Cinque Terre, Italy - DAY THREE

Today the plan was to visit the three towns we had not seen yet... Riomaggiore (The first town), Manarola (The second town) and Monterosso (The fifth town).
We hopped on the train (There is a train station in each town and all five are connected by this track) and went to the beginning - Riomaggiore. Our first impression was that the town was lovely, however we found the town centre fairly hard to find. We wandered around the town, stopped to have a look at the harbour and the sea, and we took in some views of the town from the surrounding hills. From there we jumped back onto the train and headed to the second town, Manarola. This town was lovely as well. We did the same thing here in this town... wandered around it's centre, had a look at the harbour (We stopped for a capuccino here); took in some views and hopped on the train to see the fifth town, Monterosso. We had heard alot about this town as it is the only one with a real sandy beach, and the most popular with tourists. When we pulled up on the train we were quite impressed but once we entered the town we realized just HOW touristy it was.... not so nice. There was a boardwalk which gave it a kind-of Florida feel which I didn't like. We thought we might take a dip but changed our minds quickly as the beach was packed with tourists. We had some lunch - baguette and salami and what we thought was a spreadable cheese but turned out to be butter (yuck). After lunch we hopped back onto the train to go back to our favourite town, our home in Cinque Terre, the beautiful Vernazza.
Once we arrived back in the town Luke took a nap and I took my book to the water and read in the sun.... wonderful. After a while Luke joined me, we continued to sit in the sun and enjoy our surroundings until we decided to head back to our room to change for dinner. Once we were ready to go we decided to have a pre-dinner cocktail so we grabbed a seat at one of the lovely outdoor patios by the water where I enjoyed a VERY strong and refreshing Mojito and Luke had a VERY strong Whiskey and Coke. YUM. During this drink some people put on a silly show in the piazza, which we found very amusing and entertaining (It was for the children of the town but was great none-the-less). After a few more drinks (Our hunger was subdued for a while by the snacks they served everytime we ordered a drink (With the first drink it was little snack size pizza and sandwich pieces and a small bowl of chips and with the second drink it was more sandwich thingys and a ton of carrot sticks!).
After the drinks we found a lovely outdoor restaurant where we were seated next to a couple from Seattle. Luke and I had a great meal and a nice bottle of wine and ended up sitting chatting with the couple until the restaurant closed. It was great.
I WILL ADD MORE PHOTOS FROM THIS DAY AT A LATER TIME SO HAVE A SECOND LOOK AT SOME POINT.