5 Villages, 4 Nights, 3 Days, 2 Friends, 1 Italy

After we said goodbye to the moms, Megan and I headed up the coast of Northern Italy to the Cinque Terre--five villages along the Italian coastline that are full of vineyards and the catch of the day. It was a wonderful escape after the hustle and bustle of the city.

Day 0: Tickets, Please.
I waited around for Megan to return from Rome in the morning, and after a bit of a late start, we commuted into Rome directly to the train station to board our train for La Spezia. We grabbed a quick bite to eat at the station and found our seats with little trouble. While we had reserved seats ahead of time, we weren't surprised to find ourselves in a compartment, but unfortunately there were four other people in there as well. I immediately fell asleep, because the moms had woken me up early to say goodbye. Sure enough, about an hour later one of the staff came around to check tickets. Groggily I took mine out. I hate when they catch me during my sleep. The ride was a good four hours, but it went pretty quick as I slept most of the way through. We managed to get off at the right stop, and find our way around La Spezia to the bus stop. La Spezia had really fun street names named after famous people. It was actually a lot bigger than I was picturing! For some reason, when I hear small I immediately picture Blue Earth. Anywho, the bus ride was probably the best part of the day! We had to go up crazy switchbacks to get to Biassa, and every time we came near a corner the bus driver would honk the most ridiculous horn ever to warn other cars. In addition, we overheard a conversation between an Australian and two Canadians who were also staying at our hostel. Finally, every time any of the locals would get off the bus, every single person on the bus would say multiple times, "Ciao, ciao, ciao." It was hilarious and awesome. We arrived at the hostel in Biassa only to find our that the Australian girl was our roommate! So we invited her out to dinner with us--to the only restaurant in town, a little pizzeria/bar. When we got there, the prices were so cheap that we decided to each get our own pizzas. I mean, they couldn't be that big, right? For only 4 euro? They were huge! I ate about half of mine before I had to quit. When we got back to the hostel we invited three other Canadians (two of which were the ones on the bus) to watch "Gangs of New York." It was nice to just chill and not worry about starting to see sights right away.

Day 1: Intense...like camping.
We decided to allow ourselves a little time to sleep in on this first day since both of us had been waking up early every day in Rome. The hostel had shuttle buses leaving throughout the morning to the first village of the Cinque Terre, Riomaggiore, but only at select times, so Megan and I decided to hike to the first village. It was only about a 2 hour hike, but before we even left Biassa, we got lost. We saw an Italian man watering his plants on his porch so we stopped for directions. He only spoke Italian, and since Megan and I know zero English, we had to use a lot of hand gestures to finally figure out where we were going. We got the gist of his speech: we were heading in the right direction. And sure enough, after a half-hour climbing up a treacherously steep hill with rocks sliding this way and that, Megan and I saw a sign for Riomaggiore. Only 1 hour and 15 minutes to go! This path was much easier however. In Riomaggiore, we stopped for lunch and at it down at the Marina, soaking in the sun's rays and watching the few boats out and about. I couldn't manage to pull myself off the wall we were sitting on, so we tanned for a little bit before finally deciding to head on our way. We hiked down to the next village, Manarola along the Via dell'Amore. It was the most beautiful walk. Almost no hiking, and beautiful ocean views the whole way along. After arriving in Manarola, we refreshed ourselves with gelato and tried to find the high path for hiking that Megan's friend had recommended. After pulling out our map, we discovered that it would take us four hours to hike to the third village, and I was definitley not up for that. I was hot and tired. So we meandered through the first two villages again, and ran into our Canadian friends once again in Riomaggiore. We decided since we only hiked the first two villages, we wanted a little bit more exercise, so we hiked back to Biassa. Clearly I was mistaken on thinking this path would be easy. It was mostly uphill, and climbing back down the treacherous mountain that we scaled that morning was just as difficult. We made it alive, and headed straight over to the pizzeria, once again to dine on some great Italian food. But not before running into the same Italian man! He wanted to know if we had made it and we assured him we had. It was wonderful to see him again, and I'm sure he was glad to see that we had made it back alive. We headed back to the hostel and called it an early night.

Day 2: Love is in the Air
Megan and I slept in a little bit once again and decided to take the second shuttle into Riomaggiore from our hostel. Since I hadn't checked my email in a few days, I thought this might be the perfect opportunity to catch up on some emails while we waited for the bus. Whenever I'm paying for internet, I always go to the important emails first--from people I know, special school emails, etc. and then leave the other emails for later, when I have more time. I noticed that I had gotten an email from my sister, so I opened it up, only to find the happy news that she is engaged! I was so excited! I think I sent her three emails in a row telling her to give me a call and all the details. It was a great way to start out the morning. This is my official congratulations to her on my post though!
After the exciting news, we headed out for the second day of travels. We shuttled to Riomaggiore and walked again to Manarola. This time we decided to keep on walking to Corniglia. It was very warm this day, so we were quite tired by the end, especially because to get up to the town by foot you have to climb 382 steps! We stopped for lunch at this little hole-in-the-wall cafe place tucked inside one of the little alleyways. I cannot believe how amazing the food was! They had sandwiches like every other cafe, but this place brushed butter and oregano on top that was just amazing! We also picked up some gelato before heading back down toward the beach to lay out in the sun for a bit. Finally we kicked it into gear ahead and hiked to the fourth village, Vernazza. We met two Americans on this pathway who were very friendly and we chit-chatted with them for most of the 2 hour hike. Once we got there, we perused the shops a little bit, bought some snacks and headed back on the train to Riomaggiore, where we waited for the bus to bring us back to the hostel.

Day 3: Rain, Rain, Go Away.
Our first two days had been absolutely beautiful, but unfortunately our luck ran out. It started raining nearly as soon as we got to Monterossa, the last of the five villages. We decided to start from there and work our way back to Riomaggiore, as far as we wanted. The hike to Vernazza was definitely the most difficult of the four hikes between the villages. It took us about two hours. Afterwards, we decided we wanted to eat at that same little cafe in Corniglia where they had all the great food before. We jumped on a few wrong trains before finally getting there. We hiked our way up to Corniglia (this time via road) and basically ran to the restaurant. Once inside we ordered our food and chatted with the employees, while raving about how good their food was. We took our time, playing cards and eating slowly, just to stay out of the rain. Two Australian couples also came in, and we found out that they loved it just as much as we did! They had also been at that restaurant the day before. We found out from them that there was a bus from the train station to Corniglia, so we didn't actually need to climb all those steps. Bummer. Regardless, we took the bus back down to the station and decided to take the train to La Spezia, because the pouring rain was no fun to hike in. We took a taxi from La Spezia back to Biassa, which was definitely worth it. After we changed into dry clothes, we borrow "The Bourne Identity" from the hostel and settled in for an afternoon inside. We went out for one last pizza at the pizzeria, and called it a night.

The villages were one of the best places I had been thus far. I don't know if it was the people that were there at the same time as us, or what, but we met more people here than in any other location. No time to stay in Italy, however. Next up, EDINBURGH!