While at Portovenere we spent a day exploring Cinque Terre. A day really isn’t long enough but we still managed to get a quick look at all 5 towns. We walked Via Dell’Amore (Love Walk) and the track between Vernazza and Montorosso, but the rest of it we went by train. A section of the track around Vernazza was damaged earlier this year by floods and landslides and still wasn’t open. Vernazza itself was damaged and they were still doing repairs and pumping muddy water when we were there. On the walk to Montorosso we found a little Italian man sitting inside a makeshift shelter selling freshly made lemonade, red wine and limoncello.  Needless to say, we nearly kissed the guy and the rest of the walk was made with lighter heads (and wallets!).

And what a night it was! Everything was perfect. Mel had made hundreds of paper flowers and transported them, and a multitude of other arty decorations, all the way to Italy. The flowers were used on the cake, as table decorations, as buttonholes and as boquets. Much to the boys’ delight, they were asked to make the lego decoration that went on the cake that was made by the bride and bridesmaids. A variety of food was decoratively arranged in the arches and everyone had a chance to paint part of a canvas with the outline of the town of Vernazza on it. Riley spent hours carefully copying the photo onto the canvas. Finn spent the night on the dancefloor and was a crowd favourite…as usual. I think his haircut had a bit to do with it as well. Thanks to Dao for all these photos. Only one of them is mine!!

Our next stop was Portovenere, where Dave and Mel were getting married (photos of this later). We had about a week in this beautiful part of Italy, just north of Cinque Terre (photos of this also later). Dave and Mel found us some gorgeous accommodation right on the water and a few hundred metres from the piazza. The town has an interesting history and several restaurants and cafes. It is a popular place for weddings and we saw one nearly every day we were there…but none as big as Dave and Mel’s. The wedding was in the castle, waaaay up on the hill. Yep, lots and lots of steps. Not so bad going up, not so great coming down after many drinks….