There’s a little cave off the main (only) road that runs through Vernazza. If you walk through it, you end up on this rugged little beach. After a bit of research, I discovered that this beach didn’t exist until 2011 when the landslides the devastated the region created it. This beach was the only sign I could see that the landslides had occurred at all.
As you scale the citadel in Sisteron, you’re treated to views of the hamlet at the foot of the mountain across the Duran river from the town center.
I took a lot of photos from the same spot on my first evening in Manarola. I was feeling pretty lazy and spent the evening on my hotel balcony. This was one of the last, just before it got too dark to keep taking pictures.
It’s a steep climb up from Manarola on the path to Corniglia. Once you’re up on top though, it’s a fairly flat walk until you get just above Corniglia and start your descent. About half way down, I got this view of my destination.
I was pretty relaxed upon arrival to Cinque Terre. I was sat on the couch on my balcony enjoying a complimentary bottle of champagne. Then, I was sent scrambling for my camera when I noticed the sun shining out from behind this cloud.
On my last trip to Marrakesh I finally made it out to the Atlas mountains, or the foothills at least. To make this even more interesting we traveled through the foothills of the Atlas mountains on camels. It was definitely an exciting experience with camels going rogue to eat cactus, refusing to walk in the mud, and one even falling down with one of my colleagues perched precariously on top.
Once we survived this adventure, we were on our way back to Marrakesh when our guide pulled the car over so we could see this small Berber village in the Asni valley.
You can see a loaded ferry seemingly on a collision course with the rocks in this photo of Manarola’s harbor. What’s actually happening is people are boarding as the ferry is nosed up to the “ferry dock”. I put the ferry dock in quotes because it’s less a dock than a rocky coastline with a couple of cleats on it. The ferry noses up to it, and the crew roll out a gang plank for people to climb aboard as the boat pitches and rolls with the waves.
On my third day in the Cinque Terre, I decided to walk from Manarola to Corniglia. I knew that there would be some walking up involved as Corniglia is on top of the cliffs. I asked at my hotel where the path started and they pointed towards a steep flight of stairs heading up the hill. I asked if that was the extent of the walking up involved and he told me it flattened out at the top of the hill. What I didn’t realise is that you couldn’t really see the extent of the hill until you were at the top of that first set of stairs. It was far higher than I realised!
Still, the uphill walking resulted in a lot of photos as I needed an excuse to catch my breath.
While on vacation in Provence I took a fantastic drive to and through the Verdon Gorge. On the way, I passed multiple small villages. The route takes you through a large military installation but there’s no sign of it as you pass through the forested hills.
This small village, called Ampus, was one of the many we passed by in this region.
I just hung up a print I bought in the medieval town of Lourmarin in the Provence region of France so it seems fitting that I post a photo from there. After eating in a bustling restaurant, we had wandered away from the more touristy areas and I came across this interesting angled intersection.
