While we were staying in Deiva Marina we met this girl Gina and her mom Pat from California, with whom we spent some time in the evening drinking wine and talking until late. They told us about some very cool churches and a cemetery in Monterosso that we hadn't seen (and were too odd to not go see!) when we were there, so with one day left in this area (and in Italy!) we decided to revisit Monterosso al Mare and explore the town more throroughly.
Here is the entrance to the first of the three churches Gina and Pat had told us about! They called it the "Alice in Wonderland" church...we thought it looked more like something out of "Beetlejuice"!
Here is the inside of the church. The columns look like the sandsnake from the movie!!
Here's the second church, which also had stripes on the outside (weird, no?).
The interior. This church was sort of comically creepy, because if you look closely the church is decorated with lots of really morbid things (like skeletons!). But it's done in such a way that it's not really spooky, just kind of funny...
Say hello to Mr. Skeleton! He's lounging around chilling out with his wreath and sceptre. Maybe it's something we'll all have on us in the afterlife :P
A very cute street in Monterosso.
We were on the lookout for a cemetery (that Gina told us about), but had a bit of trouble finding it. We saw this hike up a hill in Monterosso and just started to go on it, and lo and behold, it led to the cemetery!
Looking down the hill during our hike...cool forest! Looks like a place where giant mushrooms grow and very short people live in trees!
Here is the cemetery Gina and Pat told us about. The cemetery was divided into two sections; this section is where coffins are housed in little cubicles. This was just one of many, many rows of coffins!
A view from the cemetery corner...
In the other section of the cemetery, there were lots of giant mausoleums, which housed entire families.
And of course, to go with the dead people...a church! This one was really tiny, the size of a living room! It was jammed into the cemetery...you can see all the plots built up right against it. We couldn't go inside because the door was gated but we stuck our heads through the gate and it was kind of creepy because it was obviously a place that was used only by the dead passing through on their way to their cement beds!
A view of the town from the hilltop.
We came down the hill via a different path and this was what it looked like looking back up at the cemetery.
At a certain point down the hill, some housing starts. This was someone's garden terrace overlooking the town and the ocean. You can see the rail tracks too! How awesome would it be to lay in that hammock with a drink on a sunny day and have this view?!
Random street view!
One last church...the pirate church! See the little pirate ship hanging in the middle (it's where the top of arch is in the photo)? All around the church there were boats hanging like this...some strings had up to five boats hanging together!
A view of the town and the little clock tower.
Yet again, stuffing ourselves with another gelato! This time, pineapple.
Dinner time! Stefan had another lasagna al pesto. It was still yummy but it was definitely nowhere near as good as the one we had the day before in Vernazza.
Cliff tried a quiche-like pastry, where the main ingredient is rice. Not bad!
Stefan wanted to pig out so on top of the lasagna he had this ridiculously delicious focaccia with caramelized onions! It really was just focaccia bread with caramelized onions on top but it was unexplainably fantastic!! He scarfed it down like Cookie Monster!!
So ends our time in Italy. Although we weren't left amazed by Italy, we left the country on a high note. We both loved Cinque Terre: the weather was amazing, the towns were all beautiful, and our streak of bad luck with Italian food ended definitively here with some amazing food and meals we will never forget!
No comments:
Post a Comment