The Cinque Terre

This one's gonna make you real jealous...

Cinque Terre means "the 5 lands". They are 5 little villages that sit along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in northern Italy. These villages are very remote and hard to reach by car. There are walking trails that link them all together and the thing to do is to hike from village to village.

Susan and I took a weekend and drove to the city of Rapallo which is near these 5 villages. We stayed in Rapallo Friday night and planned to start our hiking trip on Saturday morning.


Our hotel in Rapallo was very close to the harbor and there were a few little canals that ran through the city where lots of little fishing boats sat.

This is an old Roman bridge in Rapallo that was about 50 meters from our hotel door. I thought it was cool.

We spent Friday night checking out the city cause Rapallo isn't all that big, but compared to all the little villages around it, it seems like a thriving metropolis. We hit a couple bars, a wine and snack place that was right on the pebbly beach, you know, the usual.

On Saturday we started our hike. The first village, Monterosso was beautiful.

The beach in Monterosso.

This trail lead from Monterosso to Vernazza. This was not an easy hike. The trail takes you high up into the mountain and through vineyards and lemon tree groves. In the background you can see the Mediterranean Sea.

Here we are after about 3 hours of hiking got us to the third village.

This is the last of the 5 villages, Riomaggiore.

For the return trip, we took a boat back to Monterosso. Here is a view of one of the villages.

Another view from the boat.

This is in one of the villages. I thought it was really neat how the residents just kept their little fishing boats right on the street!

This is another view from the trails.

So we ended up doing about 8 hours of hiking and we were pretty wore out at the end of the day. We took the train back from Monterosso to Rapallo and spent the night there again. Saturday night was pretty interesting. We enjoyed the worst pizza I've ever had in Italy. This was also the night that Italy was playing the USA in the World Cup. As we sat and choked down our pizza, we watched the Italian fans scoff at the 1-1 tie. As soon as that game was over, the streets were clear and calm. The bars were empty. Restaurants started shutting their doors. It was like it was such a disgrace to tie the USA. To them, it was a loss. Hahaha, I had to laugh!

On Sunday we got another early start and headed up the coast to the famous resort town of Portofino.

Portofino is a beautiful and tiny little village. But as you can see by the yachts, there might be a few rich people there!

A small street in Portofino on an early Sunday afternoon.

More boats in the harbor.

And this is a little beach right outside of Portofino we passed on our way out of town.

This was a great way to spend a weekend. And if you didn't already hate me for living in Italy, I'm sure you do now!

Funny cause its true!

1. Except for the Air Force, the military draft never ended following the Vietnam War. Members of the other U.S. Armed Services were forced to enlist. How else can you explain why Soldiers, Marines and Sailors are so upset that Airmen are treated so well? They obviously would have been smart enough to join the Air Force, too, had they had a choice. That damn draft!

2. When a Soldier or Marine asks how long your deployment is, it is not appropriate for an Airman to answer: "Six months sucker!"

3. You have to admire Soldiers and Marines for spending an entire year away from their families. But after hearing their constant complaints about Airmen deploying for only four months or six months, it gets real old, real fast. Here are a couple of my favorite comebacks when asked why Airmen have shorter deployments: "Because an Airman can do the same job in half the time," or, "We get six months off for good behavior," or, when they catch me in an especially rotten mood, "You joined the wrong service dumb ass, get over it already," or "Your wife’s fat and ugly, are you gonna blame me for that, too?"

4. "Joint operations" would run so much smoother if you removed "the few and the proud," "an organization of one" and anything that "runs deep."

5. That little pocket on the side of the new Air Force PT shorts is a great place for my lighter! They need to give me a bigger one of the other side so I don’t have to carry my cigarettes while I’m jogging.

6. The requirement to wear either the Desert Combat Uniform or the Air Force physical fitness uniform in a deployed environment is a conspiracy by senior officers who want to get saluted on and off duty.

7. Many male service members are issued beer goggles in their deployment gear.

8. No matter how much you try to rationalize it when you get home, you still nailed an ugly chick while you were deployed … and then bragged about it.

9. In some strange way, having access to a Burger King, a Baskin Robbins and a specialty coffee shop makes up for all the mortar and rocket attacks.

10. During daylight hours, U.S. Army helicopters are technologically advanced, highly tuned killing machines; when they’re screaming over your hooch at 1 a.m., 2 a.m. and again at 3:30 a.m., they turn into annoyingly loud, supped-up lawnmowers.

11. Military leaders decided to protect deployed service members from dangerous insect-borne diseases by having them dowse their combat uniforms with a highly concentrated insect repellant. Unfortunately, most of the insects come out at night when military members are wearing their unprotected fitness uniforms. Yeah, a lot of thought when into that one.

12. Between maintenance delays, passenger terminal problems and other miscellaneous blunders, a seven-hour flight from Baltimore to Ramstein Air Base, Germany, is actually less attractive than a 14-hour-long dental procedure.

13. Female service members – no matter where they rank on the evolutionary chain -- are always the center of attention in a deployed environment.

14. A female service member’s self esteem becomes noticeably higher the closer they are to a deployed environment.

15. The "e" in Army stands for "efficiency."

16. Some Soldiers who read this might feel good about No. 15, so let me clarify … it’s spelled A-R-M-Y, not A-R-M-E-E.

17. When an Army or Marine Corps officer makes a bad decision, he will not admit it. Instead, he immediately changes the policy so that it mirrors his bad decision, thus making his decision correct.