Hyeres, Monaco, Riomaggore, Swiss Alps

9-29-09

Hello everyone from the CinqueTerre. I woke up early this morning to get a better look at Riomaggore. We arrived around 6:30 last night in the midst of a beautiful Mediterranean sunset. The drive from San Remo, Italy, not far from the border of Monaco, took us a little more than six hours. We probably could have made it a lot sooner if we had taken the autostrade, but who would want to do that when we could take the long, curvy, and slow road along the majestic sea-side cliffs.

On Friday, we arrived in Hyeres Les Palmiers. It was our first stop on the Cote d’Azur. We went out to dinner at an outdoor restaurant in the section of Hyeres called the port. The next morning we walked through le centre-ville in the old part of Hyeres not far from our hotel. Lining the streets were markets selling fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, and fish. The atmosphere was pretty amazing. The streets were packed with mostly locals and we got to see what it was like to live around here. After stopping for a bite to eat at a café, we walked up to the old, old town. It’s built on a steep mountain that must be at least a thousand feet high. Almost at the stop were the Sainte Claire botanical gardens. They were on the property of an old castle mansion with the most beautiful view of the city and sea. After we descended all the way down the mountain we drove over to the port area again and the beaches. The beach we stopped at had tons of wind-surfers and kite-surfers cruising around about 500 feet off shore. Across the road were lagoons with thousands of light pink flamingos.

We left Hyeres on Sunday morning, headed for Monaco. We took the coastal route the entire way which took six or so hours. The pictures on facebook show the amazing views. When we finally got to Monaco we were starving. It took us thirty or so minutes to find parking, then we walked around for another thirty minutes trying to find a place to eat but it was Sunday and almost nothing was open. We finally found a place called “Café Paris” but when we realized that a beer was eight euros we decided just to leave Monaco. So we walked around a little bit, saw what we needed to see, then got back in the car and left.

· We left the Cote d’Azur for the Italian Riviera. The roads and vistas weren’t much different, still very stunning. Everything did seem a little bit older though. The roads seemed a little narrower and we soon got sick of them. Still with nothing in our stomachs we decided to check into a hotel and eat. The first couple of hotels were nice but seemed a little expensive.. about 100 euros for a night.. so we continued our search. One change we noticed was that most of the hotel receptionists in Italy, or atleast the 4-5 we visited, didn’t know any English. We finally found a place in San Remo right along the ocean for a decent price. When we went down to the restaurant we realized that we might have been the only ones staying that night, though. It seemed pretty empty. The hotel was old but nice. It had an indoor and outdoor pool and all the rooms had views but I think it was a hell of a lot nicer when it was built. I couldn’t stop thinking about the mafia while I was in Italy. The music from the Godfather kept playing in my head. I wish I would have had the Godfather soundtrack on my iPod, I would have listened to it.

· The next morning we packed our stuff and were off again. We drove for about four or five hours on the coastal route and realized that we were making horrible time. After we passed through the major city of Genova we hopped on the Autostrade and quickly made it to Riomaggore. What a beautiful little town. It’s nestled into a little cove with huge mountains on both sides. There was only one entrance to the city, and once you entered you had to pay a few euros to park for an hour while you looked for somewhere to stay. We found a place on the second story of an old building which lined the main street. You can tell all the buildings were really old because the stairs to the room were made out of stone. I can’t even really explain how amazing this little town was. If you ever plan on going on a vacation to the Italian Riviera, definitely stay in Riomaggore in the Cinque Terre. I wish we could have stayed longer here and explored the four other villages. It’s truly amazing, one- if not the best place we’ve been so far.

Well, we had planned to stay in Florence tonight, but we decided to get out of Italy and head for the Swiss Alps. We’re in a little town 1000 meters above sea-level in the Italian part. I’m so glad we made the choice we did because it’s spectacular here. The town is called Rossa and it’s in a valley between two massive mountains, both probably 1500 meters in elevation. There is a waterfall cascading down from the top of the rock face on our left and I think I’m going to walk over there now to check it out.

I’m sorry I hadn’t posted in a couple of days but we’ve been very busy. Tomorrow we’ll be in Austria, hopefully staying in a place similar to this because it’s awesome. Ciao! oh and i love you courtney