Life goes on...

May, 2012 (After)

October, 2011 (Before)

 Whenever we go somewhere, I always find it fun to learn more about the place when we get home. There are so many more questions to be answered, and for some reason, having been there and then learning about it, is much more interesting for me than learning all about it before the trip... a little weird I know. When we were in Italy, we visited the Cinque Terre (five villages on the Italian Riviera Coast). Last October, one of the villages called Vernazza was devastated by a horrific storm of floods, tornadoes, and mudslides. This little village was definitely in disarray when we visited, but we had no idea what exactly had happened to the town prior to visiting.  I had heard that there was some flooding, but since coming home, my Dad had found youtube video of the utter destruction. Here is a blog that shows lots of footage:

http://onceinalifetimetravel.me/2011/12/14/vernazza-flood-update-mudslide-before-and-after-video/

I was shocked to see that just 9 months ago, this little village that we visited was completely destroyed. The village is very remote and difficult to get to, which makes the clean up that much more difficult. It is neat to see how human resilience bounces back though, and even with death and destruction, people persevere. It is also sad to think that something so big in the life of the Villagers was completely unknown to us living only about 8 hours away in Germany. I guess life just continues on....