Monterosso al Mare to Faulty Architecture

Our trip to the hotel Porto Roca was a very long, confusing and stressful trip.  The GPS has not been the biggest help, and we didn't read the itinerary very closely.  This particular hotel does not have a parking lot so we were told to park in a lot and call the hotel to get picked up via taxi.  We followed signs to Monterosso and found a public parking garage that we assumed was where we were supposed to be...it turns out we were only 5 minutes away from our hotel, but because of severe flooding last year, the town limited the driving to a few roads.  The lot we were supposed to be in was up the windy road and back down another windy road and took 20 minutes to get there.

We then called the hotel and were told that the taxi driver was there, we just had to go to the front, so we went to the "front" and saw the taxi driver go past us to the entrance gate.  At this point, I looked at Robert and said "this hotel better be worth all this!"

We loaded up in the taxi and started driving through the town on the beachfront.  We then pulled up to this road:

Yes, that is a road, and a walking path to and from the hotel.  We were in a van that maybe had an inch on either side.  It was quite the adventure.

I am happy to say that the hotel was worth it and was probably my favorite hotel from the trip.  It wasn't glitzy or glamorous, but the staff was extremely friendly, the view was gorgeous, and it was very relaxing.

I still wasn't feeling great, so I ended up taking a nap before dinner.  We had dinner at the hotel and tried some of the local wine.  All the wait staff was very friendly and we were treated to limoncello and sweet wine as a congratulations.  

The tub in the hotel room was a jacuzzi tub, so of course, I had to try it out.  Afterwards, I walked out onto our deck and was greeted by a flash of lightning off in the distance.  The rest of the night it was quite the light show, and the sound effects were pretty impressive as well.

The next morning, I started feeling slightly better, and we asked what the suggested "to-do's" were for the area.  The town itself had some walking paths and a few things to see, and there was a train that could take us to the other towns in Cinque Terre.  The hotel also offered a few spa services, and we asked what time we could schedule massages, and opted to do that instead of touring the other areas. Before the massage we had lunch in a small, family owned restaurant and wandered around Monterosso.  It was raining hard off and on all day, so we went back to the room to warm up and dry off.  

After the massage (70 minutes of heaven!) we made reservations for the restaurant at the bottom of the hill.  One of the specialties of this place, was a seafood soup that was boiled in a ceramic pot.  There were several large groups at the restaurant that ordered the soup and even though I don't like seafood, it was pretty impressive to watch them serve it.  They basically dumped the lobster out and some of the juice and the spread out the rest of the contents which included varying fish, crab, oysters, mussels, octopus and who knows what else.  

The next morning, Tuesday, we woke up to beautifully sunny skies, and a nice cool breeze and then sadly had to say goodbye to Monterosso, but I have a feeling we would be back.  We both really liked the place and it was nice to relax after touring the Tuscan countryside for a week.  

We hopped back in the car and headed to Pisa before heading to Florence.  We wandered around Pisa and took pictures, but when we saw that it was 15 euros to go up to the top, we opted not to.  We found a pizza joint and had pizza in Pisa just for my dad.  Picture coming soon.  

After Pisa, we headed to Florence for a few days...I think that will have to be another post though!!