Cinque is Italian for the number five.
And, there’s a group of five towns in Italy that are known as the Cinque Terre. We had a three night visit planned there.

We arrived in the Cinque Terre town Monterosso and did all the touristy things; take a ferry ride between towns, walk each town (which ain’t easy cause these towns are built on steep cliffs), watch the rock divers, eat gelato, dine on catch-of-the-day fish, etc. etc.

Leaving Cinque Terre we headed to Lucca, the birthplace of Puccini, for opera, an easy bike ride on the towns medieval wall and everything else Rick Steve’s Italy guidebook told us to do.

After that we had a five night open spot in our calendar, aka being homeless. Talking about what to do for the next five nights, we figured we could go to a couple more towns maybe Genoa or Turin for sightseeing with the attendant train rides, schedules and decisions, or…
Maybe just relax and do NOTHING!

The perfect place to do that?
The exquisite Cinque Terre for five more nights!

We’ve found a great place to stay with a water and sunset view from the patio, and a bright cozy bedroom, this’ll be perfect.

Our B&B La Foce happened to be close to a Tuscany icon, a winding lane bordered by cypress trees.

The view from the porch at La Foce B&B

Tiny Monteriggioni has a cool museum that lets you try on chainmail, we guess the cape weighs 30 lbs.

Roman theater at Volterra, the stage had an additional third tier of arches, which was for the gods.

In fall, the fields seem to be coarsely plowed, these clumps are the size of a shoe box.

Bagno Vignoni sports a warm water pool right in the middle, you can’t go in there, but can dip your feet in the outlet streams.

We first heard a variation of this phrase when we were booking a rafting trip in New Zealand and it seems appropriate to reuse it for our few days in Naples, Italy.
To quote from “Rick Steves Italy 2017”  “Naples is Italy in the extreme” it’s Italy’s third largest city and the densest city in Europe with over a million people in a tight area.

Our arrival in Naples was greeted by a pickpocket who had his fingers in Cindy’s backpack within a few blocks of the train station. I’d turned to see if she was behind me and saw him tight to her back. He saw me see him and quickly heeled around and scurried away. I yelled to Cindy “Check your stuff right now.” She turned to look and the pack was open, her small purse dangling open. The only thing that had been in there was a single credit card. We called and cancelled it immediately and made our way to the Airbnb.

The not-much-wider-than-a-tiny-car cobblestone streets are hemmed in on each side by five-story apartment buildings, we walked with gobs of people who seem to live a good part of their life in on those streets.
Tiny cafes, al fresco dining, and mid block bar/cafes are everywhere and all day until past midnight everyone is out walking, drinking, eating and talking. This city is alive! Out host is a longtime Naples resident and she said sometimes it takes an hour to walk a block after greeting, chatting, and coffee-ing with the neighbors.

Naples was our base for Pompeii which is easily reached for a bargain 1.20 euros ($1.35) via the “Circumvesuviana” train line.

After Pompeii we visited the Museo Archeologico archaeological museum where the frescos from Pompeii reside.

Later back at our room we heard a commotion outside, peeked out and saw the street was barricaded for several buildings next to us. Apparently a small pink suitcase in the street was reported as a possible bomb threat. I heard a loud bang. The plastic pink pack was shot by a bomb robot, our host shared her pic of the action with us…

Our two intense days in Naples at an end, we walked in a downpour to the train station. Greeting us there was another of the pickpocket gang, as I turned to check on Cindy a block from the station I saw him shadowing her, his hands at her pack. I yelled at “YO” at him, he removed his hands from her empty purse, raised them to show they’re empty and scurried off.

After all this, Cindy’s the “keen” on Naples, loving the vitality and game of the streets, Art’s the “not so much”.