Cinque Terre/Portofino

I am pretty far behind on blogging because my family came into town! It's amazing having them here, but my schedule is a little bit different (aka, I am never home and I am running around Florence). So until I get back from Spring Break (Barcelona and Paris- keep a look out for those pictures), I won't be blogging on my day-to-day stuff; it'll mostly be our pictures from our trips.

Rachel and I went to Cinque Terre and Portofino through school last weekend. The weather was amazing, and we spent two days basically touring around and chilling at the beach. Heaven.

An amazing view from a seaside restaurant in Camogli.

This is Portofino. Since we got here by boat, it reminded me a little bit of Venice.

The first town we went to, Riomaggiore.

We 'hiked' through the 5 towns on the Via dell'Amore.

Lovers put locks on the bars (and also melt large pieces of glass onto it as well, weird), signifying love, like they do on the Ponte Vecchio.

We also ate well- the specialty of the Ligurian region is pesto with trofie pasta (which is a specialty to the region and you will almost never see it in America), and I ate a lot of focaccia, which is different there than in Florence; in Liguria it is softer and much more oily. Yum. I brought home a bag of Croxetti Genovesi pasta, which is a disk-shaped pasta that is stamped. I had never seen it before. You can see a picture of it here.

It was a fantastic trip, the Ligurian region is so beautiful and relaxing. What a great way to welcome in spring and summer.

Ciao!