Cinque Terre

From Rome we took the train up the western coast to the Cinque Terre, a group of five villages perched on cliffs overlooking the sea. The region is exquisitely beautiful and therefore (quite understandably) touristy. Luckily May isn't yet peak tourist season, so the crowds didn't really get in the way of us enjoying the hiking, views, and food.

Hiking is the main daytime activity (you go to a nice restaurant in the evening and watch the sunset) because there is a lovely path that follows the coast and connects the five towns. The towns are close enough that you could hike from one end to the other pretty easily in one day. We opted for taking it easy and splitting the hike between two days.

This is the best overview picture I have. You can see two towns, Corniglia (closer) and Manarola.

This is a view looking northwest at the northernmost town, Monterosso. There were pretty flowers like those in the foreground along the entire path.

There is a also a ferry (and a train) that goes between the five towns. These more modern forms of transportation allow you to hike the path without having to do any backtracking. I spent pretty much the entire ferry ride snapping pictures, and this is the best one I got, a view of Corniglia.

Here we are zoomed in a bit with a focus on the path. This is a pretty little bridge crossing a pretty little stream.

The path got steep at points, and this was the steepest part. They were kind enough to build steps though. As you can see, there were lots of people, but I think we were pretty good at not getting in each other's way.
Here's me enjoying some of the best pizza I've ever tasted. It's basically a cheese pizza, but it has pesto slathered all over it, and that made it especially yummy.