For years I had a picture of an Italian town as the desktop image on my computer. It was my dream to see that town in person. The town was Manarola, Italy in Cinque Terre.

When Jonathan’s brothers decided that Cinque Terre would be a fun place to spend a few days before meeting up with everyone at the villa, we knew we had to join them.

Our first stop of our Italy tour was Corniglia, in Cinque Terre, where we met up with Jonathan’s two brothers and sisters-in-law.

Cinque Terre has to be one of the most beautiful places on earth. It’s amazing.

The towns are all small and winding through the hills. There are very few cars, and it makes for really fun exploring.

Jonathan and I ate dinner up on the roof of the apartment building where we were staying and watched the sunset.

Then it was time to meet Brian and Jamie. Their train was arriving at 9:30pm. So, Jonathan and I walked down the hill to the train station (a 25 minute walk, because the bus stops at 8pm).

But, they missed their train. The next one wasn’t until 11:05 pm. So, we went back to our room, and came back down then.

They missed that one too. This time we decided to stay at the station and wait until the last train came at 1:05am. Thankfully, everyone was on that train. So we were there to help everyone take their bags up the hill into the town and settle in to the apartment and prepare for our hiking the next day.