I'mmmm Baccckkkkk

What a vacation that was. I have been back for almost a week, but unfortunately due to work only now am I getting down to writing about the trip. It was fantastic. Steph picked me up in the airport at Frankfurt, and we drove down through Germany into the Swiss alps. Of course being somewhat jet lagged I slept through half that drive. But apparently the scenery was amazing. We reached a town on the Swiss/Italy border called Lugano where we stayed the night. We got up the next morning and headed down to Cinque Terre Italy. Cinque Terre is a large region in Italy that is part of the Italian Riviera. Its also an environmentally controlled area, which means no cars, the trains are electic, and they protect where people can go as to not hurt the envinronement. The other neat thing is that its man made. A couple of centuries ago these people moved to the edge of cliffs and litterally started farming them, creating terraces to grow Rosemary, Olive and Lemon trees, Grape vines and more. It was truly amazing to see.
Cinque Terre is essentially made up of 5 small towns, along these cliffs.
We stayed in Riomaggiore:

This picture is from our balcony where we stayed looking over the village and out into the Mediteranean. Amazing view. We spent a lot of time just sitting here looking at the beautiful water. One of the most spectacular views was the sun setting over the cliffs and ocean:

Back to the trip. Our first full day in Cinque Terre we hiked the five villages. They are only about 8 km apart but with all the changes, twists and turns and changes in eleveations it ends up being somewhere around 12km hike. It was spectacular views, although at the end I thought i was going to die climbing all the steps. It was weird to walk some of these paths and realizing that a century ago those were the only ways to get from village to village. That night we had an great dinner of pizza and wine. The food here is fantastic, lots of sea food and great wine something I tend to enjoy. Our second day, we basically spent recovering from the hike which was a good thing since it was really crappy outside. Our last full day in Cinque Terre we hiked up to the Sanctuary which is on another cliff. This is the town's burial place, and it was introspective being at the Sanctuary looking out over the water. The next day Steph and I were pretty sad, tearing ourselves away from our isolation in this beautiful place we left and headed back home home in a meandering way. Our first stop was Parma, home of the Cheese and Parma ham, a particular kind of Prosciutto. We walked around the town and then picked up some bread, ham and cheese and headed on an excursion to find a place to picnic.

After lunch we were back on the road heading up to Trentino in the Dolomites, the foothills to the Austrian Alps. We stayed the night there, the next morning waking up to visit a local winery Rotari MezzaCorona, which was fun. Finally we were on the road for good back to Cologne, Germany where Steph is staying. We got there late Friday evening and crashed. The next day Steph took me on a tour of her hood. Cologne is a great city, very young population it seemed to me. The center of the town is the Dom, or Cathedral. This is one spectacular church. Pictures I will share later. Sunday our last day to gether we just walked around the town, went to mass and hung out it was nice. Monday I was off on a train to Frankfurt Airport and back to the states. All in all a wonderful trip. Of course I have more pictures to spare and will be posting them as the mood permits, in an ttempt to follow in the footsteps of the Rube I will probalby post some as random photos of the day (although my photos aren't half as good as his).