Monterosso al mare, con't

We arrived the small beach town of Monterosso al mare about noon on Tuesday. We were all excited to see the beach and water as we exited the train station. We made a few wrong turns looking for our hotel since they call narrow alleys "streets" it was easy to miss. Our room is a quad which is the first time we are in one room together. The room which is on the 4th floor (no elevator) has one queen and a bunk bed which the kids were excited about! We tried to unpack and get ready for the beach as fast as we could. The town reminds us of Venice with the narrow streets and now cars or scooters. This is a bit of a change for us over Rome and Florence.

We stopped for a light lunch...which include a salad with tuna that was excellent! We picked up a couple of things and headed for the beach. Since we arrived late we were not able to buy beach chairs but we were able to go to the public beach next door. The Ligurian Sea was warm and we all took a swim and caught some rays. As the bell tower struck 6 we decided to leave and go back to our hotel. We stopped at a small store and shopped for a sundress for Shelly and Wine...like you do in Italian Riviera. Back at the hotel Tony and John went on the rooftop terrace and looked at the sea while Shelly and Gina got ready.

Shelly made reservations at Ciak and we sat on the sidewalk eating prawns, seafood pasta, gnochi with pesto and of course Chinque Terre vino. We sat by 2 couples from Milano who spoke very little english but were fun to dine with. We had lots of fun try to talk to each other. To top the evening off Gina sang a song for all of us form "The Aristocats". Everyone clapped and we said ciao to our new friends. After dinner we stopped in the local church and the kids lit a couple of candles. We shopped around to walk off our meal and Shelly bought another dress from a shop near Ciak. All of us laughed when she came out with the dress because the wrapped it up like a loaf of bread. We got back to our hotel climbed the stairs and climbed into bed. We had to move the queen since the AC was slightly dripping on it but it was no big deal.

The next morning Tony woke up first and headed up to the terrace for coffee and to blog.

Today we hike and go back to the beach. We will send a few updates along the way.

Until then...Ciao.