When we got up Saturday we had great plans of getting to the train station to go up to Cinque Terra-a short ride away. We were slow to get up, slow to eat and just plain slow. It became obvious that we wouldn’t make the train so we decided to swim in the Mediterranean, lounge on the pool deck of our hotel and maybe walk into the village for dinner.

Italians eat dinner at 7:30. Many of the restaurants close mid afternoon and don’t open again until 7:30. Stores also close for 2 or 3 hours mid afternoon.

We wandered through the shops sighing at €800 sweaters, and pants etc. Beautiful but obviously for the rich and famous. We couldn’t even afford the half price racks! Found a fabric-store that was selling €65 meter cotton and linen and €300 children’s hand made dresses. Crazy. However, our walk through the village, the cathedral and the faux architecture building was amazing.