SPD Color Challenge & Italy Part 3

Hi all. Finally, I get to start sorting out the pictures from our Cinque Terre part of our Italy trip. This place totally steal our heart. I pray that someday we get to come back to this place again.

But, before we dive in to the pictures, I want to share a sweet project that I made for the newest SugarPea Designs challenge.

Starting this month, SugarPea Designs is changing the last challenge of the month from sketch challenge into color challenge. For our first color challenge, we have this sweet color combination for your inspiration.

I haven't got a chance to play much with the stork from this month's release, so, this challenge is the perfect time to play with it.

Love playing with the baby letter block. Simply by changing the color, you could totally change the mood of the card. Hope you'll play along with us. You could win a GC to the store. So, check it out & get creative. :)

Now, we can dive in to vacation pics. While planning our Italy trip, Cinque Terre is the major part of it. It's one of those place that I dream about. I've been wanting to visit this place ever since the first time I saw it online. I am obsessed with this place. We took so many pictures here, I have to split my review of Cinque Terre in 2 posts. Here's the 1st one. The 1st art of our Italy trip can be find HERE and 2nd part HERE.

I was filled with giddiness from the moment we arrive. Our host met us at the train station in Riomaggiore and took us to our cozy & cute apartment that's facing a piazza. Not one to waste time, as soon as checked in, we started exploring.

When we first started walking, it was all up hill. In my head, I was getting worried, that may be I put too much expectation on this place. Luckily, as soon as we get up the hill  and get view of the ocean, all my worried was replaced by pure joy. The view of the ocean with the colorful houses is simply stunning. Maybe it's the atmosphere of the place, but every color seems to be more stunning. We spent our first night, just leisurely exploring every nook around Riomaggiore.

Riomaggiore, Cinque Terre

This place literally 5 minutes walk from our aparment

The next day, we were going to take the easy trail from Riomaggiore to Manarola, but unfortunately, that trail close due to land slide. So, change of plan we're taking the hard trail from Monterosso to Vernazza.

Arriving in Momterosso, this flower vendor captured my attention right away. I mean, just look at the stunning color of these flowers!

Gorgeous flowers of Monterosso.

Then, we found the trail and start waking. LOL, I think after we climbed the first few stairs, we both like hm... you think we should do this? They said this is the hard trail and we were already huffing and puffing after just 10 minutes.

We decided to stay on the trail after we remind ourselves that everybody said the view from the trail is amazing. That it's worth the pain of climbing. And, sure enough, the view is amazing.

Vineyard on the hill looking down toward Monterosso.

We just took a lot of stop along the way. Granted, on many part the trail is very skinny and sometime you have to let people that coming from the other direction pass first. Not that we're complaining, because our knee were shaking from the climbing that every stop is appreciated. Hah!

Even though our legs were so tired, we can't help but  keep smiling every time we greeted with beautiful view. We're like, can you believe we get to enjoy this gorgeous view?

We passed lots of vineyard! Lot of beautiful wild flowers as well. The only thing that make me almost jump off the trail was the amount of lizard that we passed. I know lizard is not dangerous, but I just don't like them. Like the way people afraid of spiders, that's how I am with lizard. A couple times, I literally almost slip because a lizard suddenly ran in front of me or it was on the wall right where I passed and I just jumped.

I have to remind myself that I don't need to be in the news as the girl that need to get rescued from the cliff because she's jumping off to avoid a lizard! Lizard is a serious issue, people! :)

On the trail from Monterosso to Vernazza.

Then, as get closer to Vernazza, we get to see the view that everybody talk about. This view of Vernazza. Simply breath taking. Our picture really don't do justice of the beauty of this place.

View of Vernazza near the end of the trail.

What make it even more romantic (although being sweaty and knee buckling, it's pretty hard to be romantic)? As we get closer to the end of the trail we could hear a guy playing an accordion of classic Italian music. I love the sound of accordion. It's so original and beautiful. I mean, it couldn't be more Italian than that. Being welcome to a beautiful place by beautiful music? It's heaven on earth.

Vernazza

The weather was just perfect. I mean, it's truly a gorgeous day. We couldn't ask for a more perfect day. When I saw this view, I said a prayer of thank you to God. Thank you for this beautiful place thank you for His blessings that we get to be in this amazing place.

Hubby and I just fell head over heel with this region. You can see why. If you have travel bucket list, you definitely want to put Cinque Terre in that list. You won't regret it. Well, this is a pretty long post. I don't want to bore you, so I'll end this post here for now and will continue sharing more on a later post. 

Hope you enjoy the post. Happy Memorial Day and we honor and remember those who sacrifice their life for our freedom. To all my friends with family member in the military service, thank you for all that you and your family sacrifice. God bless.