Shut the shutters!

I love shutters!  They are not only functional; they are filled with a romantic allure. Where are we now?  Can you tell?

I read on a blog once (and of course if my source is a blog, we know it's a fact!), that you can tell what country you're in by the color of the shutters.  In France the shutters are blue and in Italy they are green.  Well, while that hasn't always been the case, it is mostly true.  So we've moved from bon jour to buongiorno!

Our traveling day from Avignon, France to Manarola, Italy was lllloooonnnngggg!!!  We left at 5:45 A.M. and arrived at our room at 11:00 P.M.  We had a 5 1/2 hour stop over in Nice, France so we could eat lunch and say that we visited the Cote d'Azur.  Nice was nice, but in my opinion, California is nicer.  The beach was filled with large rocks...didn't look appealing.  The women seemed comfortable in their bikinis, regardless of age or body type....with or without tops.  And the guys were in their Speedos, regardless of age or body type.

But now we're in the Cinque Terre, five small fishing villages on the northwest coast of Italy.  The towns are so charming and the view of the sea is breathtaking.  In the picture I'm trying to point to our

room but I didn't do a very good job.  It's the yellow house on the top of the hill on the edge of the cliff which provides amazing views of the sea and the other villages. 

But....that view from the top of the hill also meant a steep incline.  We had arrived at 11:00 p.m. and were disoriented.  We were reading directions and looking around looking confused with our gazillion pounds of luggage in tow.  A sweet, elderly couple were on their evening walk (at 11:00?  shouldn't they be in bed at a local rest home at this hour?) and stopped to help us.  They were amazing!  Not only did the gent give us directions, in rapid Italian (what was that?  something about a court and a cross...I got that much from gestures) but when he saw that we still looked confused, he started walking with us.  This is when I knew I had met an angel unaware because he grabbed my very heavy suitcase and pulled it up this steep hill at such a clip I could barely keep up.  Then he lifted the suitcase and put it in our hotel, all without even getting winded.  (I was panting!)  I'm guessing he was in his 70's....if only I could age like that!  

But that climb gave us such an amazing view!

(the view from our room's window)

(We love Manarola!!  Check out the fishing boats parked in the streets.)