Cinque Terre

For Rachel M., who would have totally had my back today. It is obvious that love your boys so much and I love how much you like to have fun with them. Today was pretty much a "kid day" here and you would have loved it. And you would have vetoed rock climbing, just like me!
This morning we hit the trails to check out Cinque Terra. Hiking is huge here and it takes a full day up and down very treacherous mountains to hike all 5 villages (we didn't even attempt- if our kids had been 10 years older we would be all over it). The roads are so steep that I can't imagine the mountains!
We hit up the playground and it had such amazing views overlooking the Mediterranean. There were some jagged rocks jutting out into the sea with huge waves crashing into them that some people (adults) were climbing on and the kids wanted to go play on them. I could see Curtis opening his mouth to say "I'll race you there!" I beat him to it and said "No way!" He told me later he thought it would have been fine. You're killing me, Schmidty. We played and explored, had a picnic and came back to the rental because Abe was really needing a nap!
After nap we hopped a train and hit up the village two towns over that had a sandy beach! We had their suits in case we had a hotel with a pool but we didn't plan to come to the beach so I didn't have their swim shirts and I annoyed everyone with my excessive sunblock use, but the sun is SO intense here and the folks are very dark complected and 3 of my guys are not! Abe kept yelling "I no need sunbwock, I an Indian." Only one one side, kid. The train was so crowded and so European- there was no order to it, just crowd around the train and push your way on or else miss the train. Luckily we have spent some time in France and have a system down (Curtis holds Abe and blazes a trail, I hold the other two's hands and Beck holds Curtis's shirt from behind).
I use the term "sandy" loosely because it was pretty pebbled. I wish a geologist had been there to explain all the pretty rocks to me. So colorful and the sand sparkled like it had gold flecks in it. The water was COLD.  As soon as the sun started to set it was way too cold at the beach. The Europeans are very comfortable with their bodies. Thongs, speedos, bras and some folks just wore nothing but panties. All body types wore whatever they wanted to the beach and no one else thought it was any of their business. I'm an American so I wore a tank top!
We found an outdoor restraunt at the beach and had some dinner then headed home to bed.
It was a fun day and the views were amazing and tomorrow we head back to the farm before we make a LONG trek back to Toulouse! I better start fasting now before they start feeding me again! Good thing I brought some stretchy pants.