Italy {part 2}

After seeing the amazingly blue Mediterranean waters the day before, on our second day in Italy we decided to head back to Monterosso al Mare to spend a day at the beach.  It was perfect!  We had a lunch of foccacia sandwiches and of course more gelato.  There was a cute little Italian family that had the set of chairs next to us.  Their little 3 year old boy shared his trucks with Grayson and Avery enjoyed building sand castles with him. 

{after our day at the beach and ready for a hike}

 We peeled ourselves away from the beach in the afternoon to do the hike between Monterosso and Vernazza.  The kids were troopers...Gray took a nap in the ergo on the way up and Avery climbed up the millions of stairs for the first 45 minutes or so.  It was supposed to be a 3 hour hike, but once Avery needed to be carried after about an hour into it we decided to turn around and hike back to Monterosso.  

{Our first great views of Monterosso on the hike}

{the hike along the coast}

{some of the stairs Avery hiked up}

{vineyards} 

Day 3 in Italy:

We decided to take a back roads drive through the Northern hills of Tuscany.  We stopped at a few towns along the way, sometimes taking turns checking out a little town as the kids got naps in the car.  It was like stepping back in time and so beautiful!  We didn't see any other tourists until our very last stop.

Our first stop was Pontremoli.  This town was first mentioned in AD 990 and there were some alley ways that we walked through that really felt like they were medieval.  

{Pontremoli}

{Gray wandering the streets in Pontremoli}

Our next stop was Castello Malaspina di Malgrate.  It's a medieval fortress built in the 13th century but inside it was a tiny town.  I walked through as Jake stayed with sleeping kids in the car and was the only one in the town until I met this old man who was taking care of all the cats in the town.  

{the cat man}

{view of the Tuscan hills}

{olive tree}

   

After a quick stop at Bagnone we went to Fosdinovo and took a tour of the Castello di Fosdinovo.

{waiting for our tour of the Castello di Fosdinovo}

{inside the castle}

{a view of Fosdinovo from the castle walls}

{on top of the walls}

{a view of the sea in the distance}

We made a random stop for dinner at this crazy pizzaria in the middle of nowhere.  We were there kind of early for Italian standards so there weren't many people there, but by the time we left it looked like a local hot spot.  The food was delicious and the decor was...interesting!