Cinque Terre!

     When you say to someone, “I’m going to Cinque Terre” and they say “Oh, it’s the most beautiful place in  Italy, or even in the world,” you know you are going some place amazing. Cinque Terre, literally meaning 5 lands, is a cluster of 5 coastal tiny towns. These colorful tall buildings are built into the massive rock coast. Shades of pink, yellow and orange light up the coast. Magnificent! The towns are so tiny, with one market each, with no wifi locations, and the most amazing pesto and seafood.

On Thursday morning, Brent, Sadie, Victoria, Stephanie and I ventured to Cinque Terre for the long weekend. Thursday April 25 is Italy’s liberation day form the Fascists and is thus an important holiday in Italy. Unfortunately our luck with weather while traveling (as usually) was going to complicate things. While we arrived on Thursday, the weather was pretty decent, so we decided to do our hike that day. There are these amazing hikes that you can take from town to town. Unfortunately due to these gigantic mudslides last year, major parts of the towns and the trails were destroyed. There was only one part of the hike open, the hike from Vernazza to Monterrosso. We were staying in Vernazza, so after some delicious pizza for lunch, we ventured on our hike. Brent and I got separated from Victoria and Sadie, but we ended up finishing around the same time. The hike had the most AMAZING views!! The first half of the hike was hard- straight up the hill, with lots and lots of stairs. BUT COMPLETELY WORTH IT- amazing view of Vernazza from above. Up and down stairs, over bridges over creeks, through the trees and through a vineyard and along the coast…. Wowow… a fabulous hike! At the end, we arrived in Monterrosso, the largest of the five towns. We rewarded ourselves with gelato and rain into some other IES people who were headed to the Monterrosso beach. We looked around at the different shops and then took the train back to Vernazza to meet up with Stephanie for dinner. There is a great train system that connects all the different towns. We went to this really cute restauarant for dinner. I got delicious homemade pasta with pesto—yummy! What a long day after that hike; we crashed so early that night.

      On Friday morning, we explored Vernazza a little. We went through this mini-cave that ended at this rocky beach. AMAZING. The water was sooo blue! We climbed up to the top of this huge rock and had a major photoshoot (of course!) lol. Afterwards, we took a boat ferrie to the furthest town, Riomaggiore. The other IES people (Alexis, Erin,  Najah, Anna, Julie and Cassie) were also on the boat. We passed each of the towns and had a beautiful view of them from the water. Riomaggiore was a cute townp lots of little tourist shops and restaurants. Brent and Victoria got some amazing fried seafood, while I had some fabulous homemade pasta. Nothing beats homemade pasta!!! We decided to venture to the next town north, Montorola. Pretty small- not much there. But we found this landing on the water that we chilled at. Brent cliff-dove into the FREEZING water. We took a short walk along the coast and saw a beautiful view of Montorola. We decided to train back to Vernazza afterwards. We changed for dinner, ran to the train station to catch the train and accidently took the train going in the wrong direction! We got off at the next stop, Corniglia, the only town we hadn’t seen yet. We were supposed to be going to Monterrosso to meet up with the other IES people for dinner. But the next train back that direction wasn’t for another hour! OY! The town of Corniglia was way up the hill and requires a bus. We took the bus and did a little exploration and ate dinner at a cute café. Sadie had pesto lasagna J (EVERYTHING IS PESTO THERE – pesto pizza, pesto lasagna, pesto pasta, pesto focaccia, even PESTO GELATO!!!... GOOD THING I LOVE PESTO!) We made the bus back and the train back and then took a nap back at our apartment. Around 8:15pm, Brent and I ventured back on that hike, back to the famous photo location of Vernazza, at the top of the mountain. Photographers were already camped our waiting for sunset to get the perfect photo. There was no room for us there so we had to keep climbing to the top of the mountain. We literally did the entire hard part of the hike again…and we were going pretty fast because we had to make it there for sunset at the perfect time. Huffing and puffing up that hill for the perfect picture! We ended at this huge overlook at the top of the mountain. Brent and I are both in the photo class at IES, so we were trying to get the perfect photo given all the knowledge we had learned. Brent has a super legit dSLR camera so he got super amazing photos. It got really dark very fast and we had a super scary hike down. The only light we had was from Brent’s tiny flip-phone. At the bottom, we grabbed delicious gelato. We all went to bed early again… there is literally no nightlife in Cinque Terre. I hadn’t gone to bed this early all semester.

