I am continuing the honeymoon recap posts, but if you have missed any of the first recaps, make sure to check out:

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We had big plans to explore the other towns in the Cinque Terre on our first full day in this region, so Brian and I wanted to start the day with a delicious and healthy breakfast.

Because our apartment had a small kitchen, we had the luxury of purchasing a couple of items at the grocery store to keep on hand for breakfast and snacks.  Everything in Italy, and especially in this region seemed so FRESH.  So, when I purchased our breakfast items fresh fruit was the main thing that I put in my basket.

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That’s me, choppin’ up some fruit…

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Our breakfast was a bowl of plain yogurt with a spoonful of nutella mixed in topped with peaches, apples, blueberries, and pear.  YUM!

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One of my favorite things about Italy was that it was light outside early in the morning, and it was warm outside in the morning too.  This made eating breakfast outdoors on our balcony a must!

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After our yummy and fresh breakfast, we headed to the train station to catch the train to the farthest Cinque Terre town, Monterosso.

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While waiting for the train, I ended up meeting a girl who was from Indiana and was in the same sorority as me…SMALL WORLD!

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When we arrived in Monterosso, we decided to walk around for a bit to see what this town  had to offer.  We ended up finding a cute little cafe on the beach with cappuccino (yay!) and internet for only 1 euro for 24 hours!  We ended up going back to that cafe several times.

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Once we were caffeinated, Brian and I were ready to hit the hiking trails.

One of the unique attributes about these five towns is that they are all so close together.  Because they are relatively close, there are hiking trails that connect each town to the next and many people hike through all of the towns within a day.

Brian and I PLANNED on hiking through all the towns…

Monterosso in the background

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But when we got to a trail head, they informed us that only two of the paths were open due to landslides.  DARN!

No big deal though, Brian and I just hopped on a boat to head to Vernazza, which was the next town over with an open trail to hike.

Leaving Monterosso

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Saying hello to Vernazza

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Once we got to Vernazza, it was surprisingly lunch time and Brian and I were both hungry…especially if we were about to hike in the 90 degree heat for 2 hours.

After surveying the food options in Vernazza, we decided on La Taverna Del Capitano.

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The restaurant had outdoor seating located right on the main square of the city.  It was perfect!

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I chose the salmon marinated in salt, which turned out to be very much like smoked salmon and was extremely delicious!

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We both shared the fresh caprese salad.

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Brian, who had been craving spaghetti since day 1, opted for the spaghetti with seafood (frutti di mare).

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He still says that this was by far his favorite dish of the trip!

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Once our energy levels were restored, we walked around the cute town of Vernazza to let our food digest and then we were off to hit the trail.

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One thing that Brian and I were hoping to do was put our “love lock” on the Via dell’Amore (the Lovers Road).  This was the trail from Riomaggiore to Monarola that was closed during our visit.  On that trail, there is a statue of two lovers and several couples put a lock signifying their love to one another around this statue.  Because the Via dell’Amore was closed, Brian and I were on the lookout for another location to lock our love away (we had seen several places in Florence!)

On our first hike we found a perfect spot!

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Our love will be forever locked away in the Cinque Terre.

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After locking away our love, we continued our hike from Vernazza to Corniglia.

Aren’t the views amazing!?

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We were very hot, we were running low on water, but the views made it 100% worth it.

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Once the hike was complete, we were in need of some fuel and cool air.

We found the Gelataria Artigianale, which was recommended by Rick Steves himself (there was a picture of him at the restaurant outside!)

Brian opted for the refreshing lemon granita made with local, organic, fresh lemons (so good!)

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I opted for the fig smoothie made with local figs!  They were both absolutely refreshing 🙂

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After the hike, we explored Corniglia a bit more popping in and out of the shops and admiring the views of the coast.

Once we were done exploring, it was time to head back to our little home for the week in Riomaggiore.  We were both extremely sweaty and more than ready to shower and clean up.

The night before, while we were sitting on our balcony, we noticed everyone walking down to the water with a bottle of wine and a box of pizza to watch the sunset.  We knew that this was something we HAD to do as well, so we made this night the night!

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The pizza’s looked large, but the crust was so paper thin that they really weren’t as HUGE as they seemed.  Brian and I opted for the pesto pizza, and after about a 10 minute wait we headed down to a little spot that we had picked out by the water.

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When we were looking around the town the day before, we spotted an area of steps built right into the rock overlooking the water.  We were SURE that these steps were going to be completely full so we were nervous that we would have to find an alternate dinner location…

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It turns out that we were wrong and we had the steps to ourselves the entire night!

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The sunset was gorgeous, the pizza was tasty, and the wine was refreshing.

It was such a relaxing way to end our first full day in this beautiful region.

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