian Riviera--the place where Italians and Germans regret that Americans have discovered their beautiful secret (although the tourist dollar is probably appeciated). The Cinque Terre literally means the "five lands," and my, oh, my is this place special. We arrived about mid-afternoon yesterday and wandered around our town. There was a cute little jewelry shop on the street (yes-the one street!) that some of the girls found in Vernazza (town #4 of the 5), so shopping was among the activities. We ate a delicious dinner last night at Tratoria da Sandro in Vernazza. We visited this place four year ago, and it was fun to see the same people running the family-owned place.
The students had a free day today and didn't complain a bit. We've kept them SO busy this month; we felt like if we had just one month, we'd keep them huffing and puffing and that they could sleep at home! Today was great from start to finish----There were pretty little flowers in our cappuccinos this morning, and the breakfast gave us a great start. There are hiking trails that link all the towns together-some easy, some hard. Some of the BAT crew hiked and saw the best views of their lives, while others relaxed on the beaches in Monterosso (town #5) and jumped off the cliffs into the water back at the Vernazza waters. (No injuries!) Some shopped and strolled and beached and hiked, fitting in all there was to do.
Today's lunch for the Beason family consisted of spaghetti with tomato sauce for A-C, for Loren a pesto creamy sauce (best pesto I've ever tasted-pesto originated in this region of Italy, so you know it's good) over a swirly-linear-type pasta that I've never seen before...the waiter said it was regional (the name of it escapes me), and Clay had a seafood platter specialty (I'll say "special"--caught right from the sea!). The food here was wonderful. The beauty here is indescribable - from the colored houses just poking out of their cliffside cut-outs, to the rocky beaches, to the shutters flown wide open, to the laundry hanging from the high buidings' pulley-laundry lines, to the Italian ladies looking out from their windows at the hords of people taking over their villages during the summer days ... for so many reasons, the Cinque Terre is a jewel of a place.
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