Apologies for the longish post, but we’ve been without Internet in the wilds of Tuscany for the past several days and have some catching up to do…

Vernazza is serious about not sleeping in.

This tiny, pastel-colored jewel of the Cinque Terre is dominated by a bell tower that shatters the silence every morning starting at 7 a.m., and continues bonging away at regular intervals until 10 p.m. Its repertoire includes not just the standard set of loud tolls for each hour, but also a slightly sharper chime on the half hour and seemingly random full-blown musical interludes scattered throughout the day. We’ve become well-acquainted with every sound and echo because our apartment is no more than 20 feet from the tower and almost level with the bells.

Needless to say, we have not required an alarm clock here in Vernazza. This is actually a good thing, because early morning is one of the most beautifully serene times (well, except for those damn bells) here on the heavily touristed Ligurian coast. At 8 a.m. on our balcony, there are only a handful of shopkeepers and boat-owners moving around the village square below us. By 11, the main drag will be a human traffic jam.

Maureen’s love of the Cinque Terre may surpass my own passion for Venice. Both places share a sense of being preserved under glass in some older time before cars (and before motor-scooters, this being Italy). Both have salt water in their veins, embracing the sea in all aspects of food and culture and economic activity. And both are stunningly lovely to look at, with multi-hued and elegantly decaying stucco facades crowding above the narrow alleyways.

But in other ways they could not be more different. Venice is a city, and has been for over a thousand years. Nearly every inch has been built upon or bricked over, and you can walk from one end to the other without encountering anything that hasn’t been man-made. Even the lagoon itself has been channeled and constrained into a network of canals. The Cinque Terre, on the other hand, is a ruggedly wild place where tiny villages seem even smaller as they huddle at the edge of the Ligurian Sea, their backs pressed against the rocky cliffs looming overhead.

It’s been a nice change of pace, from the big cities of Rome, Venice, Florence, and Siena to first the fields and forests of Tuscany, and now to peaceful (but not quiet or sleepy, thanks to those bells!) Vernazza. At a rustic—that means no air conditioning and lots of mosquitoes—resort in the Tuscan hills we spent a full day on horseback, grateful for our sure-footed mounts as they climbed steep rocky trails to 360-degree views and exhilarated as they galloped faster than we’d ever ridden before on narrow gravel roads through the forest.

We must not have embarrassed ourselves too terribly with our riding abilities, as our trail guides invited us to a barn party they were throwing for their friends at midnight to watch the Italy vs. England match in the World Cup. There was a bonfire and plenty of wine, but alas no soccer as the satellite receiver wasn’t working in the barn. To tell the truth, we were a bit relieved to have an excuse to leave the party early and catch some sleep after a day in the saddle!

And then we came here, to this lovely apartment in Vernazza with an even-lovelier balcony overlooking the pastel-painted town and the bright blue sea. Yesterday we hiked up and down and over to the next town of Monterosso, where we had an amazing seafood lunch and (after the prescribed one-hour wait, of course) swam in the not-too-cold Mediterranean. Today we will hike the other direction, toward the romantically-named villages of Cornegila and Manarola and Riomaggiore. There will be more sunshine, more seafood, more swimming… and of course more bells to wake us up tomorrow morning as we depart for Switzerland.