He said: the Chiro's words

Since K got the story 100% correct, all I will add is that I did indeed plan it this way. I had hoped for a view and a sunset, but when it finally happened, the scene was beyond perfet. Not only did we get the perfect table, we had a 200 foot drop to the breakwaters not a foot from the edge of our table.

Her outburst of disbelief and her momentary laughter shocked me so much, I almost forgot to ask!

the rest of the day was as perfect as our evening capper (the engagement), though we did form some poor opinions of Monterosso. We had decided to take the train to the next town for the purpose of finding a difference beach. After exploring the long boardwalk and eying the many umbrellas shading paired sets of beach chairs, we went to pay for a spot on the beach. The man told us that it would cost 18 euro (about 26 bucks) for 2 chairs or to go to the very small, very crowded free beach at the end of the parking lot. We chose neither, opting to check out the next section of the beach, where a different company operated umbrellas and chairs. The next man told us his umbrella section was all full, despite the fact that there were numerous spaces open.

Suddenly we became acutely aware of the double standard placed on tourists by native Italians.Once they heard our accents (despite conducting all this business in italian), they either doubled the price or did not allow us service at all. For this reason, and because we'd finished reviewing the town of Monterosso, we left only a few hours after arriving.

Back we went to our sanctuary of Vernazza to swim in the familiar waters off the main square.

After a few hours—time really has no meaning to us here—we went home for some rest and reading.

Not to waste the warm evening, we found ourselves on one more short hike that took us to the perfect elevation and vantage point to get a wide shot of the entire main square. Once satisfied, we headed home, yet again to clean up for what would become our proposal dinner!