Sea Enemies

Last night after I keft our blog we had dinner at the hostel- I had fresh pasta with pesto and james had stuffed mussels and local wine. The mussels were only 7euro! I thought they were excellent, and my pesto was very good too. We're going to go try a retaurant in town tonight.

James was swimming in the mediterranean by 9:30 this morning while we were waiting for a train. There are 5 small towns here, all linked by train and hiking trails, it's a national Park and a UNESCO world heritage sight. The towns are, in order, Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monteroso. We're staying in Manarola. We took the train to Vernazza this morning and then hiked to Monterosso. In Monterroso we went swimming again even though it was raining (It was sunny this am). Then we took the train from Monterosso to Riomaggiore and then hiked back to Manarola. These town are all still very touristy, but we've noticed a lot of the tourists are french. Still plenty of Americans though. We had wanted to go snorkeling or sea kayaking today but it rained all afternoon. Now it's sunny again. We're hoping that on the French Riviera we'll have those opportunities.

We took a lot of pictures, there are so many flowers here! I'm not sure you could spend a week here, the towns are all so small it doesn't take much to explore them, but there are hiking trails galore so if you really wanted to hike you certainly could spend a lot of time doing it.

We went swimming again this afternoon in the coves in Manarola. I was a little nervous because down the shore a little way there were a lot of spiky anemone. I've decided it's easier to call them sea enemies, I just can't seem to get the word "anemone" out. When were were out on the breakwater (which is huge chunks of raw marble!) there were little tiny crabs all over. The looked like huge spiders from a distant ande I freaked out a little bit the first time I saw some between the rocks.

We've decided if we see someone working in one of the orchards in town (they're every where!) we'll see if we can pay them and pick a little fruit. We got really good peaches at the grocery store but I have no idea if they were local.

oh, and this morning both James and I were woken up by a rooster cock-a-doodle-doing outside. I think there are cat birds here too, which is a terrible sound- it sounds like a cat is being tortured. We heard one in pompei too.

In St. Raphael we're staying at a hotel so most likely we wont have internet, so if you don't hear from us, just know we're enjoying our time at the beach (rain or shine!)!