Buongiorno a tutti!

I'm so excited to finally write this post! Cinque Terre is by far my most favorite part of being in Italy thus far and I think it will remain that way even after my trip is over, but we will see. Anyhow, let me get started!

Last Saturday 6 other girls and I took an impromptu trip to Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre means "5 towns" and it's named this because that's exactly what it is: 5 towns along the coast of mountains in the northern Tuscany region. Let me just preface this by saying if you ever take a trip to Italy, you must, and I mean MUST, go to Cinque Terre and you MUST do everything I am about to tell you about.

We met outside of my apartment at 5:45am Saturday, waited anxiously 25 minutes for the bus to take us to the train station and thankfully made it right on time for our train at 6:57am. The train ride is about 3 hours and goes through miles of farmland and towns on the coast of the Mediterranean. The beach houses were grand and beautiful and the rows of daisies in the farmland were delightful.

We got to the town where we would be staying (Riomaggiore) around 11am, checked into the hostel (yes, I stayed in a hostile for the very first time!) and then ate lunch at a bar/gelateria. The town of Riomaggiore is absolutely beautiful. The colorful houses and shops all lined up on the hill side by side really give the culture shock experience I've been expecting. Don't get me wrong, Rome is definitely different than America, but not in the way Cinque Terre is.
After lunch, we went down the hill to the marina and swam in the Mediterranean Sea. While we were down there we also went cliff jumping off the coast. The water was absolutely beautiful--turquoise blue but crystal clear. It was so much fun!

Next we decided to go hiking from town to town. The first two trails (1. from Riomaggiore to Manarola 2. from Manarola to Corniglia) were closed so we opted for the third trail from Corniglia to Vernazza.
I don't think I've ever experienced anything more incredible than hiking through these mountains and seeing the view of each town and the Mediterranean all around me.

At the beginning of our hike we saw a woman painting different scenes of each town. They were absolutely beautiful! I fell in love with one piece that had 5 little paintings on it, each of something unique to each town. It was 25 euro so I was a little hesitant to buy it, but the girls finally convinced me to and I am so happy they did! After seeing each town and realizing how accurate these paintings were, I couldn't think of a better "souvenir" to remember this amazing (yes dad, I said amazing) trip.

After two hours of hiking, we finally made it to Vernazza. This is where I fell in love with Cinque Terre. We all did.
The brightly colored umbrellas lining the streets of this town gave you the feeling of being in paradise.
Vernazza is the more "upscale" town of the 5, but it still felt home-y. I could definitely live there.

We walked around for a little while and then decided we should probably head back to Riomaggiore to meet Erica (she didn't come on the hike) and go out for dinner and drinks.
Well, [not so] unfortunately, we missed our train (the signs on the train read where the train is coming from, not where it's going, so it's quite confusing at first) and were stuck in Vernazza for another hour-- I wasn't complaining.
We then found a small pizzeria to eat at and then got gelato. They were both very good.
Around 9:30pm we were on our way back to Riomaggiore.

Once we got there we hurried back up the hill to our hostels and got ready to go out to the bars. We went to one down the hill that was lit up with neon lights on the outside, but looked like the inside of a modern frozen yogurt shop (yogurtology) on the inside-- it was nice. I had sangria, but it definitely wasn't the best I've ever had.
We then went back up the hill a little ways to the same bar we ate lunch at earlier that day.
Carla and I got limoncello (ah!) and we all sat talking for a while before we got extremely tired and decided we should head to bed (we had been going for almost 20 hours at that point).
I really liked that bar even though where it was located (half way up the hill) really made me feel woozy from the altitude (even when I wasn't drinking, mom!).

The next morning we got up, got ready and went down to the hostel's office. Luckily, the owners were kind enough to let us leave our bags there while we went out for the day so we wouldn't have to carry them around. We then had breakfast at a local shop and shopped around Riomaggiore a little bit before our boat tour-- I got a small bottle of wine that was made in Cinque Terre.

The boat tour we went on was really cool. We were able to get on, hop off, whenever we wanted at each town.
Since we had already seen Corniglia and Vernazza we decided to go straight to Monterosso (the last town).
Monterosso was the biggest and most tourist-y of the towns (I didn't like this about it). We walked around the shops for a bit and then headed over to the other side to get some lunch.
The other girls wanted to stay and lay out on the "beach" down there (it was very rocky, but had more of a beach than any of the other towns), but Carla and I really wanted to see the only town we hadn't seen, Manarola, before our train left that evening. So, we split up and Carla and I got back on the boat to Manarola.

This town was the smallest of the towns and the most residential. We didn't walk around much because we were starving and ended up eating at this nice little restaurant right by the dock. Carla got a seafood platter that looked like they just took the animals out of the ocean, into a boiling pot of water, and then onto a plate (ew!) and I got ravioli in a salmon tomato sauce (yum!). It was very good.
We then got back on the boat and headed back to Riomaggiore to catch our train back to Rome.

Leaving Cinque Terre was sad. Although at first I was unsure of the place because it was so different than anywhere I've ever been, I ended up falling in love with it. It was exactly the different experience I had been hoping for. I did things I have never done before (hiked the mountains, jumped off a cliff, and swam in the Mediterranean Sea) and it's natural beauty still has me awe struck.

I will be going back to Cinque Terre, and if you've never been, put it on your bucket list. I promise you won't regret it.

Ciao!

Cassidy