April 30

Most importantly, today is Jacob Callnan’s birthday. We had to abandon family tradition and only send Jake happy birthday vibes because we didn’t have a phone or internet access. I’m sure he had an excellent day without our famous vocal stylings. Look at that cake Whit made for him! Oh my! It looks to die for and we are hoping that cake makes another appearance during our visit to Maine. Yes, she will be caring for their new baby, but I’m sure she’ll have lots of extra time to cook us chocolate delights J

Nate gathered a breakfast of focacia bread (our new favorite), brie cheese, blueberry yogurt, and a couple of oranges. We ate the picnic breakfast on our hotel’s private cliff-side patio. Since we had the patio all to ourselves, we stayed for 3 or 4 hours reading and enjoying the sun and the view. Sharon finished her book. Nate fell asleep.

We decided to rally from our reverie and hike to Corniglia where we had a light lunch of (surprise surprise) a focacia, tomato, and mozzarella sandwich followed by some gelato. It was enough to fortify us for the hike back.

We ate dinner at a “fancy” restaurant with a view of the entire city. We had to climb 400+ stairs to get there, so we were nice and sweaty by the time we sat down. The good part about being far from the city center was that there were only 3 other couples (all of which were Americans).Maybe that wasn’t a good sign. Sharon got the pesto lasagna and Nate went out on a limb for something described as mussels with spices and bread soaked in milk. It actually was quite tasty, but the portion size was something you’d feed your 3 year-old. Since Nate’s motto is quantity, not quality, he was a little disappointed, but all was set right after we stopped by a small pizza place on the way home to make up for lost food. We ended the night on our balcony looking out over the water. A great ending to a wonderful trip. More pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/bodenstab/Vernazza#