Vernazza, Italy
Tullreo's Mama's Apartment

Rick Steves saw our underwear.

Really.

Rick Steves. Saw. Our. Underwear.

I'll back up a little if necessary. Rick Steves is the world famous international travel guru. He writes all sorts of travel books and guides for every European country to help travelers stay and eat and find activities and get through Europe with the most for your money. All sorts of travelers in the airport had his books for wherever they were going. We bought two and we watched a couple of his DVDs.

And then we happened to meet him in Vernazza.

I'll back up again. Vernazza is a very small, coastal town on Italy's northwest side. It is called "the Pearl of the Cinque Terre" (Chin-kway Tay-ray) which is a chain of five (cinque) coastal cities preserved by an Italian national park where no cars or new building is allowed. The five little cities are connected by a hiking trail along the cliff-lined sea and each little town square seems like a time-warp from a hundred years ago. We stayed in Vernazza (ver-not-sah), where an ancient castle tower overlooks the little bay and you can find Tullreo at the beachfront bar where he can take you back through the square to a little old apartment to stay the night. It was here, at the feet of the tower that we ran into Rick Steves. Or 'Ricky' as we would affectionately call him in jest. He happened to be in our town that day to check up on some of the places to stay that he recommended in his books, just to make sure they were still up to par. And which place was he checking up on? Yes, the little room that Tullreo had rented to us. So as we headed on to the hike the trail to another village as we had planned, we watched Tullreo take him up in to our room ... only later remembering that one of our party had left all her underwear out on the pull-out couch. Oh well. With all that that man has seen in his travels, I'm sure he didn't think twice. But that doesn't stop us from making it a running joke for the rest of the trip.

Pignone (pin-yoh-neh) on the way to the Cinque Terre

a time and a place

wine country

save the clock tower! (back to the future)

but that's what it comes down to in the end
and that's enough for me.

i'm all out to sea

eden without sin

polly wants granola bars

along the path

life-size

for we have never known joy like this

i have arrived

pier one

there'd be days like this

here and there

i can see my house from here

flying