      On Saturday morning, it was raining. BOOO! All day Saturday it rained. BOOO! But at this point, the rain doesn’t even faze me. But the others were not so happy about exploring in the rain. We decided to go to Portavenere, another coastal town, but not one of the five Cinque Terre towns. We had to take a train to La Spezia and then take a bus from there to Portavenere. Throughout this whole trip, we met and talked with such interesting people. On that boat ride the day before, talked with an old couple from Seattle who was travelling in Italy. In La Spezia, on our way to Porta Venere, we followed this group of middle aged ladies in full out hiking gear- each lady had a different colored waterproof gear. After talking with them, we learned that once a year, the group of them (from Holland) goes on a week hiking trip in a different country. They had done Scotland, Austria, etc. There were so great- I hope I can be like them, still an explorer, when I get older. Portavenere was BEAUTIFUL! Like the other towns, the buildings were colorful and the town was on the water. We explored the little streets and saw the church on the edge of the water. When we got there, a wedding was ending. We saw everyone throwing rice and we saw the bride, who was wearing a bright lime green dress, and the groom leave the church. Up the stairs on the side of the church was the most amazing view of the Mediterranean and the waves hitting the massive rock coast. Of course it was really raining at this point! OH JOY! We wandered back through the streets and stumbled across this pesto shop, literally only selling pesto. We tasted the best pesto IN THE ENTIRE WORLD! Of course I had to get some to take back to the US. Expensive bottle of pesto! BUT WORTH EVERY EURO! Afterwards, we took the bus back to La Spezia and then the train back to Cinque Terre. We rain into Ryan at the train station and she came back to Vernazza with Stephanie and Victoria. Brent, Sadie and I stayed on the train to Monterrrosso where we went on this walk- we heard about this walk that would take us to be able to see all give towns down the coast. Unfortunately due to the major cloudy rainy sky, it was only possible to see a few towns down the coast. But still very cool. Afterwards, eventhough it was freezing both outside and int the water, Brent jumped into the sea! BURR and the waves were really rough! Afterwards we went back to Vernazza and took a long long nap. Brent and I walked around Vernazza before dinner and go to see a beautiful sunset. The water and the waves were so rough- the waves came up onto the landing all of us tourists were on. We all went to this fabulous really authentic hole in the wall restaurant in Vernazza. Expecting everyone to be locals, we walked in hearing all English! Every single customer was an American- all ages, a young couple, a middle aged couple, a group of elderly couple from West Palm Beach! We talked with the cute old couples for a bit about their trip. Cinque terre was such a tourist destination, but it wasn’t filled with college students like us. It was filled with more older travellers. Super interesting. Well our food was super delicious. I had this ravioli with pesto- OMG.  So delicious! Definitely in the top pasta dishes I’ve had in my life. We had an early early night because Sunday was going to be a busy busy day.

      On Sunday morning, we took the slow slow inter-city train (well multiple trains because we had to transfer several times) to Bologna. We couldn’t live in Italy and not get to Bologna, especially when you are best friends with a girl who is OBSESSED with lasagna. Bologna is where lasagna is originally from. Several hours later we made it to sunny Bologna! Next stop: food! All day: food! We went straightaway to Trattoria del Rosso for lunch, which came with good recommendaitons. We had a bit of a wait, but it was well worth it. Well, we had our Bologna lasagna- and it was certainly not what we expected. There wasn’t really any sauce. There were just layers of a super super super cheesy béchamel sauce, green noodles and ground beef.  It was delicious, just definitely not what we expected. Afterwards, completely full, we embarked on our short walking tour of Bologna. It mainly consisted of a bunch of beautiful churches and piazzas. Every single building in Bologna was a different shade of brown, red and yellow. What I loved about the buildings was that every building had this covered arched walkway attached to it. Bologna was really a beautiful city! We wandered through alleyways and ended up finding the Jewish ghetto. Sadie says I have a 6^th sense, always able to feel that I stumbled upon something Jewish The main highlight of our stay in Bologna was climbing the major tower in Bologna. 498 stairs!!! It literally winded and winded up the tower forever! I don’t know how many stories that it is, but boy was it exhausting and really scary!! The view at the top was 100% worth it. We were SO HIGH UP!  We could see the whole city around us; rows and rows of brown buildings and roofs. AND WE HAD THE BEAUTIFUL BLUE SKY! Oh it was so great; but let me reiterate that it was an incredibly tiring way up and A VERY VERY SCARY CLIMB DOWN! My feel barely fit on the stairs and the stairs were wooden and so steep! After our climb, we rewarded ourselves with dinner. We went to Osteria dell’Orso, which got amazing reviews. Well the first hiccup was- they don’t serve lasagna. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE! IT’S A RESTAURANT IN BOLOGNA?! Well, I think everyone like their meals anyway. But I ended up with a pasta filled with pork, and I didn’t realize that when I ordered it. Oh well! Everyone else enjoyed eating it. Stuffed and content, we wondered around Bologna until our train back to Milan. Another LONG inter-city train. OY! Well, overall it was a fabulous adventure to Cinque Terre and Bologna! Boy are we tired- travelling it hard work J

     Now the next few weeks are going to be bitter sweet. L I don’t want to say good-bye to everyone! And I’m not done with Italy- the food, the language, the people, the art, the history, the beauty! AHH! Also trying to fit in everything into these last few weeks, while I am being overloaded with daily homework, group projects, and finals! AHH! Culture and cuisine or school-work? Hmmm….(parents please don’t kill meJ) Anyway, grazie mille for sticking with me and reading about all my adventures.

Ciao for now,

~E