The Cinque Terre

Sunday morning I was up by 5:30am and was on the train to the Cinque Terre by 7:30. We arrived around 10am and what we thought was going to be some looking around and relaxing was anything but! We got off the train and immediately were told to follow the tour guide. There was 4 of them to make sure none of got left behind (there were about 60 of us). We started walking down a bunch of steps and saw the most beautiful view. We stopped for about 2min (not even kidding and then walked up the other side of the hill right back to wear we started so we could catch the train again to the next town.

I guess I should say before I go to far that the Cinque Terre is 5 small towns that are built into the side of the mountain along the East side of Italy that is up against the Mediterranean Sea. You can walk to each town along the side of the mountain but it is all carved walking steps and takes a whole day to do the whole walk.

So, we got back on the train and went to the second town. We got off the train and by this point I was exhausted, had to go to the bathroom and my knees and ankles were killing me already. We ended up walking around the whole town (at least 200 steps up and down). About half way around the town I was able to stop for about 5min so that I could go to the bathroom and just my luck I finally ran into the squat toilet. ;) Now seriously, why do people think that this is a good idea? As a guy, sure. The world is your urinal anyway... but as a woman, come on! So if you have never seen one before I'm sure you can just imagine. For those of you that have seen or experienced them before, you totally understand what I am talking about. So ya, I was so worried about trying not to pee on myself that the whole process made me get a bad case of stage fright and to make matters worse, some random dude was trying to pull my door open cause he needed in there! sigh... I made it out though and we headed back down to the train again.

We ended up at the third town on our visit which was actually town number 4. We didn't get to see town 3 as she told us that there was over 380 stairs just to get up to the town and then the same back. I was happy to skip it this time. :) So town number 4 was great because we had 3 hours to hang out and wander around by ourselves. I ended up having lunch with 3 other ladies and we splurged a bit. The view from our restaurant was so beautiful, you could pretty much see the whole town. At lunch I ended up having penne with Scampi (which I thought was shrimp but it was actually crab). It ended up tasting pretty good but I really don't get why they give you the whole crab when you can only eat chunks of its tail and legs. Oh well... I also tried some Squid that another girl had ordered. It was ok. We shared a bottle of the Cinque Terre white wine and 3 desserts. I ended up wandering around the town a bit looking at the shops and just took some pictures.

The last and final town was the biggest and by far the beach was the nicest. I did take the long walk into the town to look around but in the end didn't purchase anything. I took some gorgeous pictures and then just sat and relaxed for a bit. I didn't end up going into the water at all but I'm ok with that. It was so crowed anyway that it would have been hard to find a spot to sit on the beach and they make you rent the chairs.

I will definitely go back before my time in Italy is done. I will however, stay for more than one day and relax and enjoy the view a bit more.

Today was a good day, except for the fact that my cold has finally won! I have no voice...literally. Sat and yesterday at the Cinque Terre my voice was pretty "man" sounding but today when I woke up, it was gone. So frustrating. I made it to my photo class though because you don't need to talk to take pictures and that is exactly what we did today. We went in groups of 2 (my group was photographing Architecture) and so we chose to take some pictures of some sculptures. I have included one of my pics here to show you. I quite like it.

Temp High: 33
Gelato: n/a