After leaving Barcelona for the second time, we took a night train headed to Milan and then made our connection into northwest Italy, toward a series of 5 cities on the coast that make up a region called Cinque Terre. Jenn and I got situated on seats facing a couple guys from Minnesota who were making their way down into Florence then Rome; as far as who we could have been stuck by it was relatively pleasant and when Jenn fell asleep I got a chance to talk to them for a while; we split up from them when arriving in Milan and then hopped on another train into La Spezia, then another to Manarola where our hostel was situated. Arriving in Cinque Terre, we were told to leave the train station and turn right and go up a hill - and oh boy, was it a hill. We walked for about 400 meters straight up, with our lovely backpacks on which began to hurt a bit after the first 100 meters. For the record, backpack on flat ground for 400m = fine, backpack up a steep hill for 400m = hard. We made it in and were pleasantly surprised with the hospitality and cleanliness of the entire hostel. It was situated at the top of a hill with a nice view of the city and ocean. We also found out we would be rooming with 2 girls from our program in Oviedo (we knew we would be in the same hostel but we weren't sure it would be possible to be in the same room) and then another girl from Seattle, Erin. Jenn and I showered and cleaned up and walked down through the town and quickly discovered it was one of the most beautiful places we had ever been too. The entire town was situated on a hill overlooking the sea and a path led along the rocky coast. After walking along the path for a bit we turned around and headed back toward our hostel for dinner. Right after we sat down and started eating, Bianca and April (the girls from our program) returned to the hostel so we were all able to eat together and catch up on our individual journeys since we had left Oviedo. We then all walked back down the hill and got some gelato and watched the sunset. Absolutely gorgeous and perfect, up until the point we walked up into a small park to take a few more picture and found out that mosquitoes are particularly ferocious at night in Italy. We decided to call it a night after getting eaten alive within 5 minutes and returned back to the hostel and fell asleep.
The next day, we woke up and made our way up into the northernmost town of Cinque Terre: Monterrosso. The town was situated around an incredible sand beach and after exploring and taking pictures we decided to hike to the next town, Vernazza, believing we would have a mostly downhill journey, considering we were at the top of the towns. However, we found out quickly that assumption was quite wrong. The weather had become warmer since the morning and we all found ourselves sweating as we climbed stair after stair on a path that was often a food wide with a drop off to the right. We had made it close to the top (and by that, I mean the end of the constantly uphill path) when a group of firemen carrying a stretcher ran by. After rounding a few more corners and climbing a few more stairs a rescue helicopter came into sight. Apparently a person had fallen off the path during their climb, which was slightly disconcerting, however it was nice to know the response team was so prompt. About 2.5 hours after we started our hike we finally made it into Vernazza, completely exhausted with all of our legs shaking a bit from the strain. We then hopped on another train back to Monterrosso, and decided to lay out on the beach among about a million men in speedos, which we all got a laugh out of. April and I ended up taking a break from relaxing and swam out to some rocks where we laid down for about 10 minutes, then we jumped off and then headed to a buoy further out just to say we touched it. After we got back to shore we all slept in the sun for a bit longer before hopping on the train to most southern of the Cinque Terre cities: Riomaggiore. From there, Jenn and I decided to walk back to Manarola through the Via de Amor (Love Path). April and Bianca had already gone this way so they stayed and explored the town a bit longer, however I had developed a sinus infection in Barcelona and wasn't feeling too well after the long day and wanted to get home to relax. The path was awesome, and continued along the lines of a bridge we visited in Paris, were lovers inscribe their names on locks then place them somewhere and throw the keys in the ocean. After about 30 minutes we made it back to the hostel and showered and got ready to go out to a nice dinner. We found a nice authentic Italian restaurant to eat at and it was probably some of the best food any of us had experienced on the trip.
Upon returning to our hostel we were warned by Erin that there had been a giant "moth" in our room that we should look out for. About 15 minutes went by when we all heard the buzzing of a small airplane and discovered what we all believe to be the world's largest wasp. It landed on one of the top bunks and after being at a loss of how to get rid of it, we recruited the front desk to help. They send up the cook, who (I kid you not), came dressed in his apron, jeans with one leg rolled up, crocs, and a turban on his head. He had a towel to kill the wasp and asked us to stay in the hall with the door closed as he scurried around the room with towel in hand. About a minute after we closed the door we all realized a key person was missing: Bianca was still in the bathroom. Luckily she heard enough of the commotion to know not to come out and about 10 minutes later Waspzilla was killed and we all were laughing about the entire situation. That pretty much rounded up our last night in Cinque Terre and we all fell asleep pretty quick so we could get up early to catch our train to Rome.
No comments:
Post a Comment