A Room with a View

Tonight we will sleep in the town of Monterosso al Mare, one of the five beautiful seaside villages that make up the Cinque Terre. We arrived from
Milano by train - an altogether wonderful three-hour experience! We enjoyed having our own compartment so we could "laugh and sing" (the title theme of this blog) without disturbing the other passengers. With six seats in our compartment and five of us traveling together we imagined we would have the room all to ourselves. However, just before the train pulled away from the station, Chiara came to our compartment. She had the ticket for the sixth seat. What a blessing! Chiara is a young lady from near Milan who is almost 30 years old. She was on her way to a city past Monterosso where she is giving a bachelorette party tonight for one of her friends. We learned that this is the ninth one of these wedding parties she has attended for friends in the last year! Chiara is a graphic/web/product designer. She speaks excellent English and was a delight to visit with as we travelled. She told us of some of the "jokes" she has planned for the bride, shared about her family, spoke of her discouragement with the state of political affairs in Italy, and recounted the many things she enjoyed about her trip to San Diego this summer for free-lance design work. We exchanged contact information with Chiara. She will help us find some places to have great meals during our trip and we've invited her to come and visit us in Atlanta so we can introduce her to southern hospitality.
We said goodbye to Chiara and got off the train in Monterosso - population, 1521. We delivered our luggage to Manuel's Guest House - over 100 steps up near the top of the town. Whew! We spent the afternoon strolling along the streets, photographing the beautiful blue Ligurian Sea and just marveling at God's magnificent creation! We made it back to our room just as the sun was setting and this was our view. We definitely have a room with a view! In fact, we've had two rooms today - both with great views! One on a train with a wonderful view of the life of our new friend, Chiara, and this view from Manuel's in Monterosso. Both are quite spectacular!