Manuel's Guesthouse in Monterosso, Italy

Where the stairs never end

05/28/2013 - 06/01/2013 70 °F

We arrived in beautiful Monterosso, Italy 4 days ago and we haven't posted since because we've been in paradise. It is the most amazing place I have ever been. We stayed at Manuel's Guesthouse, a little pink guesthouse that you have to climb about 130 steps up to get to...totally worth it for the amazing view. The people who run it are so nice as well...Lorenzo (who is extremely attractive) and his dad Gio (who speaks almost no English). Our friend Gio has made us the best cappuccinos and breakfast to enjoy on our patio overlooking the water...leaps and bounds better than Joanna's breakfast of hard boiled eggs.

For dinner we went to La Barcaccia Pizzeria and sat next to four crazy older Irish women. They were hilarious and we became fast friends with them. They gave us lots of tips on what to do in Dublin and taught us to say "Deadly Bulls" and "where's the craic?!"...craic means fun.

We went hiking on the trails through the mountains and along the cliffs between the towns. The views were picturesque (we had to start coming up with synonyms for beautiful because we were sounding redundant). All the way up the mountains vineyards, olives, and other plants are growing. It's incredible. Exhausting but incredible.

On our second day hike we found ourselves singing "these are the stairs that never end...they just go on and on my friend..." According to this man made map we were almost there. False. The map was not to scale and we had almost 2 more hours.

Needless to say we took advantage of our ritual siesta almost every day we were here.

Our friends from A&M that we met up with in Barcelona were also in Cinque Terre so we had dinner with them one night. We went to L'Ancora della Tortuga, a restaurant built into the mountain and overlooking the water (the boys wanted a view of the sunset). While we confirmed that almost nobody enjoys anchovies, we enjoyed a fabulous meal with Chianti wine and great company.

We knew we were going to love the food in Italy, so just in case any of you decide to come to Monterosso we feel inclined to tell you about one more place you must stop to eat. Il Casello, an outdoor restaurant right on the water. Order the seafood risotto.