While staying in Levanto, I did a day trip to Lucca, Tuscany. What a cute city! First I rented a bike, and rode it around the ramparts enclosing the old part of town. It was so beautiful biking through rows of trees lining the ramparts, while looking down into the historical streets of Levanto. The breeze from biking was a very welcome addition to a hot day.

After my one-hour bicycle rental was up, I wandered around town enjoying the quirky, curvy streets. I wish I had my wide angle lens with me to take a good shoot of the city center which was a big circle with all of the buildings bending to create the shape. Lucca was a lovely sidestep on my trip.

Here’s a shaky little video of my biking the ramparts in Lucca. I definitely don’t have a future career in bicycle filming.

Now that wedding season is over, I’ll be doing more blog posts from my trips to Italy this past year. Some colour for the winter months! : )

Cinque Terre…. definitely one of my top three favourite places in Italy. This was my third time that I’ve been to Cinque Terre and I’m sure I’ll be back. Cinque Terre is made up of 5 small seaside villages: Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso. The name “Cinque Terre” fittingly translates to “five lands.” Set on the Ligurian coast, Cinque Terre is so special it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. No cars are allowed inside, giving you a feeling of being slightly separated from the outside world, in your own lovely little Italian reality. : ) You can get from town to town via train, passenger ferry, or walking the amazing trails. A couple of the main trails were closed due to maintenance, for one, and a mudslide for the other but I hiked the trails on previous trips and it’s an awesome experience! The first trail between Riomaggiore and Manarola is the shortest, and easiest, even being wheelchair accessible. It’s called “Via Dell’ Amore,” which I doubt I need to translate. : ) It’s lit up at night and is a really nice amble.  It’s fun getting a train day pass as well! I spent one day beach/cove hopping and went swimming first in the Riomaggiore marina area, then the cute cove in Manarola, and finally the small triangular beach in Vernazza (where I stopped for a slice of pizza at a delicious spot by the marina). Corniglia is up higher and doesn’t have an easily accessible beach and Monterosso, the last town, is the only town of the five with a large beach but it has a more resort feel and isn’t as unique so I generally skip that town. I stayed just past Monterosso in the town of Levanto which is not technically part of Cinque Terre but is included in the Cinque Terre day passes, being so close to Monterosso. I’ll be doing a separate post on Levanto though. : )

Below are some photos from my 3 favourite towns in Cinque Terre:

Riomaggiore:

Manarola:

Vernazza:

Quick little Super 8 Video I took of Riomaggiore: