Arcola, Italy

On the ride to Cinque Terre, Paolo, a teacher from my school, asked if we wanted to take a little detour and see the town where he grew up until he was about 9 years old. Ummm... YES! Definitely. Julie and I like these kinds of detours.  : )  He said that he still visits about once a year.

The town of Arcola is one of the small, gorgeous towns that you see atop a hill while driving along the autostrade. It is cute, quaint, gorgeous... and makes you want to move there! Julie and I did talk about renting an apartment for a summer, ha.

Below are some pictures from our walk through this hilltop town:

Cute (CUTE!) mailbox:

We wove our way through tiny street alleys... simply continuing up the entire way... and found ourselves at this main square... with quite the view of Liguria's hillside!

Julie was grinning... taking it all in... and she didn't stop grinning until her two-week trip was over!

Ahhhhh Arcola. Gorgeous.

After walking through that lovely hilltop town... Paolo took us to a spot at the bottom (which almost feels like a separate town). He grew up in a house here and the school is next door. We took a small walk and had gorgeous views of the overall town.

Joolie, Stazy, Paolo...

Arcola...

trip to Cinque Terre with Joolie!

I am currently in Denver, Colorado - staying with my brother, his wife, and their dog. I love it here. I also loved my 8 days in Penfield, New York at my parents' house.

For now, though, I need to back up a bit and want to post about my long weekend trip to Cinque Terre! I went twice this past Spring... it is just 3 hours from Milan... and Cinque Terre is magical.

A good friend of mine from Denver, Julie, came to visit me when I had a long weekend for International Labor Day at the very beginning of May... and she wanted to go to Cinque Terrrrrrre!  : )  The maps below show where this is in relation to Milan.

I bought our train tickets early since it was a holiday weekend... buuuut then there was a chance of a strike, so Julie and I rode to Manarola (one of the towns of Cinque Terre) with a teacher from my school who is from there! He was also going for the long weekend and had offered to drive us beforehand but we figured we would take the train (and I already had the tickets). We waited for him in the middle of the small roundabout outside my building... we were very ready for the weekend adventure!  : )

...I mean, a weekend with this magical view that is real?!?! Yes, please!!...