Cinque Terre

HAH.  I finally got this post up.  Only took me a week and half.

So.  We decided, kind of spur-of-the-moment, to spend a day in Cinque Terre.  And since we decided so late, we decided to go with a tour group, a decision I'm not really sure how I feel about.

Regardless, we were up super early (like I think we left around 6:50) to meet to get on the bus to the first village of the Cinque Terre, which is about 2 hours away from Florence.

I guess I should explain.  Cinque Terre is a famous region that contains five tiny villages situated on the mountains and the sea.  Which makes it incredibly beautiful.  Theoretically, it is possible to hike between all five cities.  However, because of landslides over a year ago, the walk between the first two cities is closed.  I believe all the other paths are open though.  I'm not sure however, because, instead of hiking between the cities, we trained between the cities.

Which, eh.  I think I would have liked to hike them but training them definitely was easier.  I still want to, at some point - maybe not this trip though, hike between all 5 cities. 

So we started our journey at a road at the top of the hill above the first city, Riomaggiore.  After walking down some pretty perilous steps (yeah my knees enjoyed that first thing in the morning), we made it into Riomaggiore.  Which was beautiful, of course.  We didn't spend too much time here, pretty quickly getting the train to the next city but still.  There were steps leading to the sea that I really wanted to walk down.  I kept having to convince myself not to jump in the water because I was really tempted.

View of most of the towns from above Riomaggiore

Scary steps

Riomaggiore

 Look at that cuteness

Really though

This was decorating their train station...uh huh

Steps to the sea...ugh

The next city, Manarola, is where we spent a lot of time.  We even got a 2 hour lunch break here, which consisted of me buying a panino (prosciutto, mozzarella, and pesto) and us sitting out on these rocks for the rest of the time.  So yeah, I got a little sunburnt, but it was heaven.  So we basically followed our guide around Manarola, including going up a hill to get a great viewpoint of the city.  So yeah, there's some awesome photos so get ready to be jealous.

They are serious about this

If you can see where those people are on that far rock, that's where we laid out

Sorry for the girl's finger

Yay me and Manarola

Lucky lucky Italians

 Panino

After Manarola, it was off to Corniglia.  Which was harder than you might expect.  Our train was delayed by about 30 minutes, which naturally, threw off our schedule for the rest of day.  But after we finally made it to the train station, then came the approximately 365 steps up to the actual city.  It actually wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, because the steps were wide and there were breaks because they wound up.  So yay stair climbing.

Once we got to Corniglia, we had about 20 minutes to walk around, so we didn't make it too far around the city but again, another reason to go back.  And it was really pretty being at the top of the mountains and being able to look out into the water.

You can get kind of an idea of the step-situation

Look at those Italians...mowing their "lawn"

A random cat came up and said hello!

Aw how cute

I wish we could have walked all the way down but alas

Corniglia

So after spending 20 minutes at the top, we had walk all the way back down the stairs to get the train to Vernazzo...oh goody.  But finally, we did make it.  Our time in Vernazzo was interesting because we had a fair amount of time but we ended up again, sitting on a rock in the water.  It was nice though.  I was able to put my feet in the water and even though it was really really cold, it was lovely.  And I still wanted to get in.

That was one of our "guides" who decided to ruin my photo by looking at the camera instead of away like a normal person

Ooh

Ahh

Woo

Me!

Waterfall near where we were sitting

Then it was off to Monterosso al mare, or just Monterosso.  We took the ferry over - which was nice, I like boats.  But it was also like 5 minutes so yeah.  Regardless, we spent almost no time in Monterosso.  I think we seriously got 10 minutes of free time where we walked down the street and back up on the beach.  It was still pretty but I can't say it's my favorite because we spent like no time here.

Ferry

Big rock in Vernazzo

Monterosso

All the way at the other end of Cinque Terre

Woo

After our brief stop in Monterosso, we got on the train again (surprise surprise) and took it all the way past Riomaggiore to a station where the bus could come get us.  So we got on the bus and headed back to Florence (about an hour and a half).  Once we got back in, probably around 9:30 or so, all I did was make dinner, take a shower, do homework and collapse into bed.  Exhausted but happy.

So yeah, that was my experience at Cinque Terre.  Beautiful and definitely want to go back and hike the whole thing.

Ciao!!